Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) sent a letter to Google leaders Tuesday, warning the company over its testing of Med-PaLM 2 artificial intelligence (AI) in hospitals.
In a rollout of the technology earlier this year, Google said the AI tool could answer medical questions to assist health care providers. The first-of-its-kind tech is being tested in a limited capacity at medical facilities including the Mayo Clinic, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
But Warner urged caution, saying it might not be ready for these uses.
“While the technology has shown some promising results, there are also concerning reports of repeated inaccuracies and of Google’s own senior researchers expressing reservations about the readiness of the technology,” Warner’s office said in a statement.
“While artificial intelligence (AI) undoubtedly holds tremendous potential to improve patient care and health outcomes, I worry that premature deployment of unproven technology could lead to the erosion of trust in our medical professionals and institutions, the exacerbation of existing racial disparities in health outcomes, and an increased risk of diagnostic and care-delivery errors,” Warner said in the letter.
The Med-PaLM2 is the first large-language model to reach “expert” level on U.S. medical exam questions, with about 86 percent accuracy, the company claims.
Warner said he is concerned about the technology’s accuracy and the privacy of patient data. Med-PaLM2 is representative of the AI industry’s penchant for pushing technology into the market before it may be ready, he said.
“This race to establish market share is readily apparent and especially concerning in the health care industry, given the life-and-death consequences of mistakes in the clinical setting, declines of trust in health care institutions in recent years, and the sensitivity of health information,” Warner said.
The letter includes a list of questions for Google leaders to answer about the technology, including details on how Google collects and retains private data and where the tech is in use.
A Google spokesperson stood by the company’s technology, reiterating that the rollout is limited and that the company does not control private data.
“We believe AI has the potential to transform healthcare and medicine and are committed to exploring with safety, equity, evidence and privacy at the core,” the spokesperson said.
“As stated in April, we’re making Med-PaLM 2 available to a select group of healthcare organizations for limited testing, to explore use cases and share feedback – a critical step in building safe and helpful technology. These customers retain control over their data.”
Updated: 2:37 p.m.