New Algorithms Could Reduce Racial Disparities in Health Care

Researchers trying to improve healthcare with artificial intelligence usually subject their algorithms to a form of machine med school. Software learns from doctors by digesting thousands or millions of x-rays or other data labeled by expert humans until it can accurately flag suspect moles or lungs showing signs of Covid-19 by itself. A study published this month took a different approach--training algorithms to read knee x-rays for arthritis by using patients as the AI arbiters of truth instead of doctors. The results revealed radiologists may have literal blind spots when it comes to reading Black patients' x-rays. The algorithms trained on patients' reports did a better job than doctors at accounting for the pain experienced by Black patients, apparently by discovering patterns of disease in the images that humans usually overlook.