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Facebook AI Medicine Software

Facebook Wants To Use Machine Learning To Make MRIs Faster 67

Facebook believes they can use machine learning to speed up magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Computer scientists from the social networking site are working with New York University's medical school on the project. CNNMoney reports: NYU is providing an anonymous dataset of 10,000 MRI exams, a trove that will include as many as three million images of knees, brains and livers. Researchers will use the data to train an algorithm, using a method called deep learning, to recognize the arrangement of bones, muscles, ligaments, and other things that make up the human body. Building this knowledge into the software that powers an MRI machine will allow the AI to create a portion of the image, saving time. Making the tests faster would allow radiologists to perform a wider variety of tests.
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Facebook Wants To Use Machine Learning To Make MRIs Faster

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    It will probably misdiagnose the conservative ones...
  • While the use of a "legacy system" is a bad thing, the NFC tags inside the badges could be easily read. One vendor offered a free RFID wallet for passersby, who yes, had their badges scanned.

    Unusually, the name tag didn't have embedded NFC, rather, an additional tag was used. Remove the tag, and no NFC read.

    But the UBM contractor who screwed up.... is a Black Spot on their event.

  • Am I the only one reading this as "It will speed up the imaging by using CGI to fake part of the image"?
    • by TFlan91 ( 2615727 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @03:51PM (#57176472)

      No, this idea is dead on arrival.

      As a patient, if I discovered my doctor was using a "best guess" image, which let's face it, that is what this is, I would transfer hospitals instantly.

      • by OtisSnerd ( 600854 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @04:02PM (#57176522)

        No, this idea is dead on arrival.

        As a patient, if I discovered my doctor was using a "best guess" image, which let's face it, that is what this is, I would transfer hospitals instantly.

        Having had a brain MRI a couple of months ago to rule out a tumor causing the nerve problem with my right eye, I completely agree with you. The Ophthalmologist I went to first set it up, and the imaging people then reported no tumor or other problems found. My Ophthalmologist then sent me to see a Neuro-Ophthalmologist at Jefferson University Hospital, where they in turn did their own evaluation of the image, just to make absolutely sure that it had been read correctly the first time. While the eye problem (right eye outside muscle isn't working, there's a blood clot in the vein that feeds the nerve) is annoying with a turned inwards right eye, it's really nice to know that I don't have any tumors or other bad problems in my brain.

      • If Facebook is involved, it already is a bad idea and anything could go wrong.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @03:51PM (#57176476) Journal
      In any case I really wish FB would stay the f*ck away from MRIs or anything medical, really.
      • Yeah, I want to know what their ulterior motives are in this enterprise. I don't buy it being solely for "opportunities to license AI software to hospitals" for a second.

    • by daenris ( 892027 )
      Yeah, that's pretty much how I read it too.

      What could possibly go wrong... https://www.theregister.co.uk/... [theregister.co.uk]
    • by mikael ( 484 )

      Nvidia were using neural networks to help denoise the use of monte-carlo methods to implement global illumination methods in ray-tracing. Normally, the resulting image will look a bit grainy like classic film movies. But using the DNN, they get to keep texture detail while removing the noise.
      They've had similar successes with modelling CFD. Using DNN they were able to get vast speedups while improving accuracy over classic Navier-Stokes equations. That suggests there is some other mathematical model that sh

    • +1 If the portion of the image the AI is "allowed to create" happens to have key diagnostic information, you lose. The whole point of getting an MRI is to spot unusual data. Also, most people going to a hospital have some sort of problem, so the data the AI "creates" could easily show abnormalities that aren't really there. So FB is not only giving people fake news, now it's giving both false positive and false negative medical tests. They should hire Elizabeth Holmes to direct this program.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Vagina, pussy, snatch, etc are overly gender specific. Please use the term "front hole".

    Sincerely,
    State of California

  • by Anonymous Coward
    You want faster scans? Write normal software that is better or use faster hardware. AI is SHIT and should not be trusted. An MRI should show the ACTUAL SCAN DATA not some made-up crap by some shitty fake-ass excuse for AI.
  • by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @03:51PM (#57176474)
    By using the Facebook MRI Scanning Technology, you agree that your MRI scan will be posted to your Timeline once the scan is complete. You also agree that Facebook may retain a copy of the scan for future use and we may share it with our business partners and affiliated companies for educational and marketing purposes. Or you can opt-out, and possibly die. Do you agree?
    • "Would you like to tag someone in this photo?" Facebook asks as it displays an MRI with an arrow pointing to something the AI identified. Next step, CAPTCHA codes asking you to click until all of the MRI scans showing malignant growths are gone.
    • By using the Facebook MRI Scanning Technology, you agree that your MRI scan will be posted to your Timeline once the scan is complete.

      Got cancer :(

      [37 people liked this]

  • I did RTFA and I understand their motivation, but is anyone else annoyed that a medical university has to go to a company like facebook to find a critical mass of machine learning experts to help advance medical technology? That's not facebook's core business. Bless them for planning to open source the results, but... I also can't help feeling like the only reason this article is on /. is because facebook is in the headline. Would it be news if NYU was using their own CS department for this project?
    • Anytime anyone wants to train an AI system its always medical images. I did this as my undergrad final year project almost 20 years back. Sure the algos are probably better now but there is something about Medical Images which makes it satisfying for young idealist students to use for their project. Once the algo is perfected it can also be used for Face detection in kegger pictures.
      Facebook has a big problem. The govt is asking them to police offensive images. They cannot hire enough humans to do it so the

    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      CS departments and research IT are woefully underfunded. Partnering up with a big company is the new business model for funding research, whether it's nVidia, Microsoft or Facebook, they all are competing to get into modern research by giving away valuable resources (eg. cloud computing and physical hardware) to be able to get their hands on the datasets.

  • by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @04:18PM (#57176604)
    How is Facebook making money off of this
    They will not do ANYTHING out of the goodness of their (lack) of heart.
    • It's probably a PR stunt. "Look at us, we're helping humanity out of the goodness of our hearts!". Right up there with a child-abusing parent buying the kid a toy or a treat afterwards.
  • ... and it didn't turn out well.

    I worked for Mobil Oil.

    They made so much money, they had a cash store (ca. 1986) that was obscene and the shareholders wanted them to do something with it that would make more money.

    Mobil bought out an insurance company, went self-insured, and sold policies to any and all.

    They also went into the land-grabbing business and built Reston, Va. from the ground up.

    They bought Montgomery Ward, too.

    They folded shortly after I retired from there.

    --

    When companies step away from their c

  • What do MRI algorithms have to do with social media?
  • Stick to what you're good at, Zuck - being a creepy fucking cunt.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Every MR protocol is an engineering protocol that balances resolution (voxel size), signal-to-noise, field of view, and scanning time. If you increase resolution, you generally have to decrease your field of view, decrease SNR, or increase your scanning time. It's easy to make a 6 second scan - in fact, we do it every time we scan with what's called a localizer - a wide FOV, low resolution image that the techs use to orient the diagnostic images to be acquired. The localizer is not diagnostic, but I've caug

  • This idea isn't new - compressed sensing was pioneered in MRI a decade ago - sounds like these guys are amateurs...

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

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