UK hospitals are planning to use artificial intelligence for some routine healthcare tasks, Mark Zuckerberg testifies in front of European Parliament, and Tesla’s new Model 3 fails reviews.
First up from Reddit is news that one of the UK’s biggest hospitals is planning on turning to AI to carry out tasks traditionally performed by doctors and nurses. The University College London Hospitals, or UCLH, has begun a three-year partnership with the Alan Turing Institute for what it calls a ‘machine learning revolution’. AI will be able to do things like diagnosing cancer from CT scans, deciding which patients should be seen first, and eventually send appointment reminder texts. It will focus on improving the hospital’s accident and emergency department first. UCLH will be investing a substantial but unspecified amount and believes AI can provide new ways of diagnosing diseases, identifying people at risk of certain illness, and be a better use of resources overall. The hospital says doctors and nurses will never be replaced, but in theory down the road, they could be more effectively deployed in a ward system, just like how Uber drivers gravitate towards locations with the highest demand at certain times of the day.
Next up from Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was in Brussels on Tuesday to face questions from senior European politicians about his company’s failures in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He apologized for the incident and for Facebook’s part in fake news, foreign interference in elections, and developer misuse of information, while pointing out features like the safety check-in tool have been very useful in the continent during recent terrorist attacks. He recommitted to Europe and promised to become a more positive force in the region. Zuckerberg appeared before US lawmakers last month to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica disaster, but has so far refused to appear before British Parliament and the Canadian House of Commons.
And lastly from LinkedIn, the much-anticipated Tesla Model 3 has not gotten a seal of approval by Consumer Reports, one of the largest product testing magazines in the world. Consumer Reports says it’s “disappointed in several key areas”, like the Model 3’s weak and inconsistent braking, loud wind noise when on the highway, and how most tasks rely on the central touchscreen on the dash. All of this comes after Consumer Reports called the Model 3’s older sibling, the Model S, one of the best cars it had ever tested. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has admitted there are problems with the Model 3’s braking software and Consumer Reports has said it will retest the car once they are fixed.
