- Uncategorized
- Jun 09
- 3 mins read
Can artificial intelligence help with COVID-19 contact tracing?
![Can artificial intelligence help with COVID-19 contact tracing?](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ING_19043_255313.jpg)
Can artificial intelligence help with COVID-19 contact tracing?
By Carl Weinschenk
Artificial intelligence has been a useful if not transformative tool in responding to the many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The coming phase, in which people resume traveling and contact tracing becomes critical, plays to the technology’s strength and could make it a far more important tool in the struggle to track the virus.
Myplanet CEO Jason Cottrell told Hiago that AI is not yet playing a major role in fighting COVID-19 but that it will as time passes. “We believe that AI has a significant role to play as society begins to return to a new normal,” he said. “There is a role for AI within social distancing compliance, remote work aids, monitoring risk factors in essential workers, forecasting, as well as resolving complexities in new digital systems borne from companies responding to the crisis.”
Myplanet is working to help private organizations mount contact tracing initiatives using a Bluetooth-based specification developed by an Apple/Google partnership. The spec can be utilized on 88 percent of the North American population that owns a cell phone. Myplanet also is running a GoFundMe campaign aimed at rewarding open source developers for code that crosses digital contacting tracing initiatives.
Contact tracing, which is a requisite to safely and confidently reopening the economy, is a gargantuan and potentially messy endeavor. AI can crunch the huge amounts of data that will be generated and recognize patterns in that data.
Another significant initiative aimed at leveraging AI to combat the pandemic is the COVIDathon, which is being run by The Decentralized AI Alliance with support from SingularityNET, Ocean Protocol and others. The goal is using AI and blockchain to create intelligent decentralized tools to fight COVID-19 and to reduce risks from future infectious outbreaks. The first phase of the project ended at the end of April and the second will run through the end this month. The four tracks are medicine and epidemiology; data privacy and sovereignty; informational and coping tools and open innovation.
Those and other approaches have potential to help. But, since we live in an age in which technology has transformed our lives, AI’s contributions to date may seem disappointing. Earlier this month, Wired posted a story that looks at why AI didn’t do a better job of helping diagnosticians distinguish between COVID-19 and more familiar illnesses.
Writer Gregory wrote that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved diagnostic algorithms related to health issues as diverse as broken bones and breast cancer. Algorithms aimed at assessing lung images to determine if COVID-19 is present – as opposed to pneumonia, for instance – largely failed, however.
The reason, Barber wrote, is that AI – like all computer and computer-related activities – is only as good as the data fed into it. There are decades worth of data available about injuries and common diseases. COVID-19, however, is new. Not enough data existed to provide the AI platform with the data necessary to make nuanced assessments.
Wrote Barber:
In late March, United Nations and the World Health Organization issued a report examining the lung CT tool and a range of other AI applications in the fight against Covid-19. The politely bureaucratic assessment was that few projects had achieved “operational maturity.”
The bottom line is that AI is a tool – and potentially an increasingly valuable one – but not a panacea in the fight against COVID-19. Three things can be said about the future: The contribution made by AI and machine learning will increase in proportion to the growth of information about the disease. Secondly, the use of AI and machine learning spans a huge waterfront, from helping to develop therapies and vaccines to contact tracing. Clearly, it will prove more useful in some use cases than in others.
Finally, it seems that contact tracing fits very well with its strengths and may be a use case in which AI shines.
Related Posts
![Coronavirus Reopening Jumpstarts Driving Tests in N.C.](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ing_33594_179362.jpg)
Coronavirus Reopening Jumpstarts Driving Tests in N.C.
New drivers, including tens of thousands of teenagers, are seeking to get their driver’s license but social distancing guidelines due to coronavirus have made that process more complicated. Many states have stopped giving road tests and driving schools are closed or limiting their classes to private lessons.- Jul 06
- 3 mins read
![Schools in the US plan for hybrid reopening](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ING_33594_301724_1.jpg)
Schools in the US plan for hybrid reopening
School shutdowns due to the Coronavirus pandemic have affected over 56 million students in the US, and their families. A new school year begins in Fall, and most US schools still do not have a detailed plan for reopening. “It’s scary,” said Linda Carpenter, a fifth grade teacher at El Rincon Elementary School in Culver City, California. “We are supposed to hear the plans the first week of July—that’s less than eight weeks before the new school year.”- Jun 17
- 3 mins read
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Sonia on Stockton tenants seek help from city, nonprofits to prevent illegal evictions
- Penney on Stockton tenants seek help from city, nonprofits to prevent illegal evictions
- Leonard on Schools in the US plan for hybrid reopening
- Delores on Stockton tenants seek help from city, nonprofits to prevent illegal evictions
- Jefferey Krolick on Stockton tenants seek help from city, nonprofits to prevent illegal evictions
More Articles
Schools in the US plan for hybrid reopening
- June 17, 2020
- 3 mins read
San Joaquin Valley nonprofits collaborate to feed residents in need
- May 8, 2020
- 5 mins read
Struggling New York shops are crowdsourcing solutions
- May 15, 2020
- 5 mins read
Long Island Residents Salute Local Governments For Restricting Beach Access
- May 26, 2020
- 3 mins read