Google launches AI health service in Thailand to screen for diabetic eye disease that causes blindness
- The eye screening programme in Thailand follows a similar Google programme in India and highlights a push by big tech companies to show the social benefits of new AI technologies
- The Thai government has been campaigning against behaviour that can lead to diabetes and has made the diabetic eye screening one of the country’s national health indicators since 2015
Google said on Thursday it had launched an artificial intelligence programme in Thailand to screen for a diabetic eye disease which causes permanent blindness.
The eye screening programme in Thailand follows a similar Google programme in India and highlights a push by big tech companies to show the social benefits of new AI technologies.
“As a society, we have a responsibility to use AI in the best possible way,” Kent Walker, the company’s Senior Vice President for Global Affairs, said in speech at a Google event in Bangkok on Thursday.
The event also highlighted other social benefits of Google’s AI projects, such as stopping illegal fishing in Indonesia.
Google’s Thailand diabetes programme was announced in partnership with a Thai state-run Rajavithi Hospital. This followed a joint-study which found the AI programme to have an accuracy rate of 95 per cent when it comes to disease detection, compared with 74 per cent from opticians or eye doctors.