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Chinese AI Beats 15 Doctors In Tumor Diagnosis Competition (thenextweb.com)

An artificial intelligence system called BioMind has managed to defeated a team comprised of 15 of China's top doctors by a margin of two to one. The Next Web reports the details: When diagnosing brain tumors, BioMind was correct 87 percent of the time, compared to 66 percent by the medical professionals. The AI also only took 15 minutes to diagnose the 225 cases, while doctors took 30. In regards to predicting brain hematoma expansion, BioMind was victorious again, as it was correct in 83 percent of cases, with humans managing only 63 percent. Researchers trained the AI by feeding it thousands upon thousands of images from Beijing Tiantan Hospital's archives. This has made it as good at diagnosing neurological diseases as senior doctors, as it has a 90 percent accuracy rate. Further reading available via Xinhua.

36 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Impressive by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is really amazing. It is like computers are good at image recognition. I see a lot of potential in this AI.

    1. Re:Impressive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Al ain't no Chinese name I ever heard of.

    2. Re:Impressive by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      With China Social Points at stake, the government sponsored A.I. project staff have big penises also. Of course this could say a lot about the doctors of China?

    3. Re:Impressive by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Ai is actually a very common given name for girls in Chinese, but almost always paired with their other given name.

    4. Re:Impressive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The AI also only took 15 minutes to diagnose the 225 cases, while doctors took 30.

      BioMind was victorious again, as it was correct in 83 percent of cases, with humans managing only 63 percent.

      So the doctors diagnosed 15 cases per minute (225/15)? Amazing that they were 63% accurate when they were only spending 4 seconds per case! How much time would they spend per case if they weren't competing against AI?

    5. Re:Impressive by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      When we started a branch office in China, we had a "meet and greet" videoconferencing to get to know each other. I was really impressed that a lot of the guys were interested in A.I., until I found out they were talking about Allen Iverson. Basketball? From that moment I plotted my eventual suicide.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    6. Re:Impressive by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "This is really amazing. It is like computers are good at image recognition. I see a lot of potential in this AI."

      Indeed. It will replace all those doctors pretty soon.

      Better still, and I can't wait, its cousin will replace all those lawyers, who did nothing but 'read the book'.

    7. Re:Impressive by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "Al ain't no Chinese name I ever heard of."

      You need to come out from under your bridge sometimes.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    8. Re:Impressive by sfcat · · Score: 2

      This is really amazing. It is like computers are good at image recognition. I see a lot of potential in this AI.

      Actually medical diagnosis was the first challenge AI succeed at...back in the 1970's. It wasn't until the late 90's that AI succeed at another major feat (beating the world champ at Chess). There really isn't anything surprising or impressive about this feat.

      The problem with AI systems in medicine are the doctors who don't want to use the technology. Step into a hospital sometime and look at their computer systems which will often be older than what you can see in the computer museum. The second problem is insurance which doesn't really want the current system changed. The problem with utilizing this technology (which has existed in some form for 40 years already) is people, not the abilities of the technology.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    9. Re:Impressive by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      Strange indeed. The Xinhua article never mentions how long the doctors took.

      If it were true, it could be that the 15 doctors handled separate cases. That would mean 225 cases/15 doctors=15 cases/doctor and 30 minutes/15 cases = 2 minutes/case.

  2. Re:Human right 100% of the time by sit1963nz · · Score: 1

    If they were diagnosed from the image, then yes, however if they were diagnosed by a pathologist after the patient died then no.

  3. More details would be nice by scottragen · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Did the AI give any false positives?
    Did the doctors correctly diagnose any cases that the AI did not?

    Whilst this is great news, I hope doctors use it as a learning and aid tool instead of a full diagnosis suite without a review by the specialist.

    1. Re:More details would be nice by umghhh · · Score: 1

      I would imagine that your question should be asked. Considering the area i.e. human health - this maybe he case although the majority approach to any also automatic authority is such that this probably be implemented the way the HR system in UK was done and the overwrite function will not be present.

    2. Re:More details would be nice by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The big problem with AI at the moment is that we don't understand how it makes decisions. You can ask a doctor why they made a certain diagnosis, but you can't ask an AI in many cases. So at best the AI result can prompt a human doctor to look again, but it can't give much in the way of hints as to why it disagrees with the human.

      This is a huge problem and one which the EU has addressed with the GDPR, which gives you the right to know how decisions were made and on what grounds. That prevents companies simply telling you that "computer says no". If they want to use AIs for making decisions about you then the AI either needs to explain itself or they will have to have a human review anything you query.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:More details would be nice by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      Did the doctors give any false positives?
      Did the AI correctly diagnose any cases that the doctors did not?

      Whilst this is great news, I hope AI uses the input of specialists as a learning and aid tool instead of a full diagnosis suite.

    4. Re:More details would be nice by MemeRot · · Score: 1

      Thanks GDPR, I can continue getting my hand-made artisanal - but explainable - diagnoses which are _wrong_ instead of getting inexplicable _yet accurate_ diagnoses from software.

  4. Re:they diagnosed 225 brain scans within 30 minute by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 1

    "It shouldn't be rushed in the first place" because doctors are human and make more mistakes when getting tired. Why would you think that would apply to AIs? The only thing that matters of AI is accuracy, and if it can be more accurate than humans while being faster, then "rushing" doesn't matter. Think it through.

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
  5. AI as an invaluable support tool for doctors by Camembert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is encouraging news. i had read previously of Watson helping doctors in diagnosing a baffling case of Leukemia that seemed totally untreatable, Watson correctly indicated that the patient had 2 kinds of Leukemia at once, which the human doctors didn’t realise.
    Machine learning will not soon replace human doctors, I think, but you can see it becoming a powerful support tool for doctors, hopefully finding ailments earlier as well. Fascinating.

    1. Re:AI as an invaluable support tool for doctors by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

      you can see it becoming a powerful support tool for doctors

      As long as the tail doesn't wag the dog there, I agree.

      I'm sorry Dr. Bill, you cost 1 Million dollars a year to pay, while McBox Boxieface over there costs $500/month for power plus maintenance. And can literally be in two places at once. Why don't you go back to school and choose a better degree this time?

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    2. Re:AI as an invaluable support tool for doctors by arth1 · · Score: 1

      i had read previously of Watson helping doctors in diagnosing a baffling case of Leukemia that seemed totally untreatable, Watson correctly indicated that the patient had 2 kinds of Leukemia at once, which the human doctors didnâ(TM)t realise.

      With two kinds of leukemia at once, you're surely a goner anyhow, so the actual value might not have been that great for the patient.

      Still, knowledge is knowledge and a value in itself.

    3. Re:AI as an invaluable support tool for doctors by MemeRot · · Score: 1

      Dr. Bill collecting a million dollars a year is not a net positive for society if Boxie McBoxFace really can contribute the same services

  6. BioMind by dohzer · · Score: 1

    I like the name, since all minds are biological except this one.

  7. Re:Human right 100% of the time by Mr0bvious · · Score: 1

    To a different test with different information.

    --
    Never happened. True story.
  8. ahnuld says by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    it's not a tumah!

  9. Ways to think about machine learning by js290 · · Score: 1
    https://www.ben-evans.com/bene...

    That is, machine learning doesn't have to match experts or decades of experience or judgement. We’re not automating experts. Rather, we’re asking ‘listen to all the phone calls and find the angry ones’. ‘Read all the emails and find the anxious ones’. ‘Look at a hundred thousand photos and find the cool (or at least weird) people’. In a sense, this is what automation always does; Excel didn't give us artificial accountants, Photoshop and Indesign didn’t give us artificial graphic designers and indeed steam engines didn’t give us artificial horses. (In an earlier wave of ‘AI’, chess computers didn’t give us a grumpy middle-aged Russian in a box.) Rather, we automated one discrete task, at massive scale.

    --
    "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
  10. Re:What's the diff between AI and Machine Learning by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Machine learning is a subset of AI. A* search is also AI, even though it's not machine learning. "AI" means "technology that was found searching for AI," just like "Tang" is "space technology" even though it practically has nothing to do with space.

    If you want to differentiate, it's more reasonable to differentiate between "strong AI" and "weak AI." Strong AI is what most people mean by AI, whereas "weak AI" is "cool stuff that's not really intelligent."

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  11. Yeah, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    my cat beat those same Chinese doctors on the same test [/sarc]

    Let me know when that AI beats doctors from Johns Hopkins, or CTCA, or City of Hope, etc.

    It's not that I, as a tech freak, doubt that AI can become better at such tasks, but rather that I have worked with Chinese guys with PhDs who in reality were little better than high school graduates in the west were back in the 80's (not now perhaps given the American educational system plunge). I simply doubt the use of Chinese doctors as a yardstick. Oh, and before some moron leaps to the idea that I'm a racist: Nope, China is an officially Communist one-party-rule system with government control over speech, which includes academia in particular. That situation breeds academic backwardness, and a hobbled intellectual climate which results in mediocrity and very dangerous gaps in any field involving objectivity, which is not politically allowed. if China ever embraces freedom and liberty, it will be one of the most amazing and energetic nations on Earth.

  12. Beats 15 CHINESE Doctors! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    At least 10 of them didn't even go to medical school - they just got some papers printed up.

  13. Humans... by spongman · · Score: 2

    ...need not apply.

  14. Re:Human right 100% of the time by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    A probable tumor in a scan is often followed up with a biopsy or exploratory surgery for confirmation.

  15. In other words... by fatp · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    China's top doctors are worse than computer in tumer diagnosis.
    Celebrate if and only if you wish more bad diagnosis in China.

  16. In other tests, doctors failed 100% by nagora · · Score: 1

    When doctors stare at a sample of blood they were consistently unable to identify that the sample had sickle-cells.

    Just saying "AI did it" doesn't actually make this anything more that a centuries-long list of "a medical test has been invented". It's good and all that but there seems to be some idea that "AI" means "voodoo".

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
    1. Re:In other tests, doctors failed 100% by CaffeinatedBacon · · Score: 1

      A medical test was done but we don't know how it did it. That's the AI part. No one told it how.

      Or do you somehow mean the program itself invented a whole new medical test? Because that would be even stronger AI.

  17. failure rate by sad_ · · Score: 1

    what i really find worrying is that doctors were only able to detect 66% of tumors, so a lot of people get false diagnostics for something very deadly.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  18. False negatives. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    False negatives are really important here.

    100 cancer cases. 75 cancer diagnosis. 25 non cancer diagnosis. 75% success. 25% dead due to misdiagnosis.
    100 non cancer cases. 75 non cancer diagnosis. 25 cancer diagnosis. 75% success. 0% dead due to misdiagnosis.

    The way the AI deals with this can make or break it.

  19. No license! by Tokolosh · · Score: 1

    The self-governing monopoly trade union known as the AMA will see to it that this software never enters the public domain. The beach houses and Ferraris of featherbedded radiologists should never come under threat.

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number