Microsoft claims AI diagnostic tool can outperform doctors

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Source: FT 06.30.25

I believe they're also doing surgeries now.

Microsoft claims AI diagnostic tool can outperform doctors​

Research is first initiative from Big Tech group’s AI health unit formed by ex-DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman

Microsoft has built an artificial intelligence-powered medical tool it claims is four times more successful than human doctors at diagnosing complex ailments, as the tech giant unveils research it believes could speed up treatment.

Microsoft’s new system is underpinned by a so-called “orchestrator” that creates virtual panels of five AI agents acting as “doctors” — each with a distinct role, such as coming up with hypotheses or choosing diagnostic tests — which interact and “debate” together to choose a course of action.To test its capabilities, “MAI-DxO” was fed 304 studies from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that describe how some of the most complicated cases were solved by doctors.

Microsoft used leading large language models from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Google, xAI and DeepSeek. The orchestrator made all LLMs perform better, but worked best with OpenAI’s o3 reasoning model to correctly solve 85.5 per cent of the NEJM cases.That compared with about 20 per cent by experienced human doctors, but those physicians were not allowed access to textbooks or to ask colleagues in the trial, which could have increased their success rate.

Suleyman said Microsoft is nearing “AI models that are not just a little bit better, but dramatically better, than human performance: faster, cheaper and four times more accurate”.“That is going to be truly transformative,” he added.

The AI models were also prompted to be cost-conscious, which significantly cut the number of tests required to get to a correct diagnosis in the trial, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases, he said. However, King stressed that the technology was still in its early stages, had not been peer reviewed and was not yet ready for a clinical environment. “This is a landmark study,” said Eric Topol, a cardiologist and founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “While this work was not done in the setting of real world medical practice, it is the first to provide evidence for the efficiency potential of generative AI in medicine — accuracy and cost savings.”
 
I still want a doctor overseeing the whole situation.

There are complex surgeries machines that probably won't be able to do autonomously for years but it will happen eventually.
 
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My doctors often talk of "good data" when discussing treatment options for various ailments. This translates to mean that past experience shows good outcomes when applying certain treatment plans. A lot of trial and error treatments eventually lead to this "good data".

My take on this is that doctors are scientists and statisticians combined. In terms of statistics, AI can keep track of those. We just need good data input by the doctors for the database.
 
There was a recent article in a peer reviewed medical journal that researchers discovered that those who have, or are developing Parkinson’s disease, develop four unique molecules in their ear wax. I believe they are esters and aldehydes so they will have an odor. Seems like a place for a trained dog in a doctors office who treats adults.

Could AI do this? Maybe with the right instrumentation.
 
My doctors often talk of "good data" when discussing treatment options for various ailments. This translates to mean that past experience shows good outcomes when applying certain treatment plans. A lot of trial and error treatments eventually lead to this "good data".

My take on this is that doctors are scientists and statisticians combined. In terms of statistics, AI can keep track of those. We just need good data input by the doctors for the database.

All data from every journal, test, trial etc. will likely be compiled into some kind of super-model that cross references your genome and medical history using superintelligence to connect all of the dots and figure out your acute condition and potential future issues.\

It has been theorized that by 2050 the will be enough advancements in medicine where one will likely be able to live forever.

Of course many of these treatments will be for the wealthy but in general medicine will become faster, cheaper, and more accurate.

My theory is that one of the large medical records companies will take advantage of this. Maybe Epic? merger with 23 and Me?
 
That's what the insurances do.

Look at the MAID program in Canada.

Veteran patient: "Doctor, I have back problems from serving my country"

Doctor: "Have you considered death?"

"I have a letter saying that if you're so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying," said Gauthier who first injured her back in a training accident in 1989.

Testifying in French, she said she has been fighting for a home wheelchair ramp for five years and expressed her concerns about the assisted dying offer in a recent letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau."


https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721
 
I'm eighty, diabetic, had a gastric resection at 25. About six months before Tagamet was introduced so I've always thought the surgeon wanted to grab a boat payment before retiring or being blunted by pharmaceuticals. His quote to me as they rolled me in was "I've been doing this operation since 1923. When I get done with you you'll be able to drive a semi through your duodenum." Major problem is upchucking bile from my small intestine into my lungs. Not a pleasant way to die. Of course, the purpose of a specialist only concerned with diabetes is to keep my A1C under 7, no matter the risks, cause they're rewarded for meeting the performance numbers. To do this they will problably want to get me one of the new injectables that screw around with my digestion.

I asked both Perplexity and Google Gemini if my fears were well founded and their response was that yes indeed, I had valid reasons for concern. I have two succinct AI recommendations which I will forward to both my endocrinologist and primary. The days of doing what the doctor says with no questions asked is long over, IMO. They're no better than mechanics and service advisors. Modern medicine with its "performance rewards" and pay for stuff done is no different than my hanging around my Kia dealer asking my service advisor what needs to be done. Thank you AI for reinforcing my fears.
 
I'm sure this is true just as it's true that Tesla FSD can outperform a human driver except when it doesn't.
I think we need to understand that AI is in no conventional sense Intelligent.
It's no more nor less than a meta search engine that can quickly spit out an answer based entirely upon what the model has scraped from those sources made available to it. It is therefore only backward looking and is incapable of making any intuitive leaps.
Also, some models have been known to simply make things up when they run out of good data to refer to.
 
Given the number of times I've run Windows Diagnostic tool and it's come back with no issues found, I don't see AI finding much wrong with any patients...
 
The AI doctors had 5 "colleagues" and unlimited books (including the JAMA articles with the test cases solved?) and only got 85%. It should have been 100%. It's like the chess AI computers that have analyzed every possible game (human vs. human as well as human vs. computer) in advance. I'm seriously unimpressed.
 
Been following this for over a decade...it's a good thing

In the early days, they pumped case files into machine learning, and quickly it became more accurate than doctors (medical system kills hundreds of thousands, just doing business)...detecteed incorrectly prescribed drugs and interactions, and even could forwarn of bipolar epsodes before they were even diagnosed.

So a computre that's not fatigued, getting divorced, looking for a new Mercedes...I think that's great. Better diagnosis, less mistakes.

If I'm in a car crash...I want a person/team.
 
Look at the MAID program in Canada.

Veteran patient: "Doctor, I have back problems from serving my country"

Doctor: "Have you considered death?"

"I have a letter saying that if you're so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying," said Gauthier who first injured her back in a training accident in 1989.

Testifying in French, she said she has been fighting for a home wheelchair ramp for five years and expressed her concerns about the assisted dying offer in a recent letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau."


https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721
And MAID was thought up by people.
 
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