Google´s New AI is learning to Diagnose Patients

Navigating health care systems as a patient can be daunting at the best of times, whether you’re interpreting jargon-filled diagnoses or determining which specialists to see next. Similarly, doctors often have grueling schedules that make it difficult to offer personalized attention to all their patients. These issues are only exacerbated in areas with limited physicians and medical infrastructure.

Bringing AI into the doctor’s office to alleviate these problems is a dream that researchers have been working toward since IBM’s Watson made its debut over a decade ago, but progress toward these goals has been slow-moving. Now, large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT, could have the potential to reinvigorate those ambitions.

The team behind Google DeepMind have proposed a new AI model called AMIE (Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer), in a recent preprint paper published 11 January on arXiv. The model could take in information from patients and provide clear explanations of medical conditions in a wellness visit consultation.

Vivek Natarajan is an AI researcher at Google and lead author on the recent paper. He says that while AMIE isn’t designed to replace human physicians, he does believe a similar AI could play a role in assisting both physicians and patients.

“There may be scenarios when people might benefit from interacting with systems like AMIE as part or in addition to their clinical journeys,” Natarajan says. “These include understanding symptoms and conditions better, including simplifying explanations in local vernaculars…and acting as a valuable second opinion.”

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