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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25232 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/study-finds-artificial-intelligence-can-determine-race-medical-images#

In a recent study, published in Lancet Digital Health, NIH-funded researchers found that AI models could accurately predict self-reported race in several different types of radiographic images—a task not possible for human experts. These findings suggest that race information could be unknowingly incorporated into image analysis models, which could potentially exacerbate racial disparities in the medical setting.

For their study, Gichoya and colleagues first wanted to determine if they could develop AI models that could detect race solely from chest x-rays. They used three large datasets that spanned a diverse patient population and found that their models could predict race with high accuracy—a striking finding, as human experts are unable to make such predictions by looking at x-rays. The researchers also found that the AI could determine self-reported race even when the images were highly degraded or cropped to one ninth of the original size, or when the resolution was modified to such an extent that the images were barely recognized as x-rays. The research team subsequently used other non-chest x-ray datasets including mammograms, cervical spine radiographs, and chest computed tomography (CT) scans, and found that the AI could still determine self-reported race, regardless of the type of scan or anatomic location.

I see no mention of anything to do with imaging the brain, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could be done, and would give it more than even odds. That would be less perplexing than being able to do it from mammograms, which are ghostly images of someone's tits, and that's well beyond my ability or any radiologist I know.

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