Google’s medical AI was super accurate in a lab.
Real life was a different story.

If AI is really going to make a difference to patients we need to know how it works when real humans get their hands on it, in real situations.

by Will Douglas Heaven - April 27, 2020

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The covid-19 pandemic is stretching hospital resources to the breaking point in many countries in the world. It is no surprise that many people hope AI could speed up patient screening and ease the strain on clinical staff. But a study from Google Health—the first to look at the impact of a deep-learning tool in real clinical settings—reveals that even the most accurate AIs can actually make things worse if not tailored to the clinical environments in which they will work.

Existing rules for deploying AI in clinical settings, such as the standards for FDA clearance in the US or a CE mark in Europe, focus primarily on accuracy. There are no explicit requirements that an AI must improve the outcome for patients, largely because such trials have not yet run. But that needs to change, says Emma Beede, a UX researcher at Google Health: “We have to understand how AI tools are going to work for people in context—especially in health care—before they’re widely deployed.”

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Keep reading... https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/27/1000658/google-medical-ai-accurate-lab-real-life-clinic-covid-diabetes-retina-disease/

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From MIT Technology Review.