Google is analyzing eyeball scans using machine learning in order to help determine which patients need treatment:
Famous eye hospital Moorfields has agreed to give Google's DeepMind access to one million anonymous eye scans as a part of a machine learning study intended to spot early signs of sight loss. Explicit patient consent is not required because the scans are historic, meaning the results won't affect the care of current patients. Under the project, the hospital will also have access to related anonymous information about their eye conditions and disease management.
[...] Professor Sir Peng Tee Khaw, director of biomedical research at Moorfields, said the research could "revolutionise" the way professionals carry out eye tests, leading to earlier detection and treatment of common eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. "With sight loss predicted to double by the year 2050, it is vital we explore the use of cutting-edge technology to prevent eye disease," he said. Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, said: "We set up DeepMind because we wanted to use AI to help solve some of society's biggest challenges, and diabetic retinopathy is the fastest growing cause of blindness worldwide."
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:16PM
The list of jobs to go to the robots will contain the ophthalmologists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:18PM
And the killbots will scan your eyeballs (for identification) and possibly pluck them out (to sell to the elites).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:24PM
In the feature eyeball scanning will be worthless because good eye balls will be 3D printed as replacements..
For now we can just go with the "Sorry, your eyeballs indicate bad return on investment for health insurance - please have good day before you die".
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday July 06 2016, @11:32PM
You're forgetting about the ex-con European doctor with his beautiful assistant that can sell you new eyes to pass the scanners in a matter of hours.....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:28PM
> And the killbots will scan your eyeballs (for identification) and possibly pluck them out (to sell to the elites).
I guess the future of the job market will be related to killbots design/manufacturing.
I'd prepare a series to sell to the colombian/mexican cartels - I have a hunch they'll pay better than US corporations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:10AM
In the feature drug cartels is the safest place to avoid assimilation into the totalitarian plebocracy :-)
Cartel drones will be used to wipe out state drones, oh and transport many white molecules to people in need..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:19AM
Into the totalitarian ... what?
(show me a society organized around a plebocracy, maybe I'll get it better by example).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:26AM
I'm thinking of a society where a small super elite controls every aspect of everybody else except for those that is out of reach due harsh environment or military power. Thus plenty of plebs which is controlled by few.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 07 2016, @01:48AM
Elite in power... would this be an aristocracy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:38AM
Yeah, it seems awfully familiar.
The future is so good I got to wear chains.. :p
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:02AM
(to the modder: yeah, sure, it's funny if you aren't an ophthalmologist)
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:21PM
This doesn't matter at all..
Explicit patient consent is not required because the scans are historic, meaning the results won't affect the care of current patients.
If it won't affect current patients, why do it? I bet if something significant is found there will be action. Thus there is entanglement.
Then there's this thing.. loads of biometric data into google which by now is in the hands of alphabet soup. And they will "do no evil"? ROTFL..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:46PM
Another test I will not take. I need real people not companies looking to improve it security systems in the name of "better diags".
Another third party so no expectation-of-privacy.
Thank you for doing EVIL
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:56PM
If they have the historical images and the "future medical history" associated with them, it would be a great training data set to recognize early warning signs - even if all the patients were already dead. In fact, it could be interesting to relate it to the patients *entire* medical history, rather than just their vision-related problems - I've heard numerous claims that many diseases cause changes in the iris extremely early on.
Of course, I wouldn't particularly trust Google with that kind of data, even if it was supposedly "anonymized" - too easy to "reverse-engineer" real identities, and far too many ways to monetize it.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday July 06 2016, @11:02PM
They already have the data, helping detect vision problems is at least doing something good with it. Yes, they may be doing something bad as well, but that would happen regardless.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:23AM
The bad things is less likely to happen if the data isn't released.
Also, will the patients at NHS benefit from this? as in the research results are published and doctors will be trained?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @01:59AM
The bad things is less likely to happen if the data isn't released.
But data wants to be free.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 07 2016, @02:45AM
No, there's sloppy people and people that just grab it. ;)
Data don't want anything. People do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @04:38AM
We can't change our irides easily, so expect to be identified as a participant some years later when Goofle scans your eyes as part of an authentication scheme your bank signed up for.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday July 07 2016, @06:50AM
If it won't affect current patients, why do it?
Err... because it will affect future patients?
I bet if something significant is found there will be action.
Ye-es, that is the idea...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:26PM
Are there any diseases that affect the fingers? Then Google could scan those too, for your health.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 06 2016, @10:44PM
And the CIA and FBI may have research on sociopaths and serial killers that could help: let them have access to those finger scans.
That's good! Maybe i'll send an email to Hillary about this.... hrmmmm... should i mark this email as confidential?
GUESS IT DOESN'T MATTER, DOES IT!?!?!?!?! HAHAHAHA! Why mark ANYTHING as confidential? Just mark it as
'SUPER DOOPER ULTRA IMPORTANT ANY REASONABLE PERSON SHOULD KNOW NOT TO STORE THIS ON A PERSONAL EMAIL SERVER'
or
'maybe shouldn't pass this around in Chinese airspace, but wtf, who cares, really... i mean, really..... yeah... who cares. Give it to Hillary and let her do whatever she wants with it. Yeah, that's the ticket. Yeah. CONFIDENTIAL, lol...not really, right H? smiley face, winkey face, smiley face
SHEEEIT.
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday July 06 2016, @11:34PM
Yep. Meanwhile we will find out that Animal Farm is a documentary.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:13AM
Send a email with a technical device description to that very secure server MTA that the Chinese steal and blow up themselves with? Information.. or not.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 06 2016, @11:49PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2016, @12:57AM
The problem with "one million anonymous eye scans" is that it sounds exactly like what someone would say in a fit if hype when a lot of those "scans" are very correlated with each other. I mean correlated as in there is something taking 100 fps video for a minute (a wild guess) on the same patient. That would be 6,000 eye scans right there, so then they have data from ~170 patients.
I don't know what the real numbers would be, it could be much better or worse. I didn't even rtfa. But I hope they split the cv by patient.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday July 07 2016, @09:49AM
Vision loss is bad because advertisements will be less effective. (/cynical)
My cynical side is joking about it, but actually this is an interesting development. This system might soon detect diseases in people who are simply using their computer at home or at work.
Damn, my cynical side is hard to control today.