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AI-powered medical devices must be tested in real-world settings

@ Nature this week calls out lack of real world data for AI medical algorithms.

AI-powered medical devices that inform clinical decision-making need rigorous, real-world testing equivalent to what’s required for drugs and self-driving cars.

- Since ChatGPT’s release in late 2022, generative AI has flooded into clinics rapidly — roughly 3 peer-reviewed articles on clinical AI publish every day, and 230+ million people weekly ask ChatGPT health questions.

- AI systems now handle admin tasks, order labs, help prescribe drugs, interpret X-rays/MRI/CT scans, and diagnose rare diseases.

- But regulatory oversight lags: some AI-powered medical products are being certified *without* real-world assessment.

Why current testing falls short:

- Most AI tools are novel, so there’s little existing clinical data to benchmark against (unlike a revised stethoscope or new bandage).

Continue reading “AI-powered medical devices must be tested in real-world settings” | >

“Targeting Individual Mutations Will Likely Never Cure Cancer”—Viewing Cancer as a Quantum Disease

Rather than focusing solely on mutations, Dr. Califano proposes that cancers consist of a limited number of cell states. Targeting all states simultaneously could help prevent drug resistance and transform precision oncology.

Pancreatic Cancer Disappears in Mice After New mRNA Immunotherapy

Pancreatic tumors vanished in roughly half of mice given an experimental mRNA therapy and did not return for up to a year after treatment stopped.

Researchers at UMass Chan Medical School developed an experimental treatment for pancreatic cancer that uses a cocktail of messenger RNAs (mRNA) to activate immune defenses, break through the protective tissue surrounding tumors, and help immune cells recognize cancer cells as threats. Inspired by work at the school’s RNA Therapeutics Institute and advances in COVID vaccines, the approach combines several immune signals and tumor-associated antigens in a single formulation.

The study, published in Nature Communications, combined mRNAs encoding five immune cytokines with three tumor-associated antigens in one injectable treatment. Approximately 50 percent of mice with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma experienced complete tumor regression and remained disease-free for a year, including after therapy was discontinued.

Can a machine or AI agent be surprised? Helping autonomous systems respond to the unexpected

Let’s say you ask ChatGPT a question that stumps it, or a Waymo vehicle encounters something unusual in the road, or an autonomous factory faces an unexpected disruption. Most people would recognize that something unexpected has happened and adjust accordingly. For machines, it’s not always that simple.

Researchers at Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) are addressing this challenge: How can autonomous systems recognize when something unexpected has happened, determine whether it matters and decide how to respond?

In a recent paper published in the INFORMS Journal on Data Science, the research team introduced a new framework called Mutual Information Surprise, designed to help machines identify meaningful surprises in complex environments.

David Wood on the Singularity Principles

Seven weeks before ChatGPT launched, David Wood sat down with me for two hours to make a case few wanted to hear: we are losing control of our technology.

That was October 2022. #AIAlignment was still a niche concern. Now it’s dinner table conversation.

David co-founded Symbian and helped put smartphones into billions of pockets. Then he spent years asking a harder question: what happens when our power grows faster than our wisdom? The Singularity Principles is his attempt at an answer.

We went places I didn’t expect. Why the proactionary principle falls short. What “Demi Moore’s Law” is (yes, really). And what he sees as the single greatest danger to humanity, which is not the one most people would guess.

He also gave me the cleanest definition of the #Singularity I have heard: the profound change in the human condition triggered by the advent of greater-than-human intelligence.

Rewatching it four years later, a couple of his warnings land very differently. One of them made me uncomfortable.

Continue reading “David Wood on the Singularity Principles” | >

Sustainable memristors from shiitake mycelium for high-frequency bioelectronics

Neuromorphic computing, inspired by the structure of the brain, offers advantages in parallel processing, memory storage, and energy efficiency. However, current semiconductor-based neuromorphic chips require rare-earth materials and costly fabrication processes, whereas neural organoids need complex bioreactor maintenance. In this study, we explored shiitake (Lentinula edodes) fungi as a robust, sustainable alternative, exploiting its adaptive electrical signaling, which is akin to neuronal spiking. We demonstrate fungal computing via mycelial networks interfaced with electrodes, showing that fungal memristors can be grown, trained, and preserved through dehydration, retaining functionality at frequencies up to 5.85 kHz, with an accuracy of 90 ± 1%. Notably, shiitake has exhibited radiation resistance, suggesting its viability for aerospace applications. Our findings show that fungal computers can provide scalable, eco-friendly platforms for neuromorphic tasks, bridging bioelectronics and unconventional computing.

Citation: LaRocco J, Tahmina Q, Petreaca R, Simonis J, Hill J (2025) Sustainable memristors from shiitake mycelium for high-frequency bioelectronics. PLoS One 20(10): e0328965. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.

Editor: Ye Zhou, Shenzhen University, HONG KONG

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