Artificial Intelligence Makes Bad Medicine Even Worse

Google researchers made headlines early this month for a study that claimed their artificial intelligence system could outperform human experts at finding breast cancers on mammograms. It sounded like a big win, and yet another example of how AI will soon transform health care: More cancers found! Fewer false positives! A better, cheaper way to provide high-quality medical care!

Hold on to your exclamation points. Machine-enabled health care may bring us many benefits in the years to come, but those will be contingent on the ways in which it’s used. If doctors ask the wrong questions to begin with—if they put AI to work pursuing faulty premises—then the technology will be a bust. It could even serve to amplify our earlier mistakes.

The full WIRED article can be viewed at this link.