AI for Cancer Treatment

The National Cancer Center announced November 29 that a project is underway to employ AI to develop  the best cancer treatment. The project targets a full-scale research for arming AI with various data on cancer to find the most appropriate method of cancer treatment for individual cancer patients.

The project is generated by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and a venture corporation PreferredNetworks.

This column has taken up AI and its potentials in the world of Go, and it is fascinating to know the technology is now about to step into the world of medicine - in cancer treatment of all fields. This project reportedly attempts to have AI acquire and integrate full genetic information and MRI image information of each cancer patient via the now familiar method of "deep-learning". The patient can expect the best remedy available for treating his cancer.

The researchers are already in the process of building data to feed in AI, which will hopefully reach the medical setting five years from now.

Director Hiroyuki Mano of the National Cancer Center comments:

"We expect a great deal from the technology of artificial intelligence in the area of medicine. Particularly in the sector of cancer studies, AI is expected to play a major role in genome medicine.

"We intend to develop a medical AI as a crucial step to that end."

No expert on medicine, I can well imagine how AI will eventually bring about an in-depth solution to man's battle with the meanest of ailments. I'm watching this most innovative of technologies displaying godly skills as much in the world of medicine as in that of the game of Go.

I'm fantasizing a day in the near future when an AI-generated robot arrives to keep me company - with his extensive knowledge of human cultures. What a fun it will be to be chatting with such a knowledgeable chunk of metals! (Nathan Shiga)