How AI health care chatbots learn from the questions of an Indian women's organization
A women's organization in Mumbai, India, is training a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence with the help of women like 32-year-old Komal Vilas Thatkare
NEW YORK — Komal Vilas Thatkare says she doesn't have anyone to ask about her most private health questions.
“There are only men in my home — no ladies," said the 32-year-old mother and housewife in Mumbai. «I don’t speak to anyone here. So I used this app as it helps me in my personal problems.”
The app she uses is powered by artificial intelligence running on OpenAI’s ChatGPT model, that Myna Mahila Foundation, a local women's organization, is developing. Thatkare asks the Myna Bolo chatbot questions and it offers answers. Through those interactions, Thatkare learned about a contraceptive pill and how to take it.
Thatkare is one of 80 test users the foundation recruited to help train the chatbot. It draws on a customized database of medical information about sexual health, but the chatbot's potential success relies on test users like Thatkare to train it.
The chatbot, currently a pilot project, represents what many hope will be part of the impact of AI on health care around the globe: to deliver accurate medical information in personalized responses that can reach many more people than in-person clinics or trained medical workers. In this case, the chatbot's focus on reproductive health also offers vital information that — because of social norms — is difficult to access elsewhere.
“If this actually could provide this nonjudgmental, private advice to women, then it could really be a gamechanger when it comes to accessing information about sexual reproductive health,” said Suhani Jalota, founder and CEO of the Myna Mahila Foundation, which received a $100,000
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