Leprosy Mailing List – September 22, 2026
From: Henk Eggens, Santa Comba Dão, Portugal
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Dear Pieter and LML readers,
Geoffrey Hinton, co-winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics and widely known as the “godfather of AI,” has repeatedly warned about the dangers of advanced AI. CEOs of major American AI companies—Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Sam Altman (OpenAI), and Elon Musk (xAI)—have joined his call. These four key figures (the four horsemen) are advocating for constraints on AI development to prevent a potential existential threat to humanity.
In the meantime, we continue to harness AI for our benefit, and specifically for this LML forum, to advance the fight to diagnose, cure, and rehabilitate leprosy patients.
Numerous publications have addressed this topic. INFOLEP provides a great overview featuring 31 publications on the subject:
https://www.leprosy-information.org/search?elasticsearch_index_infolep_prod_resources%5Bquery%5D=AI
I recently came across a publication by The Leprosy Mission that I would like to bring to the attention of the LML readership, titled "Leprosy and AI: Do the pros outweigh the cons?":
https://www.leprosy-information.org/search?elasticsearch_index_infolep_prod_resources%5Bquery%5D=AI
The article summarises the positive contributions AI has made to the leprosy community, such as improving diagnostic accuracy and facilitating data processing for epidemiological purposes. However, it is fairly light on the negative consequences. At the same time, it mentions AI-generated images that could reinforce prejudices; I was able to correct those within five minutes using an AI image tool. Furthermore, the author fails to address the risk that AI applications may produce false negatives when diagnosing skin conditions—for example, missing a leprosy diagnosis altogether.
Overall, it serves as a helpful, light overview of progress in this field, though INFOLEP's list offers deeper insight into practical field experiences with AI.
Best,
Henk Eggens
PS: AI improved my English
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Henk Eggens
(henk.eggens@gmail.com)
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LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder
LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/
Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << edit...@gmail.com
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