Google's New AI Med-PaLM 2: The First AI DOCTOR

Google's New AI Med-PaLM 2: The First AI DOCTOR

AI is revolutionizing our world in all types of Industries, including- Healthcare. This field which impacts everyone is quite complicated and filled with data and challenges. So, that's why AI will play a very important role in it. AI can support doctors and other medical professionals in improving their decisions and patient care. Even saving more lives, now Google has been creating and using AI Solutions in many areas for a long time. They've also put a lot of money into Healthcare AI to enhance health results and make it more accessible for all. One of their most ambitious projects in this domain is Med-PaLM 2, a new medical AI. That they just unveiled at Google I/O 2023.

What is Med-PaLM 2?

Med-PaLM 2 is a powerful language model that can understand and generate natural language in the context of medicine. It can also perform reasoning and inference based on medical knowledge. So, Med-PaLM 2 is a special type of AI designed specifically for the medical field.

How does Med-PaLM 2 relate to PaLM 2?

Google's been in AI tech for a while now. They built top-tier AI models, like- Google Search, translate, photos assistant, and Bard. Now, Med-PaLM 2 is a healthcare-focused version of PaLM 2, a giant neural network that learns to use language from billions of words across sources. It also manages Code, Math, Logic in several languages. But PaLM 2 isn't just one model or product. It's a family of models of various sizes and complexities from the 1 trillion parameter unicorn to the 100 million parameter Gecko. It's also a platform adaptable for different purposes and domains. One of which is Healthcare.

Why did Google create Med-PaLM 2?

Google understood that healthcare needs specialized knowledge not easily captured by General language models and it's an area where AI can hugely improve lives. Therefore, they created Med-PaLM 2, a healthcare-focused version of PaLM 2 based on Otter, another model in the PaLM 2 family.

How is Med-PaLM 2 different from Med-PaLM?

Med-PaLM 2 isn't Google's First Medical AI. They had Med-PaLM earlier based on PaLM 1. While impressive Med-PaLM had its shortcomings. It was only trained on English data, struggled with complex medical questions, and lacked ethical and social understanding vital for health care. That's why, they developed Med-PaLM 2, an improved version of Med-PaLM overcoming these issues and adding new capabilities.

What can Med-PaLM 2 do?

It's unlike General AI, such as PaLM 2 or GPT-4 as it's educated on vast varied Medical Data from reliable organizations. This AI is honed for specific medical tasks, like- diagnosing diseases, planning treatments, patient education, and medical research. It improves its precision by learning from medical experts' feedback. It caters to several languages and can translate between them taking into account cultural and regional nuances. It's also programmed with ethical values, respecting user privacy, and can clarify its decision-making process, upgraded from Med-PaLM. The new version processes a wider range of medical data, performs better on medical tasks, supports more languages, and can tackle complex medical inquiries.

What are the features of Med-PaLM 2?

Med-PaLM 2 is a standout AI model with several impressive features. It can ACE: U.S medical licensing exams achieving 85.4% on the MEDQA data set from the USMLE and 72.3 % on the international MEDMCQA data set. This AI excels in summarizing medical documents, sifting through large Health Data, and answering complex medical questions clearly and concisely. So, if you ask about any disease symptoms, it can provide a detailed response. Moreover, Med-PaLM 2 is multilingual and culturally adaptable, capable of translating and responding accurately across languages and dialects. Whether you're asking in Spanish or English with an Indian accent, it delivers precise information.

How is Med-PaLM 2 being used in real life?

Now, let's see how it works in real life and how it benefits people. Med-PaLM 2 is not just a theoretical model that exists in Google's Labs it is actually being tested and used in real-world settings by real people. One of the places where it is being tested is the MAYO Clinic, one of the most prestigious healthcare institutions in the world. The MAYO Clinic uses Med-PaLM 2 to help its doctors and medical staff with their work. For example, Med Palm 2 can help doctors with summarizing medical records, finding relevant information from research papers, and answering patient queries. It can also help patients with understanding their conditions, finding reliable sources of health information, and asking questions about their treatments. It is not only being tested at the MAYO Clinic but also at other hospitals and Healthcare institutions around the world. Google has partnered with various organizations to deploy and evaluate Med-PaLM 2 in different settings and scenarios. It is being used by the National Institutes of

Health (NIH) to support biomedical research and innovation. It is also being used by various universities and medical schools to train and educate future healthcare professionals. 

How will Med-PaLM 2 change health care?

It is set to change Health Care significantly. It boosts the quality of services by applying accurate medical information, helping doctors in their duties, and facilitating communication between all involved parties like patients and policymakers. Efficiency-wise, it lessens the burden and cost of healthcare delivery smoothens operational processes by automating tasks, and speeds up the discovery of new treatments by analyzing vast Health Data. It also enhances accessibility by reaching more people, overcoming language, geographical barriers, and offering scalable solutions. It also encourages people to manage their health by offering customized interactive experiences.

What are the challenges and risks of Med-PaLM 2?

It's crucial to explore its potential challenges limitations and risks. To be honest, this AI isn't a cure-all for health care and can't replace doctors. It has limitations like- struggling with rare conditions or personalized treatment suggestions. It might become outdated, inconsistent, or even harmful if misused. But this medical

AI is just starting. It's a journey and will keep growing. In the future, Google aims to make it more user-friendly and affordable while also including more languages and cultures. They plan to boost its accuracy by using more data and getting more feedback. Google also wants to help healthcare firms tailor Med-PaLM 2 to their needs. Now we find ourselves facing a major concern once more.

How can we trust Med-PaLM 2?

We must consider whether it's safe to entrust something as crucial as our health to an artificial intelligence model. Especially, when we're aware that it's backed by a giant profit-making corporation like Google.

Can we confidently believe that their intentions are noble?

As we understand every artificial intelligence model is directed and programmed according to the desires of its developer. This implies that we would be depending on Google and any other companies that participate in building these Healthcare AI models for our health-related matters. This raises some important questions that we need to address before we embrace these AI models as our medical advisors.

1. How transparent are these models about their sources of information, their methods of reasoning, and their limitations?

2. How do they handle sensitive data such as our medical records, our personal details, and our preferences?

3. How do they ensure that they are not biased or influenced by external factors such as advertisements, sponsors, or political agendas?

4. How do they respect our autonomy and dignity as human beings and not treat us as mere objects of analysis and prediction?