AI system made in China spots childhood disease as well as or better than doctors

PARIS - An artificial intelligence program developed in China that combs through test results, health records and even handwritten notes diagnosed childhood diseases as accurately as doctors, researchers said Monday. From the flu and asthma to life-threatening pneumonia and meningitis, the system consistently matched or out-performed primary care pediatricians, they reported in Nature Medicine. Dozens of studies in recent months have detailed how AI is revolutionizing the detection of diseases including cancers, genetic disorders and Alzheimer's. AI-based technology learns and improves in a way similar to humans, but has virtually unlimited capacity for data processing and storage. "I believe that it will be able to perform most of the jobs a doctor does," said senior author Kang Zhang, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego.