The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed health care systems around the globe to their limits and forced scientists and doctors to rapidly search for solutions, showing that it is now the time to turn to cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology to be a part of our response
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd June, 2020) The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed health care systems around the globe to their limits and forced scientists and doctors to rapidly search for solutions, showing that it is now the time to turn to cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology to be a part of our response.
The number of those infected with COVID-19 globally nears 9 million, which makes it clear that a superhuman effort is needed to help ease the pandemic footprint. Machine learning-based technologies have proven effective in the medical sphere and other areas of our data-driven world.
The AI technologies, which were called "futuristic" not so long ago, are used to study the coronavirus, analyze the possible health impacts and test potential treatments and vaccines. The crucial allies to battle the first global health crisis of our century include projects in medical care and pharmacology based on data science, as well as analysis to reduce contagion and mobility. AI is also being used at airports, where scanners can now quickly detect someone with a fever and alert the airport authorities.
Countries worldwide are launching or have already launched national contact tracing apps, an appealing technology in part since the spread of the coronavirus continues to be so stealthy. Those infected may transmit the virus for days before they show any symptoms, and it also takes days for public authorities to learn about a case. Yet, if a smartphone can detect when two people are close enough to share the coronavirus, such an app could alert one person when the other develops the symptoms.
Such apps are already in widespread use in China, Singapore, South Korea, India, Germany, Italy and Israel. As many as 6.3 million Australians � almost a quarter of the country's population � have installed the COVIDSafe mobile app, which was developed by the Health Ministry.
The tracing of the virus went even further in Italy, which was once an epicenter of COVID-19. Its northwestern region of Liguria and the Genoa-based Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) have developed an intelligent bracelet, named iFeel-You, to help users respect social distancing rules.
The engineering teams of two tech giants - Apple and Google - have recently banded together to create a decentralized contact tracing tool that aids people determine whether they have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus. The method uses a smartphone's Bluetooth signals to determine to whom the owner had recently been in proximity for long enough to have established a contagion risk.
However, these contact-tracing apps have faced hitches and recently come under fire for an alleged violation of privacy and the possibility of government surveillance. The critics assume that with such apps, their country may turn into a "Big Brother" state.
In the wake of these concerns, Norway had to halt its app, dubbed Smittestopp, after the country's Data Protection Authority said that the low rate of infections meant that the app's privacy invasions were no longer justified.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has recently asked Apple and Google to impose restrictions on third-party contact tracing apps since they may collect sensitive health data.
AI is also joining the fight against COVID-19 in virus research as well as in the development of drugs and vaccines. One project is being developed by the scientists from Google-owned AI company DeepMind, which focuses on predicting the protein structures associated with COVID-19. The technology studies the way the virus evolves and explores the possibility of further controlling it, showing that the humanity may recognize AI's potential for future health care once this pandemic is over.
Chinese technology giant Alibaba has also contributed to the global battle with COVID-19. Its AI technology, powered by learning algorithms, is able to detect coronavirus pneumonia within a minute and differentiate between COVID-19 and viral pneumonia.
The Mumbai-based Qure.ai group has developed a technology that is capable of detecting coronavirus-related lung abnormalities in seconds. The solution can triage patients who require further testing for COVID-19.
The Boston Dynamics group has come up with an unusual helper for medical workers - a robot dog named Spot. The AI canine can help reduce contact health workers have with people who potentially have COVID-19. The robot dog is now available online as long as the customer can afford the price tag of $74,500.
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF COVID-19 LITERATURE
As the number of COVID-19 cases rises exponentially, so does the number of scientific articles about the virus. In March, the White House united forces with many institutions to create the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) as a free resource for the global AI community. As of mid-June, the database includes nearly 160,000 scholarly articles on coronaviruses.
UC Berkeley also stepped up efforts to battle the virus by launching a special COVIDScholar website, which provides a search that allows users to enter terms relating to the virus. The search is "powered by advanced NLP algorithms," according to Berkeley. As of mid-June, the website contains over 30,000 articles.
Meanwhile, Google has developed the COVID-19 Research Explorer, which allows the users to ask the engine various questions. For example, "What are the rapid molecular diagnostics for COVID-19?" The engine then generates answers.
Google explains that traditional search may struggle with understanding the meaning "behind research-driven queries."
"Searching through the existing corpus of COVID-19 scientific literature with traditional keyword-based approaches can make it difficult to pinpoint relevant evidence for complex queries," Google says.
With the emergence of these technologies, speculations arise that AI has the potential to battle the pandemic. Some argue that in crisis periods like this, catalysts from the development and deployment of innovations appear quicker.
According to the survey released in May by Wind River, the world-leading group in embedded software for intelligent connected systems, many tech executives in the US and China are adapting to the coronavirus pandemic and plan to increase spending in such areas as AI and 5G.
Mark Braunstein, Professor of the Practice who teaches health Informatics at Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that the COVID-19 pandemic has become the trigger for the AI progress because of the global attention being paid to the research related to the virus, including AI research.
"AI has been predicted to have a major impact on healthcare for quite some time. There are examples of its successful use in highly specific situations, such as the prediction of sepsis - an overwhelming response to infection and the leading cause of death in intensive care units, do exist," Braunstein, who is also the author of "Health Informatics on FHIR: How HL7's New API is Transforming Healthcare" book which covers AI in healthcare, told Sputnik.
Braunstein draws an example of LifeQ, an independent provider of biometrics and health information derived from wearable devices, and Rimidi, a healthcare platform technology company, which he is currently advising. LifeQ is leveraging 'small data' AI to track early physiological changes required for pre-symptomatic detection of the virus. Both companies are working to bring their insights from physiological data to clinicians and employers monitoring the virus.
"By combining those insights with testing and symptom tracking data as well as a clear call to action, the combined effort of these two companies should help their clients begin to see more impact of AI-enable technology in action," he said.
However, Frank Dignum, a professor of socially aware AI at Umea University in Sweden, doubts that the coronavirus is becoming the trigger for AI development since "the only scientific area profiting from it is virology and pharmaceutics."
"AI does not depend on data. The data and facts collected around the COVID-19 crisis are proven to be unreliable and also unhelpful in solving it as the situation changes constantly," he told Sputnik.
According to the expert, these new devices and technologies are unlikely to help humankind combat the potential upcoming pandemics.
"Governments are happy to combat the current crisis, spend an awful amount of money and then have no money left to prepare for next crises," he said.
Yet, Braunstein is much more optimistic and believes that humanity will likely be ready for the future pandemics on multiple fronts, including in analyzing and managing large-scale epidemiologic data and having a better understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of a virus outbreak.
"Ultimately it is believed that devices will know more about the physiological state of humans than the humans themselves. This could lead to biosignatures of COVID-19 making it much easier to uncover the biosignatures associated with future pandemics," he concluded.
