How AI and Data Science are doing its bit in the war against COVID-19
COVID-19, a pandemic which made its first appearance in the city of Wuhan in China, now has the entire world on edge. From governments to multinational companies, all have been adversely affected by this pandemic. While China was the first to react to this impending doom that was waiting to grapple the entire world, several tech start-ups, with the help of governments, clinicians, academics have tried to find ways to predict and control the behemoth. Since then as the virus has paved its way across different countries in the world, several institutions are looking into Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to find solutions to these issues.
AI has the potential to become a major tool in this fight against COVID-19. AI can be used to predict early warnings and forecast socio-political impacts of the deadly virus. This has been done by an AI model in Toronto called BlueDot, which was created by Kamran Khan. According to accounts, BlueDot was able to predict on 31st December, 2019 regarding the outbreak of the disease. This warning came several days before the Centre for Disease Control and World Health Organization released their public warnings. Researchers later published a notice where it listed the top twenty destination cities where people from Wuhan might visit. Despite BlueDot being a powerful tool there are concerns about the role of human interpretations in the analysis of the data. At the same time another AI-based model, HealthMap made the prediction a day earlier at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Similarly, AI can also be used for tracking and predicting the spread of the disease. As seen in previous cases during the Zika-virus outbreak in 2015, where a dynamic neural network was created to predict its spread, such models must be re-trained with fresh data from the COVID-19 outbreak. Such algorithms are being developed by Carnegie Mellon University. A coronavirus AI solution was launched by Infervision, an Artificial intelligence company, to help front-line healthcare workers detect and monitor the disease efficiently. There is an increased workload on imaging departments and also the concern that the virus might spread through contact with the equipment is leading several companies to look at alternative ways through the use of AI to scan patients. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba built an AI-powered diagnosis system they claim is 96% accurate at diagnosing the virus in seconds. Another Chinese company SenseTime, focused on developing AI technologies that advance the world’s economies, society and humanity for a better tomorrow, has developed a platform to scans people’s faces even if they wear a mask. The contactless temperature detection software developed by SenseTime has been implemented in subway stations, schools, and public centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
AI systems and machine learning could lower research costs associated with development of vaccines. A major part of the scare is the absence of a definitive cure for the virus.
AI can be used majorly for the development of antibodies and vaccines for the peculiar virus, either through drug repurposing or by creating a new one. In order to help understand the virus, DeepMind, Google’s AI company made use of its AlphaFold system to create structure models of proteins that have been linked with the virus. Although the results are not experimentally verified it is a large step to encourage more companies to invest in AI to fight coronavirus.
COVID-19 has disrupted all of our lives and our livelihood. In this fight against the unknown, we require the support of the most powerful tools that we can get our hands on: artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning. Only then can we hope to succeed in winning this global war.
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