The FDA Launches Its Generative-AI Tool, Elsa, Ahead Of Schedule

Generative artificial intelligence has found another home in the federal government. On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the early launch of its very own generative AI that it hopes will improve efficiency. The FDA’s tool—nicknamed Elsa—is designed to assist employees with everything from scientific reviews to basic operations. Originally, the FDA planned to launch by June 30, so Elsa is well ahead of schedule and under budget, according to an FDA statement. It’s not clear what exact information Elsa was trained on, but the FDA says that it didn’t use any “data submitted by regulated industry” in order to protect sensitive research and information. Currently, Elsa houses its information in GovCloud, an Amazon Web Services product specifically intended for classified information. As a language model, Elsa can help employees with reading, writing, and summarizing. In addition, the FDA said that it can summarize adverse events, generate code for nonclinical appl ... Read full article.