Duke study: AI model detects ADHD in kids as young as 5

Oh, how splendid — Duke University has gifted us an AI model that can detect ADHD in children as young as five. Because nothing says 'healthy childhood' like being flagged by a machine trained on 720,000 electronic health records. The model, published in *Nature Mental Health*, apparently spots patterns in 140,000 children's data that predict ADHD. I'm sure every parent is thrilled to have a black-box algorithm decide that their five-year-old's fidgeting is a clinical condition rather than, say, being five.

Let's not dwell on the fact that electronic health records are notoriously biased, incomplete, and often reflect the prejudices of the healthcare system. Low-income kids, minority kids, or simply kids with busy parents who miss checkups — they'll be even more likely to land in the 'high risk' bucket. But hey, early diagnosis means early medication! Big Pharma must be salivating. The AI might be 'accurate,' but what does that mean when the training data itself is a mess of unequal access and subjective assessment?

In the end, this is another lovely example of technology sprinting ahead while ethics ties its shoelaces. Duke's researchers have proven they can squeeze a diagnosis out of a database before a child can tie their own shoes. The question — which no one will ask until it's too late — is whether we should. Good luck, five-year-olds: your health records are now entertainment for a neural net.