CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — When feeling sick, many people turn to the internet or ChatGPT for diagnoses, although these sources may leave you with false information.
What You Need To Know
OpenAI released ChatGPT Health earlier this year, but a study has found the resource inconsistent
Researchers with the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Global Health are fine-tuning AI for public health care use
Dr. Michael Kosorok said once the AI tools are in physicians’ hands, the software is more reliable
The university is holding its AI for Public Good conference on Monday, April 13
Earlier this year, OpenAI released a health-related chat function to a pool of users called ChatGPT Health. OpenAI states the system is not meant to diagnose users but to support medical care. Users are able to upload their health documents for a more personalized experience.
A study reported in the journal Nature Medicine looked at a stress test of the software. Researchers fed ChatGPT Health 60 practice emergency response scenarios that were tailed to have the same outcome. The test concluded the program under-triaged 51.6% of emergency cases and told “patients” with life-threatening concerns to see a doctor in one or two days instead of visiting the emergency room.
“It [ChaGPT] can respond to questions, to respond to queries. However, it has a particular type of architecture, particular type of function. It actually gives a random output,” said Dr. Michael Kosorok, a W.R. Keenan junior distinguished professor of biostatistics and the director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill said.
An example of how ChatGPT Health works from a demonstration with OpenAI. (OpenAI)
Kosorok, who is also a professor of statistics and operations research, said he is looking at finding ways to use artificial intelligence to help improve health care.
“Examples include coming up with a easy to use, inexpensive, relatively inexpensive way of discerning gestational age in women who are in locations around the world that don’t have access to usual health care,” Kosorok said. Another example of work he is conducting is developing algorithms based on data that can assign treatments to minimize chronic pain.
“We’re using artificial intelligence to solve various problems that there are for helping patients in different situations across many different diseases,” Kosorok said.
He said there are at least 20 projects across UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health that are trying to solve problems using artificial intelligence.
Kosorok said they use ChatGPT early in the process of creating their AI tool, but they remove it as they get closer to completion. His role is to test the system and make sure it’s reliable.
He said ChatGPT can help by showing scientists structure in the data that can be used in other models or tools.
“Once we get the tool working, it goes through various processes, and then it can be used by other physicians to apply to their situation or by other health care practitioners, or in some cases, to help making decisions about public health,” Kosorok said. “Some of the tools help the doctor to be able to make better decisions using data. It can inform their decision. The AI does not make a decision for the physician.”
Other projects using AI at UNC are in the works to help users find resources for health care challenges like opioid use. Other areas of developing projects are tools that could be useful for people who handle emergencies.
“For us, the bigger the issues that we would look at is how good is the data for answering our questions? Does it have the information we need? And in many cases, we can collect data that’s extremely recent. And we always collect data that’s close enough and recency to be useful for the clinical,” Kosorok said.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday, April 13, will host the AI for Public Good Conference. It will cover topics including AI for Precision Medicine, AI and the Arts and AI in National Security and Geopolitics.
The conference aims to bring together leading researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and others to learn how AI can be applied for the public good.
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