Demographic Bias of Expert-Level Vision-Language Foundation Models in Medical Imaging

Understand

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have achieved expert-level performance in medical imaging applications.

• Notably, self-supervised vision-language foundation models can detect a broad spectrum of pathologies without relying on explicit training annotations.
• However, it is crucial to ensure that these AI models do not mirror or amplify human biases, thereby disadvantaging historically marginalized groups such as females or Black patients.
• The manifestation of such biases could systematically delay essential medical care for certain patient subgroups.