Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?
From: TheVergePublished: August 4, 2025 at 02:00 PM
Scenario: A radiologist is looking at your brain scan and flags an abnormality in the basal ganglia. It's an area of the brain that helps you with motor control, learning, and emotional processing. The name sounds a bit like another part of the brain, the basilar artery, which supplies blood to your brainstem - but ...
Scenario: A radiologist is looking at your brain scan and flags an abnormality in the basal ganglia. It's an area of the brain that helps you with motor control, learning, and emotional processing. The name sounds a bit like another part of the brain, the basilar artery, which supplies blood to your brainstem - but the radiologist knows not to confuse them. A stroke or abnormality in one is typically treated in a very different way than in the other.
Now imagine your doctor is using an AI model to do the reading. The model says you have a problem with your "basilar ganglia," conflating the two names into an area of the brain that does not e …