Although the practice of medicine may have seemed safe from the robot revolution several years ago, it's already beginning to prove itself in the industry.
Indeed, companies like DeepMind have developed machine learning models that can detect eye diseases with the accuracy of world-leading doctors. That's not the only part of the medical industry DeepMind's engineers want to expand into, though.
According to a blog post published today, DeepMind's health team is "scaling" its Streams app (which "supports doctors and nurses to deliver faster, better care" to patients) to act as a true AI medical assistant.
What that means is unclear at the moment. All DeepMind says in their blog post is that their new vision for Streams will utilize "the best algorithms" with "intuitive design," backed up by "rigorous evidence."
If we were to speculate, this new version of Streams might be able to use the power of AI to prioritize patients who need care the most, or automatically forward relevant patient information to appropriate specialists.
At any rate, DeepMind is accomplishing this task by merging its Streams team with Google's other health-related efforts. From an outsider's perspective, it's unlikely that anything will significantly change; DeepMind's Streams team is staying put in London for the time being, and any major advancements will likely still be published on the company's personal website.
However, internally, it's impossible to say what the future may hold. On the one hand, it wouldn't be a surprise to see Google exert more control over the Streams app. On the other, Streams' team will likely have much more immediate access to Google's resources, potentially allowing them to develop new features much more quickly than before.