How is AI helping the response to COVID-19?

 As the world struggles on with the coronavirus pandemic, every ounce of technology is being utilised to try and fight off the threat and restore normality. 

AI is playing an integral role in being able to understand the pandemic, machine learning enables computers to be able to mimic human intelligence and take in large quantities of data to quickly identify patterns.

Machine learning has been implemented for many purposes; identifying how the disease spreads, scaling customer communications and speeding up research.

Every business, whether it is small or global, is finding new ways to operate efficiently and meet the needs of both employees and customers as social distancing measures remain in place. 

One example of how machine learning is being used is chat bots for contactless COVID-19 screenings and to answer questions for any concerned members of the public.

It also helps researchers discover how the coronavirus spreads by analysing a large volume of data, it also helps to predict the spread and act as an early warning system.

It may be too early to tell the extent of which artificial intelligence aided the fight against the coronavirus however we know that it has played a major role in identifying trends in the virus to decipher how it spreads. 

What is machine learning?:

Simply put, machine learning is the study of computer algorithms that aim to improve themselves through experience. 

Machine learning powers some of the tools that we use day to day that we may not even know about, for example, Netflix uses machine learning, in addition to Twitter, Spotify and Google. Less shockingly, Siri and Alexa both utilise machine learning. 

Each platform collects as much data about you as they can for example, what genres you like to listen to/watch, what links you click and even which statuses you interact with and react to most.

What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and also mimic human actions. Artificial intelligence technology has many applications, the uses of it are endless. Such as self-driving cars and even computers that play games like chess. 

Artificial intelligence is also used in banking to help detect fraud and flag unusual activity.