Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on Thursday said they have developed a new AI medical model that answers questions like ChatGPT.

The chatbot is one of four new AI models unveiled by the university which can diagnose up to 30 types of cancers and diseases.

Professor Chen Hao, who led the project, said the "MedDr" model can generate reports and provide initial diagnoses based on medical images.

Users can send close-up images and the chatbot will then analyse what is wrong and offer treatment suggestions.

He said it can save a lot of time spent on doctor's appointments.

“We hope to actually see 30 to 40 percent [reduction in time]. Some doctors are very interested in using this in the waiting room, because the patients spend a lot of time in the waiting room but when they see a doctor it’s just actually a few minutes,” he said.

“We wanted to actually leverage this multimodal language model to let the patients ask the questions and then you have a summary and then doctors will quickly actually see the summary and understand the background of the patients.”

Chen added that the university will work with local hospitals and consult more medical practitioners to ensure the tool's accuracy.