Uhhh, they trained their AI on only 18 women with diabetes? This can’t be done correctly.
Sure it can. “Do they sound fat and over 50? :If yes, answer diabetes. If no, answer no diabetes”
It’s bullshit. It’s the typical mixture of overly ambitious scientists and clickbait driven media.
Remember the 200 cures for cancer last year?
Sample size is relevant as a proportion of the difference you are looking for.
For example:
Sample A: 1.1, 1.3, 1.5, 1.2, 1.1
Sample B: 345.3, 323.4, 322.3, 355.2
Determining a statistical difference between these two groups where a meaningful difference is 20%, does not require more samples. The chance of error on making a claim that A is less than B will be quite low.
Not saying that N=18 in this case is sufficient, just stating that the number alone does not give you enough information to determine whether a claim has weight to it or not.
Poorly phrased in the article if I understand correctly. It means it gave a correct positive diagnosis in patients who had already been diagnosed, with those percentages.