Google AI Detects Breast Cancer Better Than Doctors
Emailed on January 3rd 2020 in The Friday Forward
Google says it has developed an artificial intelligence system that can detect the presence of breast cancer more accurately than doctors.
A study that tested the accuracy of the system, which was developed through a collaboration between the tech giant and cancer researchers, was published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.
The program was trained to detect cancer using tens of thousands of mammograms from women in the United Kingdom and the United States, and early research shows it can produce more accurate detection than human radiologists.
According to the study, using the AI technology resulted in fewer false positives, where test results suggest cancer is present when it isn't, and false negatives, where an existing cancer goes undetected.
The AI system was more accurate despite it having less information to work with than human experts, such as patient histories and prior mammograms.