Artificial intelligence continues to grow in use across products and services. The technology has touched nearly every aspect of business and society, from transforming hiring to making marketing more effective to increasing crop yields. But most importantly of all, AI is hard at work saving lives. Here are some of the amazing ways that AI is becoming the superhero of the tech world.
AI is hard at work saving lives.
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1. Preventing Accidents
Each year, 1.35 million people die from vehicle-related accidents, and more than half of these victims are “vulnerable road users” (e.g., pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists).
As autonomous vehicles become an increasing presence on roadways, there is growing concern about how everyone will share the road safely. A new app, !important, aims to minimize the risks of accidents with all certified connected vehicles: cars and trucks, buses, autonomous vehicles, construction equipment—even drones.
The AI-enabled app creates a virtual protection zone around pedestrians, wheelchair users, cyclists or motorcyclists using their mobile devices.
The app sends the user’s location coordinates to all nearby automated or connected vehicles, augmenting the vehicles’ sensor input to ensure the individual is recognized and tracked. If a connected vehicle gets too close to an !important user, its brakes will be triggered automatically before a collision can occur.
2. Improving Healthcare Delivery
Healthcare is one of the most important areas where AI is playing a critical role in saving lives. Despite the extensive training physicians and nurses receive, they cannot identify every ailment or medical condition. Furthermore, Covid-19 has certainly shown the challenges that remain in helping large numbers of critically ill patients. Companies are searching for—and finding—solutions thanks to machine learning and AI.
Health Catalyst has developed catalyst.ai, healthcare.ai and its healthcare analytics platform as potentially life-saving technologies for a wide range of clinical scenarios. For example, its machine-learning capability can identify those patients at greatest risk of readmission and provide clinicians with guidance that enables them to step in and address the problem. The technology has also helped to prevent hospital-acquired infections, predict chronic disease and reduce mortality rates.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many frontline workers around the world have tragically lost their lives to the virus while assisting patients. Bracing for a second wave, the Sheba Medical Center in Israel is testing smart hospital rooms that could save patients’ lives as well as those of doctors and nurses. The Israeli hospital believes that AI-powered robots, virtual reality glasses and early warning systems can all provide better outcomes for Covid-19 patients and a safer environment for those who care for them.
3. Detecting Medical Conditions
AI can also save lives outside the hospital setting. Corti understands that many medical emergencies occur before or during ambulance dispatch when there are only minutes to save a life. This inspired the company to create an AI-enabled system that can identify cardiac arrest.
The voice-based digital assistant listens in on emergency calls and analyzes what patients say to determine their current medical state. Trials of the system in Copenhagen found that it decreased cases of undetected out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by 43%. The company is already working on ways its solution can be used to diagnose other ailments and provide further life-saving assistance.
4. Improving Pharmaceutical Solutions
Although drugs address medical conditions and save lives, many have side effects that can lead to other health risks. Okwin is one company that has taken on the challenge of improving pharmaceutical solutions through AI-powered medical research and development.
It uses a machine-learning algorithm to create models designed to predict disease evolution, improve treatment and then enhance the way drugs are developed for these diseases. Okwin leverages an extensive amount of data from its hospital partners to find ways to help patients improve more quickly while minimizing side effects.
5. Ending Human Trafficking
Not all threats to life are healthcare-related. The global issue of human trafficking is another pandemic that requires greater attention. Those who are fighting this global scourge have found that AI can come to the rescue of millions of women and children who are being trafficked.
Investigating human trafficking can take countless hours and resources to cull through online data. However, AI can step in, collect and process the data and identify patterns at a rate that humans are incapable of achieving. AI can also be used in image recognition software to track both the criminals and locate the victims. The result is an ability to catch traffickers in the act and uncover their global networks.
Delta 8.7 is an organization that applies AI and computational science to track and stop human traffickers. The organization is partnering with the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, the Alan Turing Institute, the Computing Community Consortium, Tech Against Trafficking and others to find further ways to use technology to address this critical social issue.
Changing the World for the Better
Human life is invaluable and must be protected. From preventing life-threatening traffic accidents to saving the victims of human trafficking, AI is giving human beings a greater chance at safe and happy lives.
