Chinese tech giant Alibaba has just developed an artificial intelligence system to diagnose COVID-19 (coronavirus) which is affecting the planet.
According to a report byAsian Review of Nikkei, Alibaba says its new AI-based system can detect the coronavirus from patients' chest x-rays. It can diagnose Covid-19 by distinguishing it from viral pneumonia in 96% of cases.
It is yet another positive use of AI in this scenario. Artificial intelligence has already played a role in the discovery of the epidemic and is used to speed up the search for a remedy.
Not only: the artificial intelligence takes just 20 seconds to make the right diagnosis. To diagnose the presence of the virus (waiting for confirmation from the swab) humans generally take more than 15 minutes, as there can be up to 300 images to evaluate.
How the system was trained
The artificial intelligence system has been trained on images and data from 5.000 confirmed coronavirus cases, and has already been tested in hospitals across China. According to the report describing the system, at least 100 healthcare facilities are currently employing Alibaba's AI.
Alibaba's system isn't the only one in town that can detect the coronavirus
Another organization, Ping An, recently announced a very similar system. The president and general manager of strategy of the Smart City division, Geoff Kau, released a statement stating:
“Since its launch, our intelligent image reading system has provided services to over 1.500 medical institutions. More than 5.000 patients received intelligent image reading services for free. The system can generate results in approximately 15 seconds, with an accuracy rate of over 90%.”
The more solutions there are, the better. Especially when it comes to helping overwhelmed doctors provide better diagnoses and therefore better results.
For more information on the coronavirus, take a look at special section here on Futuroprossimo.
