One of the most alarming threats to humanity currently is the spread of the coronavirus. The infection that started off from the Wuhan, China has spread to more than 70 countries. The death count has crossed the 3,000. And these numbers are still on the rise. Still, there is mass confusion surrounding the infection, its symptoms, and its transmission. The places outside of China are having problems diagnosing the infection; look at our condition for example. But that might soon be solved as Alibaba has reportedly developed an AI diagnostic system that can diagnose the coronavirus infection.
AI diagnostic system for coronavirus
A report from China-based tech media Sina Tech News has claimed that Alibaba has already developed a system that deploys AI algorithms to diagnose the coronavirus infection. The system can diagnose the infection within 20 seconds with 96% accuracy. The time involved here is significantly better than a diagnosis by a human and it could be instrumental for doctors that are fighting the disease.
The AI system is developed by researchers of the Damo Institute – it is a research institute that was established by Alibaba in 2017. The institute earlier developed a health service tool to answer queries about the infection which is now in use in the Zhejiang province. The system uses the data of over 5,000 confirmed coronavirus infected individuals and uses it in the diagnosis process. It scans the CT scan report of individual and compares it to the data available to determine the infection. Developers claim that the results from the system are 96% accurate.
Also, read how tech companies are suffering from the COVID-19 outbreak!
How does it compare to human diagnosis?
Identifying a coronavirus infection is not an easy task as doctors have to carefully evaluate CT scans of each potential victim. Sometimes they have to go through more than 300 images to finally come to a conclusion and it can take up to 20 minutes. The new system will be vital has it doctors can now focus more on the treatment of the disease.
Alibaba plans to implement the system in about 100 hospitals across the heavily infected provinces. It hopes to deploy it in hospitals in provinces of Hubei, Anhui, and Guangdong.
The AI diagnostic system from Alibaba isn’t the complete solution to the problem of the coronavirus outbreak. However, it certainly is a good start. And it is always good to see major companies pitting in an effort to solve the prevalent problems of society.
Don’t forget to check our impression of the latest Samsung S20 and S20+
