Most dermatology algorithms dont have transparent data

Most algorithms designed to help people identify skin problems don’t let experts see the datasets they were developed with and don’t share information on the skin tone or ethnicity of the patients in those datasets, according to a new review. That could make it hard for people to evaluate the programs before using them and to understand if they might not work as well for certain groups of people, the authors argue.

These types of tools use pictures of skin conditions to teach a system to recognize those same conditions in new images. Someone could upload a picture of a rash or mole, and the tool would be able to tell what type of rash or mole it was.

The paper, published in JAMA Dermatology, analyzed 70 studies that either developed a...

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