Every year there are about 5.4 million new cases of skin cancer in the United States alone, and while the five-year survival rate for melanoma detected in its earliest states is around 97 percent, that drops to approximately 14 percent if it’s detected in its latest stages. Early detection could likely have an enormous impact on skin cancer outcomes. Scientists at Stanford set out to create an artificially intelligent diagnosis algorithm for skin cancer. They made a database of nearly 130,000 skin disease images and trained their algorithm to visually diagnose potential cancer. From the very first test, it performed with inspiring accuracy. A lot of people already have a supercomputer in their pockets with a number of sensors in it, including a camera. What if we could use it to visually screen for skin cancer? Or other ailments? - With Stanford's newest research, it looks like we're not that far away from it.