ChatGPT-4 saves dog's life just in time after vet fails to make proper diagnosis

OpenAI's ChatGPT is the current talk of the town and has found use cases for all kinds of stuff including writing articles, explaining concepts, homework assignments, coding, preparing for interviews, and even pretending to be a Linux terminal. But a Twitter user found out that ChatGPT can help with fairly accurate diagnosis as well.

The user, who goes by the handle @peakcooper on Twitter, details how ChatGPT-4 provided a better diagnosis for Sassy, a Border Collie breed, than its usual vet. It all started with Cooper getting his dog treated for a tick-borne disease called babesiosis. Though things started improving after the initial diagnosis, soon he noticed his dog's gums becoming pale again.

The initial blood test revealed severe anemia but ruled out other co-infections associated with tick-borne disease. Things were continuing to deteriorate for Sassy with no respite in sight and passing day becoming emotionally difficult to cope with.

Meanwhile, Cooper decided to give ChatGPT-4 a try. He fed the results of diagnoses performed so far to ChatGPT to see how the large language model (LLM) would infer them. After a disclaimer that said, "I am not a veterinarian", the AI inferred that there could be other underlying causes for the anemia.

Of the possible reasons, the most probable one seemed to be immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA). IMHA is an autoimmune condition in dogs, in which the body's immune system attacks its own red blood cells.

Cooper said that another veterinarian also felt IMHA could be a possible diagnosis in this case, and this was confirmed by testing. Sassy has since been receiving treatment for IMHA and her owner is happy that she's made a near-complete recovery. 

The interesting part was that ChatGPT-4 could make sense of the inputted blood test results and lab reference ranges and interpret the implication of each test. It may not be noted that such an inference was possible only with GPT-4 and not with GPT-3.5 according to the dog owner.

While AI cannot substitute a qualified doctor, it can help users with preliminary understanding of a diagnosis. The possibility that AI can speed up diagnostic services is not far-fetched at this point. 

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