[Science]Watson Better than MDs at Diagnosing Cancer

awesome. things like this are where society should really focus it's efforts in advancing technology, and not putting out a new iPhone every other year.

 

Also knowing the difference between "it's" and "its"!

 

Next job to get outsources to technology. How soon is it before the computers decide humans are no longer needed?

 

I bet you Watson is better at controlling all army drones, too.

j/k Giving doctors the ability to ask Watson questions sound great.

*as long as* it doesn't become a de facto standard whereby doctors are forced to get advice from Watson to avoid lawsuits.

btw: Article title is misleading. It doesn't say Watson will provide the diagnosis. It says Watson is a resource for doctors to use while making diagnosis.

 

I, for one, welcome our new supercomputer MD overlords.

 

Cool.

 

i like the idea of using Watson for sheer computing and analysis purpose but the data being fed has to be accurate.. otherwise this could lead to misdiagnosis

 

That's no different than any of the articles or books that the doctors are currently reading. So I don't see any downside to it. Especially if it's smart enough to cross reference the data from many articles and cull out the outliers.

 

But what if heathcare companies start competing on price for computer-aided diagnosis and some recruit Dr Watson's who got their degree from DeVry instead of IBM. Should we only allow IBM grads to work at hospitals?

 

Tomorrow

 

Very misleading article.

Having said that, I'm excited at the prospects of "smarter" technology in a field inundated with data.

 

Quantum computing can't come soon enough.

 

The perils of typing on a tablet.

 

Certain rats and dogs trained to detect the chemistry of active cancer are also better than MDs, FWIW.

It's just very hard for a human being to read images for cancer. I've seen some data of leading pathologists trying to read samples. This is like 50 people and there are usually at *least* 10 pathologists saying "that's not cancer" while 40 say it is.

I'm not knocking medicine, but it's part art, part science for a human trying to figure this out.

 

There are a lot of bad doctors. Always get a 2nd opinion.

 

If there are a lot of them, what's to say the 2nd opinion isn't bad, too?

 

Chess > Cancer

 

how long before watson can perform any surgery when you jump inside his bed.