Can AI really predict cancer survival better than a doctor? I have my doubts | Devi Sridhar
TL;DR
In a Guardian opinion piece, public health expert Devi Sridhar questions whether AI can predict cancer survival better than doctors. Researchers at Mass General Brigham have developed an AI model that estimates a cancer patient's prognosis from a single photo of their face. Sridhar calls the research promising and notes that clinicians have long used facial appearance as a rough proxy for health.
Nauti's Take
A photo as an extra prognostic signal has potential, since doctors already make rough judgments from appearance. The problem: a model that scores faces can amplify bias by age, skin tone or image quality and misjudge individual cases.
Clinics should test such tools only as a supplementary signal, with independent validation.
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