Google DeepMind's AI can now detect over 50 sight-threatening eye conditions

Tech industry insiders regularly herald AI as the solution to all of our problems, included those posed by health care. London-based DeepMind, owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, focuses heavily on the specifics of using artificial intelligence in health care, and on Monday it released a study showing the progress it's made in using AI to diagnose eye conditions. Published in the science journal Nature, the study reports that DeepMind, in partnership with Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, has trained its algorithms to detect over 50 sight-threatening conditions to the same accuracy as expert clinicians. In a project that began two years ago, DeepMind trained its machine learning algorithms using thousands of historic and fully anonymized eye scans to identify diseases that could lead to sight loss. According to the study, the system can now do so with 94 percent accuracy, and the hope is that it could eventually be used to transform how eye exams are conducted around the world.