Huffington Submit founder Arianna Huffington and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are throwing their weight behind a brand new enterprise, Thrive AI Well being, that goals to construct AI-powered assistant tech to advertise more healthy existence.
Backed by Huffington’s psychological wellness agency Thrive World and the OpenAI Startup Fund, the early-stage enterprise fund carefully related to OpenAI, Thrive AI Well being will search to construct an “AI well being coach” to offer customized recommendation on sleep, meals, health, stress administration and “connection,” based on a press launch issued Monday.
DeCarlos Love, who beforehand led health and well being experiences at Google‘s Fitbit subsidiary, totally on the tech large’s Pixel Watch wearable, has been appointed CEO. Thrive AI Well being counts Walmart co-founder Helen Walton’s Alice L. Walton Basis amongst its strategic buyers, and the Alice L. Walton Faculty of Drugs is considered one of Thrive AI Well being’s preliminary well being companions.
It wasn’t instantly clear how a lot capital Thrive AI Well being’s backers have invested. We’ve reached out for clarification and can replace this submit as soon as we hear again.
In line with Huffington and Altman (through a Time op-ed), Thrive AI Well being’s endgame is coaching an AI well being “coach” on scientific analysis and medical information, leveraging a forthcoming well being information platform and collaborations with companions together with Stanford Drugs. Huffington and Altman describe a kind of digital assistant on a smartphone app and in Thrive’s enterprise merchandise that learns from customers’ behaviors and gives real-time, health-related “nudges” and ideas.
“Most well being suggestions in the mean time, although essential, are generic,” Huffington and Altman write. “The AI well being coach will make potential very exact suggestions tailor-made to every particular person: swap your third afternoon soda with water and lemon; go on a 10-minute stroll together with your baby after you choose them up from college at 3:15 p.m.; begin your wind-down routine at 10 p.m. since you must stand up at 6 a.m. the following morning to make your flight.”
Thrive AI Well being is the newest in a protracted string of tech business efforts to create health-focused apps with AI-driven personalization. Many have run up towards intractable enterprise, technical, and regulatory hurdles.
IBM’s Watson Well being division, launched in 2015, was supposed to research reams of medical information — far quicker than any human physician might — to generate insights that would enhance well being outcomes. The corporate reportedly spent $4 billion beefing up Watson Well being with acquisitions, however the tech proved to be inefficient at greatest — and dangerous at worst.
Elsewhere, Babylon Well being, an NHS-partnered well being chatbot startup that after promised that it might “automate away” consultations with medical professionals, collapsed after investigations revealed that there was no proof that the corporate’s tech labored higher than a health care provider. As soon as valued at over $4.2 billion, Babylon filed for chapter in 2023 — finally promoting off its belongings for lower than $1 million.
In some circumstances, AI has been discovered to perpetuate destructive stereotypes inside well being analysis and the broader medical neighborhood. For instance, a latest research confirmed that OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT, usually solutions questions referring to kidney perform and pores and skin thickness in a approach that reinforces false beliefs about organic variations between Black and white folks.
Even educated clinicians will be fooled by biased AI fashions, one other research discovered — suggesting that the biases could also be difficult to root out.
To stave off critics, Huffington and Altman are positioning Thrive AI Well being as a extra cautious, considerate strategy to well being than people who have come earlier than it — a option to “democratize” well being teaching and “deal with rising well being inequities” in an ostensibly safe, privacy-sensitive approach. The corporate has named Gbenga Ogedegbe, director of NYU Langone’s Institute for Excellence in Well being Fairness, as an advisor, and claims that the analysis information its merchandise use can be “peer reviewed” — and that customers may have the ultimate say on the subject of which information Thrive AI Well being’s merchandise faucet to tell its suggestions.
But when historical past is any indication, it might show exceedingly tough for Thrive AI Well being to strike a steadiness between “democratizing” its tech and preserving affected person privateness.
In 2016, it was revealed that Google’s AI division, DeepMind, had been handed information on greater than 1,000,000 sufferers as a part of an app improvement undertaking by the Royal Free NHS Belief in London with out the sufferers’ data or consent. Current wide-scale information breaches just like the UnitedHealth and 23andMe scandals present the hazard inherent in entrusting delicate well being information to 3rd events.
Maybe Thrive AI Well being will keep away from the pitfalls of its rivals and progenitors. It’s prone to be an uphill climb regardless — and carefully watched by skeptics.
