Chinese robot passes exam, qualifies for assisting doctors

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A robot has passed the written test for China's national medical licensing examination, an essential entrance exam for doctors, making it the first robot in the world to do so.

Its developer iFlytek Co Ltd, a leading Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company, said on Thursday that the robot scored 456 points, 96 points higher than the required marks.

The AI-enabled robot can automatically capture and analyze patient information and make the initial diagnosis. It will be officially launched in March next year and will be used to assist doctors to improve efficiency in future treatments, according to iFlytek.

The robot is part of China's broader efforts to accelerate the application of AI in healthcare, consumer electronics, and other industries.

"It is not meant to replace doctors," said Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek. "Instead, it is to promote better people-machine cooperation so as to boost efficiency."

The Hefei, Anhui Province-based company is conducting a pilot project with the Anhui Provincial Hospital to see how the AI robot can assist doctors in real medical cases.

Unlike the US tech company IBM's AI-enabled Watson system, which only focuses on the treatment of cancer and major diseases, iFlytek is stepping up push to explore how to use AI to both cure cancer and train general practitioners.

"General practitioners are in severe shortage in China's rural areas. We hope AI can help more people access quality medical resources," Liu said.

iFlytek via China Daily

iFlytek is a leading player in China's AI industry. Its AI-enabled user interface platform has accumulated 460,000 third-party developer teams in the past seven years.

On Wednesday, the company became a member of the AI alliance set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which aims to promote the research of basic sciences and the application of the cutting-edge technology.

In October, iFlytek said it will set up a 1.02 billion yuan (roughly 150 million US dollars) fund to support software and hardware developers.

Hu Yu, executive president of iFlytek, said the fund will be used to finance startups that have core technologies but lack the business know-how, or companies that excel in commercializing products but are unable to integrate AI into their devices.

"As a company born out of the University of Science and Technology of China, we have been focusing on voice recognition technologies for 18 years. We know what problems technology-oriented startups will face and how to help traditional companies upgrade themselves through AI," Hu said.

The company's efforts are in line with the central government's call to turn China into a country of innovators and to reach the frontiers of science and technology.

In July, China unveiled a national plan to build a 1 trillion yuan (roughly 152.5 billion US dollars) AI core industry by 2030.

Source(s): China Daily