To fight the coronavirus spread, give Artificial Intelligence a chance

This pandemic's the biggest 'black swan' event we've witnessed in our lives so far. The classic hockey stick curve it’s what investors and entrepreneurs desire but what medics despise. In the past week, Italy has seen that kind of curve in its coronavirus case numbers, leaving people and systems overwhelmed. German chancellor Angela Merkel has described coronavirus as Germany’s greatest challenge since World War II.

This pandemic is the biggest “black swan" event we have witnessed in our lives so far. A black swan event is characterized by a very low probability but extremely high impact. The last one was 9/11 in the US, which some still saw coming. But Covid-19 has taken us all by surprise.

Scientists develop AI that can turn brain activity into text

Researchers in US tracked the neural data from people while they were speaking

Reading minds has just come a step closer to reality: scientists have developed artificial intelligence that can turn brain activity into text.

While the system currently works on neural patterns detected while someone is speaking aloud, experts say it could eventually aid communication for patients who are unable to speak or type, such as those with locked in syndrome.

“We are not there yet but we think this could be the basis of a speech prosthesis,” said Dr Joseph Makin, co-author of the research from the University of California, San Francisco.

How AI Will Impact The Future Of Patient Care

The human body is a complex system, with an estimated 30 to 40 trillion cells and dozens of organs that all interact with each other in a network. Just like any complex system, mountains of data are generated when an individual’s body is tested, and a lot of important insights can be gleaned when the data of many people is studied.

Humans have done much of the legwork up to this point, but the democratization of artificial intelligence, particularly the subsets of deep and machine learning, has dramatically sped up our ability to discover new patterns and trends that cannot be identified by doctors and researchers alone. Deep learning, according to a paper published last year in The Lancet, was shown to perform equally to healthcare professionals when it came to diagnosing disease from patients’ medical imaging. More studies need to be done, but this finding already shows the huge potential of AI for patient care. AI will never replace doctors, but its use as a tool for medical practitioners will greatly benefit patients.

Why Python is not the programming language of the future

It took the programming community a couple of decades to appreciate Python. But since the early 2010’s, it has been booming — and eventually surpassing C, C#, Java and JavaScript in popularity.

But until when will that trend continue? When will Python eventually be replaced by other languages, and why?

Putting an exact expiry date on Python would be so much speculation, it might as well pass as Science-Fiction. Instead, I will assess the virtues that are boosting Python’s popularity right now, and the weak points that will break it in the future.

Artificial Intelligence Estimates Unexploded Bombs from Vietnam War

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to detect Vietnam War-era bomb craters in Cambodia from satellite images -- with the hope that it can help find unexploded bombs.

The new method increased true bomb crater detection by more than 160 percent over standard methods.

The model, combined with declassified U.S. military records, suggests that 44 to 50 percent of the bombs in the area studied may remain unexploded.

As of now, attempts to find and safely remove unexploded bombs and landmines -- called demining -- has not been as effective as needed in Cambodia, said Erin Lin, assistant professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

The cites a recent UN-commissioned report that has criticized the Cambodian national clearance agency for presenting a picture of rapid progress by focusing on areas at minimal or no risk of having unexploded mines. The report urges a shift in focus to more high-danger areas.