DeepMind: can we ever trust a machine to diagnose cancer?

DeepMind has recently announced a fresh collaborative partnership with the UK's health service, with plans for the artificial intelligence firm to develop machine learning technology to research breast cancer. DeepMind, a Google subsidiary, is perhaps best known for successfully building AI that is now better than humans at the ancient game of Go. But in recent months – when attempting to apply this tech to serious healthcare issues – it has been on the sidelines of a data breach storm. In July, DeepMind's collaboration with London's Royal Free hospital led to the NHS trust violating the UK's data protection laws. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found that Royal Free's decision to share 1.6m personally identifiable patient records with DeepMind for the development of Streams – an automated kidney injury detection software – was "legally inappropriate".