Tech CEO says he made his own MRI viewer using AI
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke shared this week that he was able to build his own MRI viewer with the help of a publicly available artificial intelligence tool.
The entrepreneur took to X this week to tout his accomplishment, which was achieved with the help of Anthropic’s Claude AI—a large language model “AI assistant.” Lutke said he used the tool to process DICOM files from a recent MRI he underwent because the files containing his imaging required Windows software to operate, which he did not have on his Mac computer.
“My annual MRI scan gives me a USB stick with the data, but you need this commercial Windows software to open it,” Lutke wrote on X. “Ran Claude on the stick and asked it to make me a html based viewer tool. This looks ... way better.”
After making a few adjustments, the MRI viewer allowed Lutke to scroll through the scans, stack images, zoom in on different areas and highlight specific sections of the spine. He also incorporated additional prompts that enabled the viewer to annotate the images.
Several users responded with their own suggestions, such as creating grid overlays and automated image review. Lutke’s responses suggested that he implemented those features as well. Some shared their own experiences using AI-based tools in a wide array of different medical contexts, while a group of Redditors who were less impressed with Lutke’s work pointed out that there are multiple open source MRI viewers already available online. One even suggested it would be “a fairly trivial task” for Claude to “rip them off.”
Still, Lutke suggested that the ease with which he created his own viewer highlights a broader trend of the public becoming more fluent in using AP applications.
“This is a good example of reflexively reaching for AI,” Lutke wrote. “Once you work with these tools, it becomes natural to try them first. When I realized I needed Windows software while using a Mac, AI was the obvious solution.”
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.