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Date	May 2018	Marks available	2	Reference code	18M.1.SL.TZ0.3
Level	SL	Paper	1	Time zone	no time zone
Command term	Explain	Question number	3	Adapted from	N/A

Question

Google’s DeepMind uses a machine learning algorithm and neural network to analyse data. Google is now collaborating with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) to develop systems that can improve the quality of health care.

Its first project is to create a system that can analyse digital scans of eyes and thus help doctors diagnose sight-destroying diseases in time for them to be treated. This is a complex problem for pattern recognition.

Google needs large quantities of retinal scans to test the algorithm. Moorfields Eye Hospital in London has the largest collection of retinal scans in the world and will share them with Google for free. The scans will be anonymized. Patients can opt out of sharing their data by emailing an NHS data protection officer. Google will use the knowledge gained from this project to help create future software that can eventually be marketed to health care providers.

For this project, Google needs to consider the needs and concerns of multiple stakeholders, including patients, doctors, and the NHS. Google plans to hold four patient forums a year and set up a panel of independent reviewers to oversee what the company is doing. Ultimately, Google hopes to make a profit from this technology.

Identify two characteristics of an algorithm.

[2]

a.i.

Identify two characteristics of pattern recognition.

[2]

a.ii.

Google may use a range of representations of the algorithms during their development.

Identify two ways how these algorithms may be represented.

[2]

a.iii.

Google will collect large quantities of data that will be held in data centres.

Explain two concerns linked to the increasing number of data centres.

[4]

b.i.

Explain one advantage of using deep learning instead of traditional machine learning techniques.

[2]

b.ii.

It is claimed that the NHS’s partnership with Google is beneficial for both stakeholders. However, concerns have been raised about the ethical implications of this data-sharing agreement.

To what extent is it ethical for the NHS to share patient information about eye scans from Moorfields Eye Hospital with Google?

[8]

Markscheme

Answers may include:

A step-by-step procedure
A set of instructions
Created to perform a specific task
Used by computers to perform operations/tasks
Must be followed in a specific order

Award [1] mark for each of the characteristics identified above up to a maximum of [2] marks.

a.i.

Answers may include:

Uses training data
Learns from examples
Once trained, the software can identify new examples of the items it has “learned”
Gives an estimate of the accuracy of the identification
Recognizes shapes within an image
Supervised AI

Award [1] mark for each of the characteristics identified above up to a maximum of [2] marks.

a.ii.

Answers may include:

Natural language
Flow chart
Pseudocode
Programming code

Award [1] mark for each of the representations identified up to a maximum of [2] marks.

a.iii.

Answers may include:

Data centres use considerable amounts of energy…
which may have negative impacts on the environment.

Data centres lead to the centralization of information…
which may make them susceptible to security breaches.

Award [1] for identifying a concern linked to the use of data centres and an additional [1] for the explanation of that concern up to a maximum of [2] marks.

Mark as [2] + [2].

b.i.

Answers may include:

There does not need to be a domain expert involved to reduce the complexity of the data so it can be processed…
which reduces the requirement for human input that machine learning requires.
Deep learning algorithms solve the problem end-to-end…
whereas machine learning solves the problem in smaller parts and aggregates the solutions (which may lead to a less accurate outcome).

Award [1] for identifying an advantage of using deep learning and an additional [1] for the explanation of that advantage up to a maximum of [2] marks.

b.ii.

Answers may include:

Ethical problems:

Can the patients decide whether to opt in or opt out (power)?
Google is likely to profit from what they learn from this project.
Google will benefit from improvements in its algorithm.
Google will need to guarantee that the data is kept secure.
Google will need to guarantee that the data is kept private.
Google will need to guarantee that the data is only used for this project.
Does this scheme cause harm to the patients? Is it ethical?

Benefits for the NHS and its patients:

Google could provide free access to the system to the NHS vs other health providers.
The knowledge gained about preserving sight could be shared with doctors around the world, thereby benefiting many people at risk of losing their sight (values).
This data may be shared/mined, and other associations may be established that may lead to preventative health care in unrelated fields.
Patients may feel the benefits of sharing their data outweigh the negative implications of their data being shared (values).

In part (c) of this question it is expected there will be a balance between the terminology related to digital systems and the terminology related to social and ethical impacts.

Keywords: health, medical care, medical diagnostics, data, privacy, anonymity, algorithm, change, power, systems, values

Refer to SL/HL paper 1, part c markbands when awarding marks. These can be found under the "Your tests" tab > supplemental materials > Digital society markbands and guidance document.