NEW ORLEANS -- Artificial intelligence may be used as a refractive surgery diagnostic tool, according to a speaker at Refractive Surgery Subspecialty Day at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting. "A robust [machine learning] process generally includes building new variables, which means feature engineering, choosing the most appropriate algorithm, optimizing its parameters, selecting the most predictive features, and understanding the interconnection and patterns between both existing and created selective variables," Marcony R. Santhiago, MD, PhD, said. "Thus, a better identification of patients at higher risk becomes possible regardless of the cutoff point associated with each one of the features." Santhiago described the use of AI in medicine as "human-computer systems," noting the role people play in useful AI includes creating and maintaining the software, selecting which application to use and fixing problems. To create useful AI, he said researchers should ask two key questions.