Google to commercialize artificial intelligence to detect diseases

Though further developments are underway, Google said on April 27 that it has successfully developed new deep learning algorithms that can detect and diagnose diabetic retinopathy, an eye disease which can lead to blindness, as well as locate breast cancer. Lily Peng, product manager of the medical imaging team at Google Research, shared how the US tech giant is using deep learning to train machines to analyze medical images and automatically detect pathological cues, be it swollen blood vessels in the eye or cancerous tumors, during a video conference with the South Korean media hosted by Google Korea. Based on the workings of the human brain, deep learning uses large artificial neural networks -- layers of interconnected nodes -- that rearrange themselves as new information comes in, allowing computers to self-learn without the need for human programming. "Artificial neural networks have been around since the 1960s. But now with more powerful computing power, we can build more layers into the system to handle more complicated tasks with high accuracy," Peng said. "In deep learning, the feature engineering is handled by the computer itself.