Can AI do things beyond human ability?

Artificial intelligence-based deep learning models can now determine someone's race just from their X-ray film. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is showing more and more amazing possibilities. Recently, a team of researchers from the US, Canada, and Taiwan trained their AI to a level that a "flesh-and-blood" doctor could not.

AI can accurately predict a patient's race based solely on their X-ray film.

Specifically, the AI ​​can accurately predict a patient's race with up to 90% accuracy after being trained for a certain period of time.

"We discovered the ability of AI to accurately predict race even from damaged, garbled or edited medical images," the team said. "In such a case, even the clinical experts cannot do it, leading to a risk in the implementation of the treatment."

To do this, the researchers used hundreds of thousands of existing X-ray images, labeled with details of the patient's race, to "train" the AI.

However, they also admit that "it's not clear why the AI ​​system is so good at identifying race from images that essentially contain no accompanying information," something that even a doctor does not know. No matter how well trained, it is impossible to do.

Even when providing limited information, such as by eliminating clues about bone density or focusing on a small part of the body, AI is still very good at making an image-based diagnosis.

Reportedly, this study inherently reuses the results of an earlier study, when performing X-ray imaging using AI to look for signs of disease in black people. In essence, AI mimics human thinking to quickly detect features in data.

The study was published in the journal The Lancet Digital Health.