Tech news - summer 2024

2 August 2024
Summer 2024

A glance at what’s happening in the world of technology.

© Science Photo Library

1. Chatbot outperforms humans treating glaucoma patients

In a new study, artificial intelligence (AI) outperformed glaucoma specialists and matched retina specialists in diagnostic and treatment accuracy.

The study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, compared a large language model (LLM) chatbot’s responses with those of eye specialists. In 2023, ChatGPT-4 was used as a medical assistant in New York eye clinics to answer glaucoma and retina questions, as well as in de-identified glaucoma and retinal cases.

The combined question-case mean rank for accuracy was 506.2 for the LLM chatbot and 403.4 for glaucoma specialists. Researchers concluded that their findings support the possibility that AI tools could play a pivotal role as both diagnostic and therapeutic adjuncts.

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Related further reading

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of irreversible sight loss in the UK and affects over one million people, which is predicted to rise by 100,000 cases to 1.145 million people by 2030*.

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