Computer will learn to recognise sight loss

The NHS is to use artificial intelligence in the fight against sight loss with a retina-scanning system that detects the early signs of eye disease. One million patient retina scans are to be fed into an AI computer to teach it how to detect age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other conditions. The system is being developed by Moorfields Eye Hospital, in London, and DeepMind, the British AI company owned by Google. DeepMind was criticised by privacy groups in April after it emerged that a London hospital had granted the company access to as many as 1.6 million patient records…