Artificial intelligence used to combat blindness

The focus of the research is with the application of deep-learning methods to produce an automated algorithm designed to detect diabetic retinopathy from the scanning of images of the eye. The technology is a type of'deep learning'. Deep Learning is a new area of machine learning research, which has been introduced with the objective of moving Machine Learning closer to one of its original goals: 'true' Artificial Intelligence. The algorithm is based on more than 75,000 images, taken from the back of the eye, and relating to a wide range of patients representing several ethnicities. The images included a mix of health patients and those with the condition.