AI study by Google researchers reveals incredible jump in Med-PaLM 2's answering accuracy
Artificial intelligence has permeated every technology field today. Among them, one field which is particularly resilient to emerging technologies is the medical field. Due to dealing in extremely sensitive areas that can lead to life-and-death scenarios, the medical field has been apprehensive about deploying new medtech tools into general practice. However, AI has been knocking at its door for some time, and if a new study conducted by Google researchers is to be believed, Google's in-house Med-PaLM 2 is getting really high accuracy scores in medical question-answering (MedQA) and is in prime position to enable medical professionals in offering faster medical care to patients.
In effect, Med-PaLM 2, is a medical large language model (LLM) that is being trained to synthesise information from medical images. In fact, not just Google, other players too are working on generative AI in the healthcare industry, and among them is Sam Altman-led OpenAI's ChatGPT. And the competition is stiff. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine said that ChatGPT delivered higher quality answers to questions than written responses from actual practitioners.
Now, on Wednesday, Google Health UK research lead Alan Karthikesalingam posted on Twitter, highlighting the accomplishment. He said, “So happy to share #MedPaLM2 - our team's evolution of Med-PaLM. A new state of art for medical question-answering! Med-PaLM 2 scores 86.5% on MedQA-USMLE, exceeding Med-PaLM's score by >19%, & 81.8% on PubMedQA”.
It should be noted that the MedQA-USMLE dataset is a multiple-choice questionnaire based on the USA's Medical License Exams. So, getting a high score essentially means that the AI could, in theory, get certified to practice medicine in the USA.
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