By Dr. Michael Friebe

My last years report was titled "BEYOND IMAGING: Radiology is Changing! Big Data / Machine and Deep Learning / Artificial Intelligence is everywhere!“ — well that was just the beginning and the title this year definitely deserves to be...

Machine Learning in the center of Radiology Innovation

There were about 30 smaller company showings in a dedicated Machine Learning (ML) section of one of the main exhibition halls ... with their own presentation stage and demo program. I was there 3 times and it was always quite crowded. Canon (Toshiba), Philips, and Siemens also presented their ML expertise and often saw surprised radiologist that were not aware that the big ones already invested quite heavily in this technology approach for many years now. In the East Hall there was a seminar area run by NVIDIA introducing ML to anyone who was interested. I attended that too and was quite excited to see what is available already and even programmable from an iPAD. IBM Watson (last year only a small exhibition area) and GOOGLE also had booth space occupied and are very likely to stay and grow in presence and importance in the coming years.

General impression — not verified though — less visitors and even less radiologists. RSNA is slowly changing from a science to a business conference. For the first time I only stayed 2.5 days and do not feel that I missed a lot ... actually on my way to San Francisco now attending an Exponential Innovation Seminar at Singularity University (www.su.org) ... fits well with the growing importance of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, and 3D printing (was also highlighted in a separate section of the East Hall with own program and presentation stage).

In the last years I have always integrated a small section on physical activities and even some food info... very short this time: average 10km walking per day, swam around 1km every morning, and I actually ate three meals a day... on Sunday with my friends from the 'MIM-Club‘. Never heard of that? Good, we want to keep it that way, but if you are willing to pay for next year's dinner at Harry Caray we may give you some insight details :-)

By the way, the weather was excellent again — at least on Monday and Tuesday no coat needed even at night. After 26 years of RSNA attendance I for sure am convinced that the weather has changed in Chicago and a global warming effect is undeniable — saying that for the very few people left that still believe President T.

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