Science ministry opens 24-hour AI health chatbot to the public

South Korea's science ministry said Wednesday it has opened a 24-hour public health chatbot that gives anyone a personalized health report and counseling, drawing on more than 5 million national health survey records compiled over the past 20 years.

The service, run jointly with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, went live the same day on the agency's community health survey website. It was developed under the science ministry's public artificial intelligence conversion program, the public AX project, which the government describes as an effort to combine the country's accumulated national health survey big data with AI technology so that ordinary people can check their health status and obtain tailored information in daily life.

Users answer a short questionnaire covering basic body measurements such as height and weight and everyday habits. The service then compares them with a peer group of similar age and sex and displays their health standing and chronic disease risk as a color-coded "health traffic light" and graphs.

The chatbot also answers questions around the clock on preventing and managing major chronic conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, abnormal cholesterol levels and obesity, as well as on sleep, exercise and diet. The science ministry said responses are based on public health data reviewed by a panel of medical and artificial intelligence experts and run on an encrypted network that complies with national security rules.

"The opening of this AI health counseling chatbot is a representative case of data-driven public AI conversion administration that returns public health data to the people," Lim Seung-kwan, chief of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said in a statement. He added that he hopes many people will use the chatbot to check their health often and go on to prevent chronic diseases and build healthier daily habits on their own.

Lee Do-kyu, head of the science ministry's information and communications policy office, called the service an example of AI that offers practical help in people's lives, and said the ministry will keep working with other government bodies to deliver AI services the public can feel.