Superintelligence in what, exactly?

Maybe it’s time to be more specific about the domains where we expect AI to go beyond human capabilities.

@MicrosoftAI makes medicine an interesting place to start with its new MAI-DxO research and medical intelligence framework↓

The study, published in Science, explores sequential diagnosis from a partial clinical picture.

MAI-DxO (Microsoft AI Diagnostic Orchestrator) uses a language model to simulate 5 clinical roles: proposing diagnoses, selecting questions and tests, challenging assumptions, checking reasoning, and weighing costs. Its assessment evolves as evidence arrives.

It achieved 83.2% accuracy on complex NEJM cases and 80.3% on emergency-department cases, vs. 36.1% and 46.8% for participating generalist physicians.

→ But what would make this medical superintelligence?

▪️ Microsoft’s framework outlines 6 dimensions of medical intelligence.

Its bar for superintelligence is high: outperforming the strongest human-led health systems in reasoning and coordination across the full course of care.

1. Medical knowledge
It applies current evidence to individual cases and recognizes what it doesn’t know.

2. Diagnostic reasoning and triage
It chooses questions, tests, and urgency, revising its view as evidence arrives. Sequential diagnosis fits here.

3. Therapeutic decision-making
It weighs benefits, risks, costs, and availability, adapting treatment as the patient responds.

4. Longitudinal context
It tracks health over time, preserving sources and uncertainty rather than starting fresh at every visit.

5. Clinical coordination
It brings in expertise, determines who acts next, and checks that follow-up happened.

6. Human values and agency
It respects patients’ goals, preferences, and right to refuse a recommendation.

These capabilities must work together. Treatment responses can change diagnoses; patient priorities can change treatment choices, etc.

That’s why a domain-specific view of superintelligence is useful - we can give a system clear tasks and criteria it needs to meet.