Quantitative microscopy and artificial intelligence: some philosophical reflections.

The interdisciplinary field of quantitative microscopy (computer-aided microscopy) and artificial image understanding systems is explored, with an emphasis on the philosophical aspects of pathology and artificial intelligence. Three methodological problems of traditional diagnostic pathology are identified: those of validity, variability and organisation. Quantitative microscopy is a potential research strategy for solving these problems. In practice, however, the quantitative microscopy program is handicapped by the difficulty of building artificial image-understanding systems. We discuss the segmentation problem in image understanding, and four general strategies, three cognitivistic and one connectionistic, are reviewed.