Considering the missing science of retraining and maintenance in medical artificial intelligence, using ophthalmology as an exemplar.

Abstract

Considerations around model retraining are standard practice in industry and non-healthcare sectors; however, this is much less well explored in medical artificial intelligence (AI). The problem is not only that models often fail to generalise, but that academia in particular does not have a systematic science of retraining to address this gap. This matters for building trustworthy models capable of making a lasting impact, rather than compounding as research waste. In this Perspective, we highlight three common challenges that constrain model retraining in medicine, and argue that academia must evolve beyond a focus on developing proofs-of-concept and world-first innovations to also recognise model retraining as scholarship. Drawing from case examples in ophthalmology, we call on stakeholders to consider not just how we build AI models, but how we should retrain, maintain, and share them.