Artificial intelligence has long been improving diagnoses

BARBARA had a routine mammogram in January 2023. A few weeks later she was asked to visit her doctor in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, in Scotland. The mammogram had looked fine to two doctors, but an AI system called Mia had seen something amiss: a six-millimetre patch of subtly-off shades of grey. It was stage 2 cancer. Had it not been spotted at that point and removed, it would not have been caught until Barbara came in for her next routine screen—or until it made its presence known in some other way.