Artificial intelligence in surgical pathology

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is machine intelligence that mimics human cognitive function. It denotes the intelligence presented by some artificial entities including computers and robots.  In supervised learning, a machine is trained with data that contain pairs of inputs and outputs. In unsupervised learning, machines are given data inputs that are not explicitly programmed.1 Machine learning refines a model that predicts outputs using sample inputs (features) and a feedback loop. It relies heavily on extracting or selecting salient features, which is a combination of art and science (“feature engineering”).  A subset of feature learning is deep learning, which harnesses neural networks modeled after the biological nervous system of animals. Deep learning discovers the features from the raw data provided during training. Hidden layers in the artificial neural network represent increasingly more complex features in the data. Convolutional neural network is a type of deep learning commonly used for image analysis.