Artificial Intelligence Can Now Identify Skin Cancer as Accurately as Experts

A new artificial intelligence system can spot the tell-tale signs of skin cancer just as accurately as human doctors, say researchers, and the next step is to get the tech on a smartphone, so anyone can run a self-diagnosis. Once the system is refined further and becomes portable, it could give many more people the chance to get screened with minimal cost, and without having to wait for an appointment with a doctor to confirm the symptoms. The Stanford University researchers behind the deep learning system say the key to its success is an algorithm that enables it to apply what it knows from its existing database of skin cancer samples to pictures it hasn't seen before. "We made a very powerful machine learning algorithm that learns from data," says one of the team, Andre Esteva. "Instead of writing into computer code exactly what to look for, you let the algorithm figure it out."