[parekhnish]

(Disclaimer: I worked in retinal imagery AI for a few years)

I understand why this seems like pseudoscience, but I'd like to explain the assumption better. As the article states,

> a scan of the retina is the only non-intrusive way to view layers of cells below the skin’s surface.

As an extension, you could also make the case for being able to view the nervous system via such imagery. As stated in [1],

> Despite its peripheral location, the retina or neural portion of the eye, is actually part of the central nervous system.

The theory is that such a non-invasive of visualizing crucial parts of the inner body opens up a "window" into noticing such biomarkers well before the common-but-late-stage symptoms are noticeable.

As for your gripe about:

> let’s dump medical records and retina images into a neural network and see what correlates

, I agree that this requires more careful analysis, but I assume that will happen as part of clinical trials of any such technology. The first foray, which is more experimental than anything concrete, is what this article seems to suggest.

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10885/#:~:text=Despite...).