Meta wants to use AI to give you health advice on Instagram, WhatsApp

Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang wants to give you health advice from AI. He says that the company may bring health advice as a feature on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook as it develops larger models in the Muse AI family.

In Short

• Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang wants you to take health advice from AI
• He hints Meta may bring such a feature in WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook
• Some fear this may impact jobs of doctors and nurses

Meta is doubling down on its AI platforms for users. The company recently announced subscription plans for Meta AI users that allow you to get higher usage limits for its AI models. Now, Meta’s AI chief, Alexandr Wang, has revealed that the company hopes to use its Muse family of AI models to give you health advice, potentially within Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook.

Alexandr Wang told Bloomberg, “Health is an area that we view as really critical as we scale these models out to billions.” The company released the Muse Spark model earlier this year, the first model developed under Wang by Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL).

Wang claimed that health capabilities were one of Muse Spark’s greatest strengths. Though he accepted that it was “not at the tier of the leading frontier models” from the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI. The Meta AI chief insisted that the company could integrate its AI models for health advice in Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, as it continues to develop larger AI models with a focus on health.

That is, you may soon be able to get health advice on an app like WhatsApp without having to go to a doctor. However, health advice is a sensitive issue, and Meta will likely need to first show that its AI models can accurately give health advice.

Internet says doctors, nurses now in danger of losing jobs to AI

Alexandr Wang’s comments come at a time when there are fears of AI taking over job from humans. Some users on X wondered if this meant that even doctors and nurses may no longer be safe.

One user wrote, “So even Doctors and Nurses jobs are in the Danger zone now in the AI era.” Another person shared a clip of Homelander from the series “The Boys” and commented, “AI is coming after doctor’s job.”

Though, others were not as convinced. Since most AI tools still come with a disclaimer over potentially making mistakes, some believed that this could be detrimental if the AI gives incorrect health advice. One person said, “A bad content recommendation is annoying. A bad health recommendation is expensive.”

Another person questioned the potential privacy issues over such a feature. The person added, “Just upload all your medical information and data! Don’t worry! They promise not to share it!”

Keep in mind that Wang reportedly admitted that Muse Spark raised elevated biological-risk concerns during its development. While he did not give details on these concerns, he claimed that these issues were addressed before the model was released. The Meta AI chief added that the findings helped shape the decision not to release Muse Spark as open source.

Health has become a closely watched aspect of the AI industry, with users turning to ChatGPT, Claude and other models for diagnoses, fitness tips, nutritional advice and mental health support. However, this trend has raised concerns around patient safety and privacy.

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