The (robot) doctor will see you now. How artificial intelligence (AI) is set to change medicine.

A few days ago it was announced that two artificial intelligence systems called CHATGPT and Flan-PaLM had successfully passed all 3 parts of the US Medical Licensing Examination. They basically passed the key tests that medical students usually take on after 4 to 5 years of study. What’s more interesting is that these pieces of software were originally designed for general chatting on the internet, and not for passing medical exams. Apparently, without any preparation, CHATGPT scored around 60% on the tests, only to be surpassed by Flan-PaLM which scored 67% after a bit of tweaking. (Lesson - always ask for Dr Flan-PaLM)

This is actually the second example of this type of success, with a Chinese AI robot called Xiaoyi passing their national medical licence exam in 2017. In this case, the robot scored 76% - a comfortable pass. (New lesson, forget about Dr Flan-PaLM, always ask for Dr Xiaoyi)

So it seems that computers now have impressive levels of medical knowledge, but how long until they have the physical dexterity to examine your knee or administer your annual prostate examination?

Well, we might not actually be waiting that long for our first robot GP, as a recent video released by Boston Dynamics shows just how amazing their Atlas robot has become.

New Lesson - always do what you’re told by Dr Atlas. As for robot osteopaths - it will never happen.

If you are looking for an Osteopath in East Grinstead, please get in touch with:

Cliff Russell, Registered Osteopath

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