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Do you ever turn to an AI for medical or health advice? We can debate the wisdom of doing so. But one pitfall is that the AI knows little or nothing about you medically. That means it can provide only generic information at best and bad information at worst.
To address that drawback, Microsoft is previewing a new service called Copilot Health. To try this, you would first share a few details about yourself and then add any medical records of your choosing. Copilot assimilates and uses all that information to field your questions. The more the AI knows about you medically, the better it can tailor its responses to you and your specific conditions, history, medications, and more.
Also: I paid Microsoft's premium Copilot agents to do my work - they were confidently bad at it
You can not only share your medical background with Copilot Health but also connect certain wearable devices and wellness apps. For example, if you've already been using Apple's Health app to track your medical status and history, you're able to connect that app to Copilot. Based on your health profile, Copilot will respond to your own requests but then ask follow-up questions to guide you on specific medical matters.
Further, Copilot Health can help you find the right medical providers based on specialty, language, gender, insurance, and location.
To give credibility to the guidance you receive, Microsoft said that the information provided by Copilot comes from thousands of trusted health organizations around the world using principles independently published by the National Academy of Medicine and through the company's partnership with Harvard Health.
Sharing sensitive medical records with any company and any AI should naturally raise red flags. Yes, you can limit what records you add. But how private and protected is the information you do share? And how effective is Copilot Health if you decide not to reveal important details about your health or medical history?
Naturally aware of privacy concerns, Microsoft said that your conversations with Copilot Health are not shared with the rest of Copilot and are not used to train AI. The data itself is encrypted both at rest and in transit. You can also manage, remove, or disconnect your health data sources at any time.
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