In focus: The future of artificial intelligence in optics

Research by Moorfields Eye Hospital, DeepMind Health and University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology in 2016 has highlighted that artificial intelligence (AI) can help to identify eye diseases just as accurately as optometrists (Optician, 17.08.18).

Their new system, which is due to start being used in clinical trials soon, was able to recommend the correct referral decision for more than 50 different eye diseases with 94% accuracy. Using two different mathematical systems, the technology can identify features of different eye diseases from OCT scans, before deciding how the patient should then be referred based on the urgency of the recognised conditions. As more than 285 million people worldwide live with a form of sight loss, including more than two million people in the UK, technology on this scale could be the future of optics.