AI Used to Help Triage Coronavirus Patients

With the allocation of most resources to the fight against coronavirus, it is not surprising to see more technologies being applied to aid healthcare workers. In Royal Bolton Hospital in the UK, they are fast tracking the use of a tool called Qure.ai which will assist in the reading of chest x-rays. This has been soft implemented in the hospital for a while as the doctors wanted help with checking the work of trainees. After months of ensuring the decision of the AI matches that of the doctor, they feel safe applying this to more scans with less supervision. This will help immensely with keeping up with tasks during a worker shortage with the influx of cases that come with the current pandemic.

Not only is this helping in a crisis, but some believe allowing AI such as these to enter hospitals now will lead to a change in protocol from now on. For example, should it prove consistently reliable Qure.ai probably will not leave the hospital. The inclusion of such programs will continue to help ease the workload of doctors and keep the flow of testing analysis moving faster than ever. But of course with this comes some risk of misdiagnosis since computers are not infallible. But hopefully we will find they are overwhelmingly helpful so hospitals can benefit from their use.

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AI Uncovers a Potential Treatment For COVID-19 Patients

Machine learning is currently being utilized to search for existing drugs which may help treat COVID-19. One company, BenevolentAI, has identified a drug which could treat the most serious effect of the disease: the cytokine storm which damages the lungs. This drug is currently used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, but the AI has identified that it could calm the effects of the cytokine storm. While this is great news, the drug still has to go through clinical trials in patients with coronavirus in order to make sure there are not any unexpected consequences of repurposing this drug. For example, some fear the known side effect of decreased viral resistance may have disastrous consequences in COVID-19 patients. But, those side effects are seen in long term users of the drug, so it is hard to say what will happen.

Other companies are also working towards identifying drugs which can be repurposed fast to help those in need. We're all in this together, and it is comforting to see everyone pooling their resources to find a solution for a global issue of this degree.

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AI Reveals that Mice's Faces Express a Range of Emotions

Researchers using AI have been working to catalogue the reactions of mice faced with things like a small electric shock or a sweet drink. With this catalogue, they found that mice have distinct facial expressions which match emotions which we experience. And further, they discovered that they show their emotions on different levels based on how they felt before. For example, a mouse that was sad shows more joy when drinking a sweet drink than a mouse that was neutral. With their catalogue, they found that the AI can easily distinguish which emotion the mice are feeling with 90% accuracy.

This is expected to lead to a better understanding of anxiety and depression in the human brain. As useful as the research could be for us humans, I question the ethics involved in potentially inducing clinical depression or anxiety in mice. I can only hope that I am jumping to conclusions and they are proceeding with care for the mice.

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The Uncensored Library

With government censorship affecting what gets published and what they can say, getting both sides of the story can be impossible in some places. For example, the recent incident with reporter Jamal Khashoggi. But Reporters Without Borders has found a way around this by creating an Uncensored Library in Minecraft.

This library was built online and filled with articles and books which have been banned in certain countries. Because Minecraft is a video game and not a publishing company, anything written in game is not subject to censorship laws. The creators hope this online library will give kids access to more information so they can inform their own opinions about what is going on around them. This library exists in a public server which allows any visitors to read, but nothing can be altered. This protects the works transcribed into the library.

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Augmented Reality and the Classroom

Augmented Reality, or AR, is a technology used to impress images from a device onto real life. A good example of this is the app Pokemon Go, where through your phone you can see the Pokemon walking around as if they were right in front of you. This technology is beginning to take hold in many fields, and now schools are beginning to include it in their curriculum.

AR technology is uniquely suited for learning for many reasons. For example, they can create interactive simulations for the purpose of trying to fix a device or performing surgery. It is also being used to bring in seemingly live examples of experiences you otherwise could not get in a classroom, like seeing a dodo or visiting a street in the 1800s.

By integrating this technology, classes at all levels and fields will be forever changed. Now, not only can you safely explore certain scenarios, you can also make every class more hands-on to help every student learn. Since not everyone can learn optimally with conceptual-only teaching, this could have a great impact on many students.

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Tech's Fight Against Coronavirus Misinformation

With the current state of the world as it is due to the outbreak of COVID-19, fear is everywhere. This fear is being preyed on by price gougers and those publishing misinformation about the spread and treatment of the disease.

Luckily for us, major social media networks have been campaigning at full force against the spread of misinformation. They are listening to fact-checking sites when they flag something, removing information about "cures" which actually equate to poison, and giving free ad space to messages from the CDC. Despite these tactics, misinformation is still out there. But companies like Google and Facebook are still actively working to combat this with the development of new algorithms and techniques to filter their content.

While this is quite the wonderful development and shows a world standing together against this pandemic, it also highlights the fact that these tactics could have been implemented much sooner. For years groups like Facebook have been in the spotlight for allowing political misinformation to run rampant on their sites. This has always been explained as a problem of free speech, or just being something the algorithms cannot protect against. But here we clearly see them doing the supposedly impossible in actively flagging misinformation and removing it. We can only hope their hypocrisy doesn't grow once this is over, and that they will choose to apply this technology to other forms of misinformation.

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Brain Enhancement in the 21st Century

Drugs that enhance your brain and make it more efficient seem like a thing of fiction, a possibility only in the distant future. However, today several drugs like this are circulating in different medical circles.

Often these drugs are created to solve one type of neural issue, like slowing the progression of Alzheimer's or treating ADHD in children. But extended research has found that they can greatly improve the brain function of anyone who takes it.

These benefits include:

"– reducing sleep deprivation;

– needing less sleep; 

– more REM or rapid eye movement sleep which can enhance memory;  

– general and specific memory enhancement; 

– learning augmentation; 

– brain cell protection; and 

– possessing low toxicity"

(Lindgren 487).

But the author also notes there could be great ramifications to exploring these drugs. The legal issues surrounding the testing alone could be insurmountable. However, the author more significantly emphasizes the danger there is in who is funding the research. He suggests it is likely that until the drugs are cheap and abundant enough for mass circulation, there is a good chance the wealthy contributors will be able to hold the market as an exclusive product for their own circles.

Regardless, he ends off in reminding us that this will eventually become available to everyone, and as such is an extremely worthwhile investment of time and money for not just the general public, but in particular for those in great need.



Source:




Lindgren, Carl Edwin. “Brain Enhancement in the 21st Century: Potential Neurophysiological Changes in Brain Structure Through Neuroenhancers, Nootropic Agents and Organic/Electronic Components.” International Conference: Transition to a New Society, Mar. 2014, pp. 485–493.

AI Improves Understanding of the Brains of Children

A long-term study involving repeated scans of the brains of children aged 8-23 over several years is being used to develop a better idea how the growing brain works. As has been discovered in adults, children have unique pathways in the brain which correlate to different functions. These tests are being used to better predict how a child processes information.

Evaluating this area will be revolutionary for child development. With a better understanding of what a child needs, parents and teachers can cater more personally to the most effective ways to teach students. This will reduce frustration in the kids and give them a more positive experience overall in school.

However, the article references measuring cognitive potential, which is concerning. This term reads as a measure of how smart a child is. While I understand that is not necessarily the case, not everyone will read between the lines so having a quantitative measure of this may be highly detrimental to students. In the wrong hands, the information could be used to rank children and separate them based on their perceived intelligence.

Regardless of the implications, better understanding of the brain at all stages will likely bring more benefits and detriments to everyone. It is exciting to imagine a world where we can be prepared to provide the best possible education to all.

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AI Used to Discover New Antibiotic

At MIT, researchers for Machine Learning in Health have been busy attempting to find a new powerful antibiotic using artificial intelligence. By using this AI to map the structures of drugs and run tests looking for the potential to kill bacteria, they have found what could be the most powerful antibiotic ever discovered. They have named this drug halicin, after "2001: A Space Odyssey." When tested against strains of bacteria known to be resistant to antibiotics, they found halicin kills all but one strain.

This discovery is particularly revolutionary because in the past couple decades few new antibiotics have been developed or discovered. Most are just variations on the same ones currently in use. But thanks to the AI involved in this research, they now have a drug with a structure different than any other antibiotic on the market currently. This machine used information not only on how we currently kill bacteria, but discovered new ways to do so. For halicin, preliminary research suggests that it disrupts the cell membranes of the bacteria, making it unable to function and likely making it hard for the bacteria to develop a resistance. Along with continuing the research on halicin, the machine learning software has also identified of a few other notable drugs which will also partake in testing.

The discovery made by this AI is revolutionary, but more so the AI itself is a wonder. This machine has evaluated all we know about bacteria and found new, effective ways to get around the familiar patterns the medical field has followed the past few decades. With technology like this applied to more medicinal research, the possibilities are endless. Who knows what other drugs will be found in this fashion. The potential is sky-high, and I for one am excited to see where it leads to next.

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

This organization founded by the creator of Microsoft and his wife is dedicated to eradicating malaria. For years now they have been working to distribute insecticide, bug nets, and other mosquito deterrents to high-risk regions for the disease. The overall goal at this point in the fight is to eradicate the parasites the female mosquitoes carry, which cause the disease. Bill Gates has said this can be done in the next 20 years. This fight is a global issue, and the Gates' have donated over $1.2 billion to this cause. Thanks in part to this foundation, deaths by malaria have been cut in half since 2000.

Gates Foundation Official Website