Microsoft has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that it claims is four times better than doctors at diagnosing complex illnesses.
The tech company’s AI diagnosis system was able to correctly identify ailments up to 86pc of the time, compared to just 20pc on average for British and American physicians.
Announcing the findings, Microsoft claimed it had laid the groundwork for “medical superintelligence”.
It comes as Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, is seeking to bring AI into widespread use in the NHS to improve efficiency. In April the NHS waiting list rose for the first time in seven months, reaching 7.42m in a blow to one of the Government’s key pledges to cut waiting times.
Microsoft claimed its system could solve problems more cheaply than doctors – beating physicians even when sticking to a budget for diagnostic tests.
The system, known as Microsoft AI Diagnostic Orchestrator, or MAI-DxO, was tested on 304 cases from the New England Journal of Medicine, a medical journal known for publishing complex medical cases from Massachusetts General Hospital.
The system comprised a virtual panel of five different AI bots, each serving different roles such as “Dr Hypothesiser”, “Dr Test-Chooser” and “Dr Challenger” that would internally deliberate before asking further questions or ordering tests and providing a diagnosis.
In one case, the system diagnosed embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that normally occurs in children, in a 29-year-old woman.
The system was able to diagnose 85.5pc of conditions when paired with the most advanced AI model developed by ChatGPT developer OpenAI and when it had no budget limit on ordering tests.
However, even when it had to stick to a $2,000 (£1,458) budget for tests, it was correct more than 70pc of the time.
The 21 human doctors, who had an average of 12 years’ experience, spent an average of $2,963 on tests.
The average doctor was correct 19.9pc of the time, although they were unable to use textbooks or software to look up information and were generalist physicians, rather than specialists.
Microsoft’s AI tool correctly diagnosed the condition more than half the time even when unable to order any tests, Microsoft said.
‘Complement’ doctors
The researchers said the journal that had provided the cases was behind a paywall and that many were published after the AI system was trained. This ensured that the cases could not have been included in the datasets used to build the AI, and the system had to arrive at the diagnoses itself.
Microsoft’s AI health division is led by Mustafa Suleyman, the British entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind before the lab was acquired by Google. He who moved to Microsoft last year.
The company said it received 50m health queries a day on its Bing search engine and Copilot chatbot, adding: “AI companions are quickly becoming the new front line in healthcare.”
However, it said AI would complement rather than replace medical professionals.
“[Doctors] need to navigate ambiguity and build trust with patients and their families in a way that AI isn’t set up to do,” the company said.
Last week, Mr Streeting unveiled an NHS app that he said would include a chatbot that serves as a “doctor in your pocket”.
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