MIT, Harvard scientists find AI can recognize race from X-rays — and nobody knows how
A doctor can’t tell if somebody is Black, Asian, or white, just by looking at their X-rays. But a computer can, according to a surprising new paper by an international team of scientists, including researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School.
The study found that an artificial intelligence program trained to read X-rays and CT scans could predict a person’s race with 90 percent accuracy. But the scientists who conducted the study say they have no idea how the computer figures it out. ...
At a time when AI software is increasingly used to help doctors make diagnostic decisions, the research raises the unsettling prospect that AI-based diagnostic systems could unintentionally generate racially biased results. For example, an AI (with access to X-rays) could automatically recommend a particular course of treatment for all Black patients, whether or not it’s best for a specific person. Meanwhile, the patient’s human physician wouldn’t know that the AI based its diagnosis on racial data. ...
Perhaps X-rays and CT scanners detect the higher melanin content of darker skin, and embed this information in the digital image in some fashion that human users have never noticed before. It’ll take a lot more research to be sure. ...
In other words, an AI might be able to determine from an X-ray that one person’s ancestors were from northern Europe, another’s from central Africa, and a third person’s from Japan. “You call this race. I call this geographical variation,” said Goodman. ...
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