Google, AI and skin diseases
Artificial intelligence, voice recognition and automatic transcription are increasingly present in the medical field. Google, Apple, Siri, all the major web players are putting their know-how at the service of people with disabilities or suffering from various pathologies. Today, the developments around artificial intelligence – or AI – are such that Google is even contributing to dermatology, to deal with skin diseases. Ready to read about the contributions of artificial intelligence in this specific medical part? What is Google’s latest innovation in this field? Here we go!
Dermatology, skin diseases and artificial intelligence
To begin with, what is dermatology? Briefly, according to elsan.care, it is the « medical specialty concerned with the study of the skin, hair and nails, and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting them ». All skin, hair and nail diseases are varied and occur at all ages.
Today, technology is coming to the aid of traditional specialist medicine. Indeed, according to the presse-citron.net, Google has recently presented an « AI capable of identifying skin diseases on photos ». This could be a real change for people with dermatological problems and skin diseases all over the world…! A huge time saver for individuals and professionals in the field!
In fact, the company Google is very advanced in artificial intelligence in 2021. Regularly, the web giant releases new features based on AI. Recently, during the I/O conference, Google’s announcement made some noise. In concrete terms, when they have a health, skin or other problem, the first reflex of many users is now to search for it on Google. To help users, Google highlights authoritative sources – which is very important in health!
In addition to highlighting real solutions to this issue, Google is now going one step further.
An application to recognise and counter skin diseases
Google has been working on an application called « Derm Assist » which allows users to photograph their skin to recognize and counter certain diseases. This is a considerable leap forward in this area! This is now possible not only thanks to Google’s studies, but also thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and computer vision.
According to Google itself, each year there are « nearly 10 billion Google searches related to skin, nail and hair problems ». Furthermore, while « 2 billion people worldwide suffer from dermatological problems, there is a global shortage of specialists » … So, after a search on the search engine, Google provides an additional solution to a problem that can be difficult to describe.
This Google application, which recognises and fights skin diseases, could arrive in Europe before the end of 2021. According to lesechos.fr, until now, Google « used image recognition to classify images, analyse them […]. With Derm Assist, the user takes three photos of their skin problem and answers a series of questions ». Questions about their skin type, history and symptoms. The AI analyses the data and suggests pathologies and associated treatments.
Derm Assist: supporting dermatologists
This saves a lot of time, but does not replace a consultation with a human doctor, a dermatologist.
As Karen DeSalvo from Google puts it, with this tool, the company hopes « rather that it will give you access to authoritative information so that you can make a more informed decision about your next step ». Also, that the patient doesn’t do anything wrong before getting a medical appointment, a treatment.
The opinion of the dermatologist is still crucial to make a true diagnosis. Especially as the skin is a truly fragile element and not all individuals react in the same way.
By the way, if you want to know more about this subject, you should know that from 14 to 18 June 2021 is the week of skin cancer screening in France.
How Google’s Derm Assist works
As its name suggests, Google’s Derm Assist is an assistant based on artificial intelligence in dermatology.
The way it works is simple, the application is both a first visual « look » and a comparator. Indeed, according to sciencepost.fr, trained on a « set of 288 diseases, the tool will then propose a possible diagnosis. The model naturally takes into account factors such as age, skin type, but also gender and origin when suggesting possible diseases.
The application has trained on more than a thousand images of skin problems, from a large panel of patients. The results are quite satisfactory, as in 84% of cases, the Google application manages to correctly identify the skin disease in question.
However, in order to further improve Derm Assist and save time for medical professionals, Google will soon be working alongside researchers from Stanford University in the US.
Google’s AI already recognised for its results in dermatology
In the European Union, Google has received Class I medical device recognition for the tool – meaning it carries little risk. For the time being, Derm Assist has not yet been officially evaluated by the US National Health Administration.
In Uncle Sam’s country, however, the tool, which is the result of more than 3 years of research and development, has already been praised in numerous magazines by scientists. In fact, Google’s system reaches the level of precision of qualified dermatologists in the United States.
In short, there is no doubt that this AI-based application from Google is a real breakthrough in terms of technology and time saving for professionals and patients alike! At Authôt, we are also very attentive to developments in artificial intelligence, particularly for uses in automatic speech recognition.
To find out more about Authôt Live and/or Authôt APP, do not hesitate to contact us in order to discuss your problems related to speech recognition, whatever your sector of activity.
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