OpenAI is introducing a new feature in ChatGPT that will allow users to analyze medical test results, prepare for doctors appointments and seek guidance on diets and workout routines — marking the company’s biggest push yet into the health care sector.
ChatGPT Health, announced Wednesday, is intended to help provide useful health and fitness information but stop short of making formal diagnoses. The new feature can connect with peoples’ electronic medical records, wearable devices and wellness apps, such as Apple Health and MyFitnessPal, the company said.
Initially, OpenAI will let users sign up for a waitlist to try out the product. The company plans to expand access more widely in the coming weeks.
A growing number of tech firms are targeting the lucrative health care market, betting that advances in artificial intelligence can help parse patterns in users’ health data to provide individualized medical recommendations. But those moves also raise concerns about the privacy and safety risks of AI services handling more sensitive personal data and offering suggestions for higher stakes health matters.
More than 200 million people already ask ChatGPT health and wellness questions every week, according to the company. OpenAI said it has also consulted with more than 260 physicians over two years in refining its AI technology’s health capabilities. Additionally, it plans to wall off health conversations from other parts of the app and add enhanced privacy features.
OpenAI’s team stressed the service is designed to supplement, not replace, the judgment of doctors.
“Doctors don’t have enough time or bandwidth. They can’t spend as much time understanding everything about you, and they don’t have time to explain what’s going on in a way that you can understand,” said Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s chief executive officer of applications, during a media briefing Wednesday. “Meanwhile, when you look at AI, it doesn’t have any of these constraints.”
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