New research out of Germany has found artificial intelligence was slightly better at detecting skin cancer, compared to doctors.

A machine was fed more than 100,000 images of different skin cancers teaching it to distinguish high risk from low risk marks.

Victoria University associate professor Will Browne told Kate Hawkesby the system is working at about 80 percent.

He says doctors who'd been training for five years were better than the AI but those with less than two years experience were slightly worse than the AI.

"So it's going to actually help oncologists to get better and predicting health and actually help realise what they are missing, and it will become a tool that they'll use."

Browne says the study then added what happens when you take into account things like family history and how people are feeling.

"And when you added in these factors, the human operators actually improved a lot, whereas the AI didn't change at all. The ability to actually have a human conversation is really important."

Browne says the AI couldn't touch and feel the melanomas and lumps, which is very important for a doctor.

He says he would be surprised if the technology replaced humans completely.

 

LISTEN TO WILL BROWNE TALK WITH KATE HAWKESBY ABOVE