The London-based computer programs company, DeepMind, with the backing of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has been able to make some major breakthroughs recently leading to the project offering some serious sci-fi functionality. As for what this is, the company’s artificial intelligence has been able to successfully diagnose multiple sight-threatening eye conditions ith great accuracy.
Specifically, a study published in Nature Medicine outlines what happened when DeepMind was trained to detect over 50 sight-threatening conditions from Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. What they found was that the program was able to detect the complications with the same accuracy as expert clinicians and was then able to prioritize the clients and recommend what action should be taken next.
As for how they are able to do this, the artificial intelligence had its machine learning algorithms examine thousands of eye scans over the course of two years in order to give it the ability to make decisions based on what it has experienced in the past. Pearse Keane, a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields, had this to say about why it was such an important breakthrough: “The number of eye scans we’re performing is growing at a pace much faster than human experts are able to interpret them,” adding: “There is a risk that this may cause delays in the diagnosis and treatment of sight-threatening diseases, which can be devastating for patients.”
