[binarymax]

Totally agree. Applying existing ML/"AI" to treating cancer is extremely misguided, and IMO dangerous and unethical.

ML performs very well for specific well defined tasks that have an obvious outcome and are highly narrow in scope.

Cancer is a disease that we can't even treat ourselves in many cases. It requires a great deal of creativity and critical thinking to reach solutions on a case by case basis. Who is so arrogant they thought this should be replaced by a bunch of overhyped software?

[ballenf]

There has long been a calculus of using more risky or long shot treatments for the more deadly or hopeless diseases. Certain types of cancer are essentially death sentences.

Maybe it's counterintuitive, but it makes a lot more sense to use ML for cancer than say a broken arm. There are so many systems interacting in cancer that affect its progression that humans really are at there limits in trying to understand them.

And as others have said, no one is letting Baymax loose in the oncology ward and firing all the doctors. This is just one more tool in a doc's tool belt -- and far from the only that will give misleading results.

[ntsplnkv2]

> There are so many systems interacting in cancer that affect its progression that humans really are at there limits in trying to understand them.

Bacterial infections also have a ridiculous amount of systems involved and yet that was figured out by humans.

I don't see how ML helps with cancer at all right now. The problem isn't the amount of data. It's the quality of it.

[deviationblue]

It's not dangerous and unethical if humans are there to pass final judgment on the answers. I was saying we can get to point where we might not even need that. This technology is in development, it has a lot of potential it can, will possibly, reach. Stories like these are good for caution, but doesn't mean we shouldn't use these tool there.