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Hospital System Cuts Surgery Costs; How Google Interferes With Its Search Results; Businesses Feel AI Urgency
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The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Murray, Utah, is part of the Intermountain Healthcare system. PHOTO: INTERMOUNTAIN HEALTHCARE
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Hospital system uses AI to boost surgery outcomes, cut costs. A homegrown artificial-intelligence system has helped Intermountain Healthcare improve the results of its surgeries, while also eliminating more than $90 million in costs over the past four years, reports Elliot Kass for WSJ Pro AI.
The network of 22 hospitals and 180 clinics in Utah had determined that by reducing variations in how surgeons perform common procedures like knee surgery, the hospital system could save tens of millions of dollars. But persuading a surgeon to modify a procedure isn't easy.
To get the surgeons on board, Intermountain knew it would need to show them data that accounted for differences among patients and the type of surgery being performed. Taking up the challenge, a group of Intermountain engineers developed an AI system that could evaluate large volumes of clinical information in a fraction of the time it would take a human. Members of Intermountain’s IT group then developed dashboards that gave surgeons access to the richer data sets, allowing them to compare their costs and outcomes with those of their peers.
Using the dashboards, surgeons began holding weekly meetings to review the AI data and share best practices. The AI program would assign a risk score for each procedure.
The result: new protocols that have reduced the number of postoperative complications and have driven down the cost of knee and hip replacements.
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A Google building in Mountain View, Calif. PHOTO: JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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How Google interferes with its search algorithms and changes your results. Almost 4 million queries are typed every day into Google, prompting its algorithms to spit out results for hotel rates or breast-cancer treatments or the latest news about President Trump. Google executives have said repeatedly the algorithms are objective and essentially autonomous, unsullied by human biases or business considerations.
But a WSJ investigation has found that message often clashes with what happens behind the scenes. Over time, Google has increasingly re-engineered and interfered with search results by using blacklists, pushing its preferred results and editing autofill responses. Those actions often come in response to pressure from businesses, outside interest groups and governments around the world. They have increased sharply since the 2016 election and the rise of online misinformation, the Journal reports.
Google’s evolving approach marks a shift from its founding philosophy of “organizing the world’s information,” to one that is far more active in deciding how that information should appear.
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Business leaders feel sense of AI urgency. Business leaders have developed a sense of urgency around artificial intelligence, according to a pair of reports. Seventy-five percent of executives say their companies might go out of business in the next five years if they are unable to scale AI, according to Fortune, which based its report on an Accenture survey of 1,500 C-suite executives. And ZDNet reports that a FIS study, which the software company based on a poll of 600 business leaders
around the world, found executives across industries saying AI will be critical to their company’s near-term success. However, the executives have their work cut out for them. Fortune adds that the Accenture survey found that 76% of respondents are struggling with wide AI adoption.
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Internet portal Yahoo Japan and chat app Line agreed to merge in a deal aimed at creating “one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence technology companies,” applying AI to online marketing, e-commerce and digital payments. (WSJ)
Microsoft hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to perform an audit of AnyVision, a facial-recognition company in which Microsoft’s VC arm has invested, to see if it’s complying with Microsoft’s ethical principles. (CNBC)
Daimler has taken a “reality check” on robotaxis, with its CEO acknowledging that making the vehicles safe is proving harder than it originally thought. (Reuters)
Researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette created an AI model that can predict the occurrence of seizures up to an hour before they occur. (IEEE Spectrum)
Faulty algorithms and skewed data are among the factors that can put AI security systems at risk, according to an IBM Security VP. (Fast Company)
Government agencies are more open to exploring the benefits of AI, from manual-task automation to advanced data mining. (Nextgov)
AMP Robotics Corp., a provider of artificial intelligence and robotics for the recycling industry, raised $16 million in Series A financing. (WSJ)
X-37 LLC, an artificial intelligence-enabled drug developer, closed a $14.5 million Series A round. (WSJ)
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“The U.S. still has the lead on R&D in AI, but China is catching up with the tech titans in AI as well as numerous well-funded startups such as Face++, Sensetime and iFlytek.”
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—Rebecca Fannin, the author of “Tech Titans of China,” to CNBC.
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