At a time when artificial intelligence is being hyped as a solution to a multitude of health-related problems is running high, some people are worried that tasks once done by humans may be better suited to machines – transferring health care responsibilities to computers and putting doctors out of work.

In fact, this same question was being asked 27 years ago when Dr. Wing-Pang Chan, now Professor and Director of Radiology at Taipei Medical University and Chief of Radiology at Wanfang Hospital, was rained as a research fellow in MSK Radiology, supervised by Professor Harry K. Genant, at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Genant and his team were working on a machine learning classification system for vertebral compression fractures. Machine learning was at that time in its early stages and viewed by many medical practitioners as a promising technology for interpreting medical imaging data. But the hope for new technology brought with it reservations: would this technology eventually replace doctors’ eyes and brains?