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257

Mole or cancer? The algorithm that gets one in three melanomas wrong and erases patients with dark skin (civio.es)

submitted 3 days ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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The Basque Country is implementing Quantus Skin in its health clinics after an investment of 1.6 million euros. Specialists criticise the artificial intelligence developed by the Asisa subsidiary due to its "poor” and “dangerous" results. The algorithm has been trained only with data from white patients.

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[+] Hardeehar@lemmy.world -7 points 3 days ago (23 children)

It's still not racism. The article itself says there is a lack of diversity in the training data. Training data will consist of 100% "obvious" pictures of skin cancers which is most books and online images I've looked into seems to be majority fair skinned individuals.

"...such algorithms perform worse on black people, which is not due to technical problems, but to a lack of diversity in the training data..."

Calling out things as racist really works to mask what a useful tool this could be to help screen for skin cancers.

[–] xorollo@leminal.space 21 points 3 days ago (20 children)

Why is there a lack of robust training data across skin colors? Could it be that people with darker skin colors have less access to cutting edge medical care and research studies? Would be pretty racist.

There is a similar bias in medical literature for genders. Many studies only consider males. That is sexist.

[–] stephen01king@lemmy.zip -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, it does make it racist, but which party is performing the racist act? The AI, the AI trainer, the data collector, or the system that prioritises white patients? That's the important distinction that simply calling it racist fails to address.

[–] xorollo@leminal.space 1 points 3 days ago

There is a more specific word for it: Institutional racism.

Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of institutional discrimination based on race or ethnic group and can include policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healthcare, education and political representation.[1]

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