Babylon Health erases AI test event for its chatbot doctor

Babylon Health has removed all traces of an AI test event it held last year to promote its chatbot doctor.

The company’s GP at Hand app, which features the chatbot and can provide a video link with a doctor, was promoted by former UK digital secretary Matt Hancock and is backed by the NHS.

Furthermore, Samsung partnered with Babylon Health last year to integrate the service with compatible Galaxy devices

Babylon Health’s AI-powered chatbot aims to provide guidance on how a patient should proceed. The idea is to reduce the pressure on the health service from patients whose symptoms could be dealt with at home.

In theory, it’s a great idea and will one day be how we access healthcare. However, as AI News has reported in the past, it’s currently not robust enough and has presented advice which could result in fatalities.

Twitter user ‘Dr Murphy’ has been highlighting the failures of GP at Hand over the past few years. 

One concerning example provided by Murphy was of an obese 48-year-old heavy smoker patient that’s presented himself with chest pains. Anyone with common sense would advise calling 999 immediately. However, the chatbot suggested booking a consultation “in the next few hours”.

Dr Murphy@DrMurphy11

Is this another negligent #Triage from the @babylonhealth #GPatHand #AI #Chatbot App?

48yr old obese 30/day male smoker develops sudden onset central chest pain & sweating....

I say call 999, the Babylon App says see your GP...

40

20:43 - 22 Mar 2018

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This particular issue has since been rectified, but similar dangerous scenarios are still being discovered. The situation is a clear example of why rigorous, proven, and independent testing needs to be established before AIs can begin offering life or death advice.

In June last year, Babylon Health held an event bragging about its AI capabilities beating trainee GPs at the MRCGP exam used for testing their ability to diagnose medical problems.

Trainee GPs have an average passmark of 72 percent over the past five years. “How did Babylon Health do?” asked Dr Mobasher Butt at the event, a director at Babylon Health. “It got 82 percent”.

In recent days, the video of the event has been deleted from Babylon Health’s YouTube account. Even more intriguing, the company has removed all links to news coverage of it from the ‘Babylon in the news’ part of its website.

Khanday Jeelani .NET Web Developer