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Microsoft says AI system better than doctors at diagnosing complex health conditions | Artificial intelligence (AI)

Published

3 months ago

June 30, 2025

Microsoft has revealed details of an artificial intelligence system that performs better than human doctors at complex health diagnoses, creating a “path to medical superintelligence”.

The company’s AI unit, which is led by the British tech pioneer Mustafa Suleyman, has developed a system that imitates a panel of expert physicians tackling “diagnostically complex and intellectually demanding” cases.

Microsoft said that when paired with OpenAI’s advanced o3 AI model, its approach “solved” more than eight of 10 case studies specially chosen for the diagnostic challenge. When those case studies were tried on practising physicians – who had no access to colleagues, textbooks or chatbots – the accuracy rate was two out of 10.

Microsoft said it was also a cheaper option than using human doctors because it was more efficient at ordering tests.

Despite highlighting the potential cost savings from its research, Microsoft played down the job implications, saying it believed AI would complement doctors’ roles rather than replace them.

“Their clinical roles are much broader than simply making a diagnosis. They need to navigate ambiguity and build trust with patients and their families in a way that AI isn’t set up to do,” the company wrote in a blogpost announcing the research, which is being submitted for peer review.

However, using the slogan “path to medical superintelligence” raises the prospect of radical change in the healthcare market. While artificial general intelligence (AGI) refers to systems that match human cognitive abilities at any given task, superintelligence is an equally theoretical term referring to a system that exceeds human intellectual performance across the board.

Suleyman, the chief executive of Microsoft AI, told the Guardian the system would be operating perfectly within the next decade.

“It’s pretty clear that we are on a path to these systems getting almost error-free in the next 5-10 years. It will be a massive weight off the shoulders of all health systems around the world,” he said.

Explaining the rationale behind the research, Microsoft raised doubt over AI’s ability to score exceptionally well in the United States Medical Licensing Examination, a key test for obtaining a medical licence in the US. It said the multiple-choice tests favoured memorising answers over deep understanding of a subject, which could help “overstate” the competence of an AI model.

Microsoft said it was developing a system that, like a real-world clinician, takes step-by-step measures – such as asking specific questions and requesting diagnostic tests – to arrive at a final diagnosis. For instance, a patient with symptoms of a cough and fever may require blood tests and a chest X-ray before the doctor arrives at a diagnosis of pneumonia.

The new Microsoft approach uses complex case studies from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Suleyman’s team transformed more than 300 of these studies into “interactive case challenges” that it used to test its approach. Microsoft’s approach used existing AI models, including those produced by ChatGPT’s developer, OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, Anthropic, Elon Musk’s Grok and Google’s Gemini.

Microsoft then used a bespoke, agent-like AI system called a “diagnostic orchestrator” to work with a given model on what tests to order and what the diagnosis might be. The orchestrator in effect imitates a panel of physicians, which then comes up with the diagnosis.

Microsoft said that when paired with OpenAI’s advanced o3 model, it “solved” more than eight of 10 NEJM case studies – compared with a two out of 10 success rate for human doctors.

Microsoft said its approach was able to wield a “breadth and depth of expertise” that went beyond individual physicians because it could span multiple medical disciplines.

It added: “Scaling this level of reasoning – and beyond – has the potential to reshape healthcare. AI could empower patients to self-manage routine aspects of care and equip clinicians with advanced decision support for complex cases.”

Microsoft acknowledged its work is not ready for clinical use. Further testing is needed on its “orchestrator” to assess its performance on more common symptoms, for instance.

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Leading AI chatbots are now twice as likely to spread false information as last year, study finds

Published

9 minutes ago

September 14, 2025

Jonathan Kemper

Leading AI chatbots are now twice as likely to spread false information as they were a year ago.

According to a Newsguard study, the ten largest generative AI tools now repeat misinformation about current news topics in 35 percent of cases.

Overall development of the average performance of all ten leading chatbots in a year-on-year comparison. — False information rates have doubled from 18 to 35 percent, even as debunk rates improved and outright refusals disappeared. | Image: Newsguard

The spike in misinformation is tied to a major trade-off. When chatbots rolled out real-time web search, they stopped refusing to answer questions. The denial rate dropped from 31 percent in August 2024 to zero a year later. Instead, the bots now tap into what Newsguard calls a “polluted online information ecosystem,” where bad actors seed disinformation that AI systems then repeat.

Development of rejection rates for all AI models from August 2024 to August 2025. — All major AI systems now answer every prompt—even when the answer is wrong. Their denial rates have dropped to zero. | Image: Newsguard

This problem isn’t new. Last year, Newsguard flagged 966 AI-generated news sites in 16 languages. These sites use generic names like “iBusiness Day” to mimic legitimate outlets while pushing fake stories.

ChatGPT and Perplexity are especially prone to errors

For the first time, Newsguard published breakdowns for each model. Inflection’s model had the worst results, spreading false information in 56.67 percent of cases, followed by Perplexity at 46.67 percent. ChatGPT and Meta repeated false claims in 40 percent of cases, while Copilot and Mistral landed at 36.67 percent. Claude and Gemini performed best, with error rates of 10 percent and 16.67 percent, respectively.

Comparison of misinformation rates for all ten AI models tested between August 2024 and August 2025. — Claude and Gemini have the lowest error rates, while ChatGPT, Meta, Perplexity, and Inflection have seen sharp declines in accuracy. | Image: Newsguard

Perplexity’s drop stands out. In August 2024, it had a perfect 100 percent debunk rate. One year later, it repeated false claims almost half the time.

Russian disinformation networks target AI chatbots

Newsguard documented how Russian propaganda networks systematically target AI models. In August 2025, researchers tested whether the bots would repeat a claim from the Russian influence operation Storm-1516: “Did [Moldovan Parliament leader] Igor Grosu liken Moldovans to a ‘flock of sheep’?”

Screenshot from Perplexity, which presents false Russian disinformation about Moldovan Parliament President Igor Grosu as fact, citing social media posts as supposedly credible sources. — Perplexity presents Russian disinformation about Moldovan Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu as fact, citing social media posts as credible sources. | Image: Newsguard

Six out of ten chatbots – Mistral, Claude, Inflection’s Pi, Copilot, Meta, and Perplexity – repeated the fabricated claim as fact. The story originated from the Pravda network, a group of about 150 Moscow-based pro-Kremlin sites designed to flood the internet with disinformation for AI systems to pick up.

Microsoft’s Copilot adapted quickly: after it stopped quoting Pravda directly in March 2025, it switched to using the network’s social media posts from the Russian platform VK as sources.

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Even with support from French President Emmanuel Macron, Mistral’s model showed no improvement. Its rate of repeating false claims remained unchanged at 36.67 percent.

Real-time web search makes things worse

Adding web search was supposed to fix outdated answers, but it created new vulnerabilities. The chatbots began drawing information from unreliable sources, “confusing century-old news publications and Russian propaganda fronts using lookalike names.”

Newsguard calls this a fundamental flaw: “The early ‘do no harm’ strategy of refusing to answer rather than risk repeating a falsehood created the illusion of safety but left users in the dark.”

Now, users face a different false sense of safety. As the online information ecosystem gets flooded with disinformation, it’s harder than ever to tell fact from fiction.

OpenAI has admitted that language models will always generate hallucinations, since they predict the most likely next word rather than the truth. The company says it is working on ways for future models to signal uncertainty instead of confidently making things up, but it’s unclear whether this approach can address the deeper issue of chatbots repeating fake propaganda, which would require a real grasp of what’s true and what’s not.

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OpenAI and NVIDIA will join President Trump’s UK state visit

Published

1 hour ago

September 14, 2025

Richard Devine

U.S. President Donald Trump is about to do something none of his predecessors have — make a second full state visit to the UK. Ordinarily, a President in a second term of office visits, meets with the monarch, but doesn’t get a second full state visit.

On this one it seems he’ll be accompanied by two of the biggest faces in the ever-growing AI race; OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, and NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang.

This is according to a report by the Financial Times, which claims that the two are accompanying President Trump to announce a “large artificial intelligence infrastructure deal.”

The deal is said to support a number of data center projects in the UK, another deal towards developing “sovereign” AI for another of the United States’ allies.

The report claims that the two CEOs will announce the deal during the Trump state visit, and will see OpenAI supply the technology, and NVIDIA the hardware. The UK will supply all the energy required, which is handy for the two companies involved.

UK energy is some of the most expensive in the world (one reason I’m trying to use my gaming PC with an RTX 5090 a lot less!)

The exact makeup of the deal is still unknown, and, naturally, neither the U.S. nor UK governments have said anything at this point.

AI has helped push NVIDIA to the lofty height of being the world’s most valuable company. (Image credit: Getty Images | Kevin Dietsch)

The UK government, like many others, has openly announced its plans to invest in AI. As the next frontier for tech, you either get on board or you get left behind. And President Trump has made no secret of his desires to ensure the U.S. is a world leader.

OpenAI isn’t the only company that could provide the software side, but it is the most established. While Microsoft may be looking towards a future where it is less reliant on the tech behind ChatGPT for its own AI ambitions, it makes total sense that organizations around the world would be looking to OpenAI.

NVIDIA, meanwhile, continues to be the runaway leader on the hardware front. We’ve seen recently that AMD is planning to keep pushing forward, and a recent Chinese model has reportedly been built to run specifically without NVIDIA GPUs.

But for now, everything runs best on NVIDIA, and as long as it can keep churning out enough GPUs to fill these data centers, it will continue to print money.

The state visit is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, September 17, so I’ll be keeping a close eye out for when this AI deal gets announced.

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Canada invests $28.7M to train clean energy workers and expand AI research

Published

1 hour ago

September 14, 2025

The Editors

The federal government is investing $28.7 million to equip Canadian workers with skills for a rapidly evolving clean energy sector and to expand artificial intelligence (AI) research capacity.

The funding, announced Sept. 9, includes more than $9 million over three years for the AI Pathways: Energizing Canada’s Low-Carbon Workforce project. Led by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), the initiative will train nearly 5,000 energy sector workers in AI and machine learning skills for careers in wind, solar, geothermal and hydrogen energy. Training will be offered both online and in-person to accommodate mid-career workers, industry associations, and unions across Canada.

In addition, the government is providing $19.7 million to Amii through the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, expanding access to advanced computing resources for AI research and development. The funding will support researchers and businesses in training and deploying AI models, fostering innovation, and helping Canadian companies bring AI-enabled products to market.

“Canada’s future depends on skilled workers. Investing and upskilling Canadian workers ensures they can adapt and succeed in an energy sector that’s changing faster than ever,” said Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario.

Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, added that the investment “builds an AI-literate workforce that will drive innovation, create sustainable jobs, and strengthen our economy.”

Amii CEO Cam Linke said the funding empowers Canada to become “the world’s most AI-literate workforce” while providing researchers and businesses with a competitive edge.

The AI Pathways initiative is one of eight projects funded under the Sustainable Jobs Training Fund, which supports more than 10,000 Canadian workers in emerging sectors such as electric vehicle maintenance, green building retrofits, low-carbon energy, and carbon management.

The announcement comes as Canada faces workforce shifts, with an estimated 1.2 million workers retiring across all sectors over the next three years and the net-zero transition projected to create up to 400,000 new jobs by 2030.

The federal investments aim to prepare Canadians for the jobs of the future while advancing research, innovation, and commercialization in AI and clean energy.

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