100 days of coronavirus: Has artificial intelligence helped?

New technology is not a 'panacea for all ills' but has a vital role to play in global efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19

Dr.Li Wenliang who died from Coronavirus. Wuhan, China

Excavators and workers are seen at the construction site where the new Huoshenshan Hospital is being built to treat patients of a new coronavirus on the outskirts of Wuhan, China. Reuters

A policeman wearing a coronavirus-themed outfit composed of helmet, mace and shield, walks at a market to raise awareness about social distancing, during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus in Chennai, on April 2, 2020. / AFP / Arun SANKAR

The quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship at Daikoku pier cruise terminal in Yokohama. AFP

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - APRIL 3: Residents stand on white lines on the ground spaced to enforce social distancing as they queue to enter a slum area on April 3, 2020 in Manila, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday ordered law enforcement to "shoot" residents caught violating quarantine rules during a month long lockdown in the country to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The Philippines' main island Luzon, which includes capital Manila, has been on lockdown for more than two weeks. Land, sea, and air travel has been suspended, while government work, schools, businesses, and public transportation have been ordered shut in a bid to keep some 55 million people at home. The Philippines' Department of Health has so far confirmed 3,018 cases of the new coronavirus in the country, with at least 136 recorded fatalities. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

epa08325517 General view of the empty Piccadilly Circus in London, Britain, 26 March 2020. Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson has implemented social distancing measures banning social gatherings and groups of more than two people amid the ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. People must stand more than two metres apart. Several European countries have closed borders, schools as well as public facilities, and have cancelled most major sports and entertainment events in order to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing the Covid-19 disease. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA

An electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes Covid-19. EPA

A security guard stands outside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market where the coronavirus was detected in Wuhan on January 24, 2020. AFP

A cyclist travels down a nearly deserted road in the Chinese city of Wuhan on January 26, 2020. AFP

The World Health Organisation has warned all governments to be on alert and screening has been stepped up at airports around the world. Getty Images.

Mr Ghebreyesus announced that the coronavirus outbreak can now be characterised as a pandemic. AFP

Members of a medical assistance team from Jiangsu province chant slogans at a ceremony marking their departure after helping with the COVID-19 coronavirus recovery effort, in Wuhan.

People wearing face masks walk at a riverside park in Wuhan of Hubei province. Reuters

Staff members line up at attention as they prepare to spray disinfectant at Wuhan Railway Station in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.AFP

The Diamond Princess cruise ship was placed in quarantine off the port of Yokohama after a number of the 3,700 people on board were confirmed to have coronavirus. Getty Images

Lee Man-hee, leader of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, speaks during a press conference. The leader of a South Korean sect linked to more than half the country's 4,000-plus coronavirus cases apologised on March 2 for the spread of the disease. AFP

Army soldiers wearing protective suits spray disinfectant to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in front of a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, South Korea. AP

View of Palacio de Hielo ice skating centre in Madrid. The facilities will be used as a morgue for coronavirus fatalities. EPA/CHEMA MOYA

A student takes classes online with his companions using the Zoom APP at home during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in El Masnou, north of Barcelona, Spain. Reuters

A boy with an Italian tricolor flag stands on a balcony during a flash mob launched across Italy to bring people together and try to cope with the emergency of the coronavirus, in Rome. EPA

A nurse wearing protective mask and gear comforts another as they change shifts on March 13, 2020 at the Cremona hospital, southeast of Milan, Lombardy, during the country's lockdown aimed at stopping the spread of the COVID-19. EPA

A worker wears protective gear to spray disinfectant on Piazza Duomo in Milan.AFP

A police officer walks across an empty Seventh Avenue in a sparsely populated Times Square due to COVID-19 concerns in New York. AP

Stocks markets around the world have swung wildly in recent weeks as the coronavirus outbreak hammers global economy. Reuters

US President Donald Trump, center, at a Coronavirus Task Force news conference at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, on Friday, April 3, 2020. Bloomberg

The military field hospital outside the Emile Muller Hospital in Mulhouse, eastern France. AFP

This picture tshows the Eiffel tower and the deserted place du Trocadero in Paris, on the twelveth day of a lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) in France. AFP

Health workers wearing protective gear transport a patient on a stretcher toward a tent used as the reception of the emergency services of the Aix Hospital Centre, Aix-en-Provence, southern France. AFP

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attends a meeting about Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics at the prime minister's office in Tokyo. AFP

People wearing a mask walk near the Olympics' mark in Odaiba, Tokyo on February 22, 2020, amid the outbreak of a new coronavirus in Japan. AFP

NHS workers applaud on the streets outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, London, Britain, Reuters

The ExCeL London has been transformed into a field hospital. AFP

Boris Johnson on a screen as he remotely chairs the morning novel coronavirus Covid-19 meeting by video link, in Downing Street. AFP

A man sits at New Delhi's border barricade during lockdown by the authorities to limit the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New Delhi, India. Reuters

A migrant worker carries his son as they walk along a road with others to return to their village, during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to limit the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New Delhi, India,F Reuters

Police community support officers talk to a person as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, Brighton, Britain. Reuters

Medical staff celebrate after all patients were discharged at Wuchang Fangcang Hospital, a temporary hospital set up at Hongshan Gymnasium to treat people infected with the coronavirus and COVID-19 disease, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. AP

Atmosphere of empty Westfield World Trade Center during coronavirus pandemic in New York City, NY, USA . Reuters

The Central Park field hospital constructed by members of Samaritan's Purse are seen in New York. The hospital began taking patients on Tuesday and is equipped to accommodate 68 beds with ventilators. Reuters

Chinese travellers wear protective masks as they bow their heads at 10 AM for three minutes of silence to mark the country's national day of mourning for COVID-19 at Beijing Railway Station. Getty

On the 20th day of a lockdown in France, a cemetery, exceptionally open for Palm Sunday, April 5. AFP

Crises historically have an accelerating effect on technology trends.

During the 1918 Spanish Flu, the New York Telephone Company advertised a home phone to bring “cheer and encouragement to those in quarantine”. The decade following the pandemic saw a phone line installed in thousands of homes across continents, altering daily life around the world.

Technological advancement is by no means a silver lining. Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has sickened 1.3 million people and killed more than 70,000 across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University.

But 100 days since the first case was reported to the World Health Organisation from Wuhan, China, one technology has emerged to underpin much of the response to Covid-19: artificial intelligence.

Containing the disease’s spread, rolling out basic chatbots to help screen potential cases and surfacing treatments by centralising research data - these are the proving grounds for AI amid the pandemic.

"AI is not at a stage of development when it is a panacea for all ills," Kay Firth-Butterfield, the head of artificial intelligence and machine learning at World Economic Forum, told The National. But there are several use cases where it is showing promise, she said.

Geolocation data on people’s smartphones has been used to track and trace those who have come into contact with a Covid-19 infected person, with programmes rolled out in China, Singapore, South Korea and Italy, among other places.

But nowhere is the undertaking more widespread than in India, where the People’s Curfew has the population of 1.3 billion on lockdown as officials there are concerned the peak of the outbreak is still weeks away.

The Indian government’s Bridge to Health app, introduced last week, uses a phone's Bluetooth and GPS systems to alert any app user in the country who has come in the vicinity of a Covid-19 infected person.

The alerts are generated by scanning through government-owned, location-specific patient databases. The alerts are also accompanied by instructions from the Ministry of Health on how to self-isolate, and the course of action in case one develops symptoms of coronavirus.

Besides the main tracker feature, the app also lets users take a quick test to check if they have matching symptoms to Covid-19. However, movement data needs to be tracked regularly to ensure the service works as intended.

For Mark Minevich, president of Going Global Ventures and AI expert, the “most impressive, ethical use of AI” is from SparkBeyond, a New York-based AI research firm. The company created dynamic maps for Italy and Argentina, predicting places where an asymptomatic Covid-19 carrier is likely to pass, at building-level granularity.

The company has helped officials in Italy understand what locations are associated with higher infection rates, like public parks or tourist hotspots.

"Countries across the globe are beginning to use SparkBeyond's predictive AI to facilitate three core activities," Mr Minevich told The National.

These are “identifying regions that have a higher risk of infection based on known cases of infection; how to prioritise the deployment of sanitisation resources, pop-up testing and police presence; and when and how to allow citizens out of lockdown and back to work, safely and responsibly”.

While AI has helped track the movement of people and make inferences to help contain the pandemic, it has also helped people in their homes when they’ve been worried about symptoms.

“Companies gambled by deploying immature chatbots,” Ms Firth-Butterfield said. “The result was an unprecedented adoption rate of chatbots that proved to be accurate, responsive and cheap.”

Chatbots, enabled by natural language understanding (a category of AI), have been deployed around the world to provide information about Covid-19, according to the WEF. Its AI team has concluded that they have demonstrated their usefulness in getting information out to vast populations and that people around the world are getting comfortable with using chatbots for health care. “The coronavirus epidemic is a microcosm of general healthcare problems, offering a chance for the chatbot technology to prove itself,” they found.

“Even if ethical use is side-stepped in the interest of quick deployment to meet the needs of the coronavirus epidemic, we must create ways to find our way back to ethical use, once the epidemic is over,” Ms Firth-Butterfield said.

AI has also enabled collaboration at an unprecedented scale.

“Covid-19 is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis,” Mr Minevich said. Two things are happening with “intelligent data” to help curb the pandemic: decision-making has become data-driven and “there is too much data circulating”.

To help connect the dots, US tech company IBM partnered with the White House to offer supercomputing power and help researchers working to fight the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The supercomputer, Summit, is expected to assist researchers around the world to better understand the virus and build predictive models to analyse its progress as a disease. The machine can also help explore potential treatments or formulate a vaccine.

In a similar move, Group 42, an Abu Dhabi-based AI and cloud computing company, is offering its supercomputer, Artemis, free of charge to scientific researchers in any field that contributes solutions to the challenge of the current virus outbreak.

But this is not the time for AI to go mainstream, according to Mark Esposito, an economist and faculty member at Harvard University, whose work focuses on AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

"The examples we have seen are still episodic and mainly deployed under a state of emergency," he told The National.

We will only know if these technologies are ready for widespread adoption - like the telephone in 1918 - once the crisis is behind us, he said, and normative measures are put in place to help prevent the next pandemic.

“Only then may we know.”