The Google LLC logo is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in New York City,
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Google on Tuesday announced new health initiatives and partnerships at its annual event called “The Check Up”. The Google Health team shared updates on upcoming features in search, tools for building health apps, and the latest in AI-powered health research.
During the event, the company discussed new partnerships to help develop AI-assisted ultrasound, cancer treatment, and tuberculosis screening, but there’s a special buzz surrounding the new version. of a medical large language model called Med-PaLM.
Google first introduced Med-PaLM late last year. It is designed to provide high quality answers to medical questions. Med-PaLM was the first AI system to successfully receive a passing score, or over 60%, on multiple choice-style questions similar to those used in US medical licensing exams.
The company says the second version of the technology, Med-PaLM 2, always works at an “expert” level on medical test questions. Med-PaLM 2 has achieved more than 85% accuracy, 18% higher than previous results.
Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam, research lead at Google Health, said the company is also testing Med-PaLM responses based on answers from actual physicians and physicians. Med-PaLM’s responses were evaluated for factual accuracy, bias, and potential for harm, he said.
Karthikesalingam gave controlled examples — a non-working demo — of how Med-PaLM 2 can answer questions like “what’s the first warning sign of pneumonia?” and “is urinary incontinence curable?” In some cases, the Med-PaLM 2 answers were on par with and even more detailed than the answers provided by clinicians. But in other cases, Med-PaLM 2’s response was incorrect.
“You can see from this kind of work that we are still learning,” Karthikesalingam said during the event.
Due to the sensitive nature of medical information, Karthikesalingam said it may take a while for the technology to reach the average consumer. He said it was important to innovate responsibly and in a controlled environment.
Google will continue to work with Med-PaLM researchers and experts, and Karthikesalingam said the company will share more updates on it in the future.
“The potential here is huge,” he said, “but it’s important that real-world applications are explored responsibly and ethically.”
