AI is as accurate as a doctor at spotting skin cancer

Artificial intelligence that is as accurate as human specialists at identifying skin cancer has been developed by computer scientists and dermatologists. The breakthrough was made by a team at Stanford University, who trained a deep-learning algorithm to diagnose skin cancer using a database of around 130,000 skin disease images. "We realized it was feasible, not just to do something well, but as well as a human dermatologist," said Sebastian Thrun, a professor at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. A woman covers herself in suncream to stress the point that people should protect themselves from the sun as part of a Cancer Research Campaign, April 8, 1998. Researchers have developed an Artificial Intelligence program that can diagnose skin lesions as accurately as any specialist.