Last Week in AI AI‘s Role in Fighting COVID-19 and in Surveilling Us
Mar 19, 2020
The discussion dives into AI's critical role in managing the COVID-19 crisis, from early detection to drug discovery. It also highlights Neolix, a driverless delivery vehicle, showcasing how AI can innovate during lockdowns. There's an exploration of facial recognition technology, particularly its use in enforcing quarantines in places like Moscow and China, raising serious privacy concerns. Ethical implications of surveillance practices emerge, calling for stronger privacy regulations. Finally, the challenges faced by students adapting to online learning during the pandemic are also examined.
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Early COVID Detection
- BlueDot, HealthMap, and MetaBiota alerted clients to unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
- ProMed, a human-led program, issued a more detailed warning slightly after.
Human-AI Collaboration
- Human analysis provided more context and concern than AI alerts about the initial outbreak.
- Combining human expertise with AI may offer the best early warnings for future pandemics.
False Positives in AI
- AI-powered anomaly detection systems likely produce false positives.
- The true positive rate of these systems remains unclear due to limited historical data.