Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence

We know machines and artificial intelligence (AI) can be many things, but can they ever really be creative? When I interviewed Professor Marcus du Sautoy, the author of The Creativity Code, he shared that the role of AI is a kind of catalyst to push our human creativity. Its the machine and human collaboration that produces exciting resultsnovel approaches and combinations that likely wouldnt develop if either were working alone.

Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative?

Instead of thinking about AI as replacing human creativity, it's beneficial to examine ways that AI can be used as a tool to augment human creativity. Here are several examples of how AI boosts the creativity of humans in art, music, dance, design, recipe building, and publishing.

Art

In the world of visual art, AI is making an impact in many ways. It can alter existing art such as the case when it made the Mona Lisa a living portrait a la Harry Potter, create likenesses that appear to be real humans that can be found on the website ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com and even create original works of art.

When Christies auctioned off a piece of AI artwork titled the Portrait of Edmond de Belamy for $432,500, it became the first auction house to do so. The AI algorithm, a generative adversarial network (GAN) developed by a Paris-based collective, that created the art, was fed a data set of 15,000 portraits covering six centuries to inform its creativity.

Another development that blurs the boundaries of what it means to be an artist is Ai-Da, the worlds first robot artist, who recently held her first solo exhibition. She is equipped with facial recognition technology and a robotic arm system thats powered by artificial intelligence.

More eccentric art is also a capability of artificial intelligence. Algorithms can read recipes and create images of what the final dish will look like. Dreamscope by Google uses traditional images of people, places and things and runs them through a series of filters. The output is truly original, albeit sometimes the stuff of nightmares.

Music

If AI can enhance creativity in visual art, can it do the same for musicians? David Cope has spent the last 30 years working on Experiments in Musical Intelligence or EMI. Cope is a traditional musician and composer but turned to computers to help get past composers block back in 1982. Since that time, his algorithms have produced numerous original compositions in a variety of genres as well as created Emily Howell, an AI that can compose music based on her own style rather than just replicate the styles of yesterdays composers.

In many cases, AI is a new collaborator for todays popular musicians. Sony's Flow Machine and IBM's Watson are just two of the tools music producers, YouTubers, and other artists are relying on to churn out today's hits. Alex Da Kid, a Grammy-nominated producer, used IBMs Watson to inform his creative process. The AI analyzed the "emotional temperature" of the time by scraping conversations, newspapers, and headlines over a five-year period. Then Alex used the analytics to determine the theme for his next single.

Another tool that embraces human and machine collaboration, AIVA bills itself as a creative assistant for creative people and uses AI and deep learning algorithms to help compose music.

In addition to composing music, artificial intelligence is transforming the music industry in a variety of ways from distribution to audio mastering and even creating virtual pop stars. An auxuman singer called Yona, developed by Iranian electronica composer Ash Koosha, creates and performs music such as the song Oblivious through AI algorithms.

Dance and Choreography

A powerful way dance choreographers have been able to break out of their regular patterns is to use artificial intelligence as a collaborator. Wayne McGregor, the award-winning British choreographer and director, is known for using technology in his work and is particularly fascinated by how AI could enhance what is done with the choreography in a project with Google Arts & Culture Lab. Hundreds of hours of video footage of dancers representing individual styles were fed into the algorithm. The AI then went to work and "learned how to dance. The goal is not to replace the choreographer but to efficiently iterate and develop different choreography options.

AI Augmented Design

Another creative endeavor AI is proving to be adept at is commercial design. In a collaboration between French designer Philippe Starck, Kartell, and Autodesk, a 3D software company, the first chair designed using artificial intelligence and put into production was presented at Milan Design Week. The Chair Project is another collaboration that explores co-creativity between people and machines.

Recipes

The creativity of AI is also transforming the kitchen not only by altering longstanding recipes but also creating entirely new food combinations in collaborations with some of the biggest names in the food industry. Our favorite libations might also get an AI makeover. You can now pre-order AI-developed whiskey. Brewmasters decisions are also being informed by artificial intelligence. MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is making use of all those photos of the food that we post on social media. By using computer vision, these food photos are being analyzed to better understand peoples eating habits as well as to suggest recipes with the food that is pictured.

Write Novels and Articles

Even though the amount of written material to inform artificial intelligence algorithms is voluminous, writing has been a challenging skill for AI to acquire. Although AI has been most successful in generating short-form formulaic content such as journalism "who, what, where, and when stories," its skills continue to grow. AI has now written a novel, and although neural networks created what many might find a weird read, it was still able to do it. And, with the announcement a Japanese AI programs short-form novel almost won a national literary prize, its easy to see how it wont be long before AI can compete with humans to write compelling pieces of content. Kopan Page published Superhuman Innovation, a book not only about artificial intelligence but was co-written by AI. PoemPortraits is another example of AI and human collaboration where you can provide the algorithm with a single word that it will use to generate a short poem.

As the world of AI and human creativity continue to expand, its time to stop worrying about if AI can be creative, but how the human and machine world can intersect for creative collaborations that have never been dreamt of before.

You can watch the full interview with Marcus du Sautoy here:

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Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative? - Forbes

Travis Mandel (Photo credit: Raiatea Arcuri)

A computer scientist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo is the recipient of a more than half-a million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation aimed at developing new techniques in artificial intelligence (AI). Assistant Professor Travis Mandel, an AI expert, will use the prestigious $549,790 award to enhance research based on human-in-the-loop AI. The techniques are based on how AI and machine learning systems collaborate with humans to solve real-world problems too challenging for either to address alone.

The goal of this project is to create new algorithms and interaction paradigms that enable humans and artificial intelligence systems to work together, leveraging each others strengths to collect better data, Mandel said.

The National Science Foundation award is expected to have a major impact on research and education on Hawaii Island. The hope is to drive increased interest in science and technology at UH Hilo and showcase the universitys emerging data science program.

Im particularly excited about the opportunities this grant will provide for our talented and hardworking undergraduate students to get involved in cutting-edge computer science and data science research, Mandel said. The project also includes components that integrate research and education, such as building new data science curriculum and developing interactive video game exhibits at Imiloa Astronomy Center and the Hawaii Science and Technology Museum.

For more go to UH Hilo Stories.

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UH Hilo receives $500K grant to research artificial intelligence interaction with humans - UH System Current News

By Sergey Karayev

Artificial Intelligence is coming for education.

But dont panic.

Its not going to replace college faculty or teaching as we know it. Its not a slippery slope. Instead, AI is going to give faculty superpowers, extending their reach and expanding their time.

A good teacher is a role model, a sage, able to become what the student needs. Teaching is too personal, too human, to be turned over to AI.

Thats not just my opinion. Three years ago, McKinsey, the global consulting firm, issued a report on how and where AI and automation was most likely to replace jobs and job functions. They listed Educational Services as the sector least likely to undergo that type of technology-dependent displacement saying, the essence of teaching is deep expertise and complex interactions with other people.

Consider also Dr. David Weiss, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota. Weiss was probably the first person in the world to use computers to give and grade assessments, work he was doing as early as 1969. As far back as the 1970s people said we could have computers deliver instruction, we wont need teachers anymore. And Im hearing that again now because so much is on computer, he said recently. But thats never been realistic. There are things computers can do well and things they cant, he said.

Thats all true and unlikely to change. Teachers teach. They are good at it. No one wants to change that.

So, the dawn of AI in teaching does not mean were on a path to robot instructors. Computers and algorithms are highly unlikely to come between faculty and students anytime in our foreseeable future.

Where AI can help today is outside the classroom, making many non-instructional responsibilities of teaching easier and faster.

As an example, the area Im working on is AI-assisted grading. When fully tested and deployed, it will be able to do things such as group student answers by their content, and batch feedback to all essentially similar responses in the blink of an eye. So instead of a teacher writing forgot to mention the Krebs cycle 50 times, they can identify the error once and write their feedback once and the AI in the tool will propagate it to other responses with the same error.

AI assessment tools can also help faculty spot sticky subject areas for subsets of students and even make student-by-student recommendations for areas of extra attention. It can spot when an unusually high percentage of students struggled with a particular question, flagging that either the specific question or the whole topic needs teacher review.

Make no mistake. This wont replace gradingteachers will still decide whats correct and what isnt. Teachers will still approve the results. They just wont need to spend as long doing it, and they will be more accurate to boot.

Used correctly, it could turn the rote process of grading into a faster, less repetitive exercise in much the same way the Scantron or optical mark recognition made scoring multiple-choice assessments faster. Neither innovation replaced teaching, they made being a teacher easier.

Think of it as the difference between using Microsoft Word or a typewriter. Computer-based typing tools such as spellcheckers and cut-and-paste did not replace writing or displace writers, they made writers better, faster, more powerful.

My point is not that automated grading tools and other AI advancements will be mundane improvements. I am confident they will be tremendously important advancements in education. What Im saying is that the AI that is coming to education will be in the support systems, freeing faculty to do more of what they love, the things computers cant do: mentor students, make intellectual connections, and inspire curious minds. Giving teachers significantly more time and energy to do those things has the potential to be a game-changer for learning.

AI can do that, and not just in grading but in

other areas too, streamlining the tasks and chores of faculty that exist largely outside and apart from person-to-person, teacher-to-student engagement. The point of AI is to make those moments more frequent and more powerfulto be a teaching superpower.

Sergey Karayev has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley, is co-founder of Gradescope, and head of AI for STEM at Turnitin. He is also a co-organizer of Full Stack Deep Learning Bootcamp, which delves into best practices of all components of deep learning.

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Where artificial intelligence fits in education - TechTalks

Last week I went to the Imperial Theater to see Aint Too Proud, a biography in song and dance of the ultimate Motown supergroup, The Temptations. It was one of the many Broadway shows that are often overlooked in favor of heavy hitters like Cats or Wicked, but is still entertaining nonetheless.

The performance reminded me of why people go to Broadway in the first place. The music, the dancing, the acting, and the story, surprisingly, are all secondary.

The real reason we go to the theater is to experience the energy and joy of the performers who are right in front of us, operating on that tightrope where there are no second chances, no explanations or forgiveness for forgetting ones lines or moves, and instead the excitement and thrill of watching individuals living their dreams and demonstrating the greatness of the human spirit, just for us, right before our very eyes.

Theres nothing necessarily easy about getting to Broadway. First, youve got to get tickets, and two tickets to any Broadway show costs about the same as a year of Netflix or Disney Plus. Next, youve got to make your way to Midtown Manhattan, an increasingly difficult chore, since Mayor de Blasio has all but outlawed private vehicles and, somehow, made traffic even worse than ever.

Then theres the experience of being in the theater at Broadway shows, which is not how most people consume their entertainment these days. When youre at home, nobody glares at you if you leave your phone on and it beeps, buzzes, or trills. You can get up and go to the bathroom anytime, not just before or after the show, in a line of fifty strangers equally desperate to pee.

At home, on the couch, you dont have to wrestle a stranger for control of an armrest. You can sprawl as much as you like, with no one to lean on you, breathe on you, or block your view.

And yet.

When we think about the term virtual, as in virtual reality, we tend to forget that the real meaning of virtue comes from the Latin word for truth. Virtual reality is, in fact, a bit of a dirty lie. Its neither virtual (truthful) nor is it real. The performers arent sharing the same space with you.

They had countless takes in order to get their songs, dances, or emoting exactly the way they want it. If a note, or a dance step, or an entrance, or anything gets flubbed, no problem.

Take two.

Producers on Broadway shows are a smart lot. They understand that their mission in life is to give the people what they want, and above all, thats a rollicking good time. Even if you cannot pee on-demand or check your phone without experiencing the opprobrium of those around you. And if you dont like what youre watching, theres nothing else on.

Youre stuckliterally in the middle of the row and figuratively, as theres no other channel, website, or video to which you can turn. So its easy to make the case for what really shouldnt be called virtual reality and should actually be referred to as a bunch of stuff caught on video.

That said, Im hoping youll do what I did: Make your way into trafficky, crowded Midtown, pay too much for dinner, pay just enough to get good seats, and wedge yourself in between a couple of strangers and arm wrestle with them for dominance on the seat dividers, and enjoy the show.

As for The Temptations itself, if youre going to see one Broadway show, as the expression goes, you really ought to get out more often. But if you are going to see one, make it this one.

The perfection of the performance, the awesome quality of the music, the thrill of the dancing, mic tosses, and splitsyou cant get that on YouTube. Okay, yeah, you can, but you wont breathe the same air as the performers.

And if there are any performers with whom youshould share air and space, its the men and women of the cast and band of Aint Too Proud.

You can always pick up your device again afterthe show.

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The Temptations: Will Artificial Intelligence Ever Replace Broadway Shows? - Grit Daily

AL-BAHA:Ever wondered what it would be like to spend a night in a cave surrounded with nothing but the sounds of wilderness? For adventurous Saudis, its now possible and they dont even have to travel far.

In the striking Al-Baha region in the Kingdoms southwest, Saudi architect Mohammed Nasser Al-Shadwee has carved out eye-catching architectural structures in the caves that make up part of dramatic mountain terrain.

Shada Mountain, along with its caves and grottoes engraved with drawings and inscriptions dating back more than 3,000 years, is a favorite destination for Saudis who enjoy the outdoors.

Al-Shadwee told Arab News that he studied the geography, geology and topography of the mountains before designing the unique tourist accommodation, working on the project for years until his vision was realized.

Architectural structures, each with its own individual style, were carved out of the terrain, and provided with proper lighting and water.

The mountains of Al-Baha have some of the most wonderful rock formations. They are a geological and topographical masterpiece, Al-Shadwee said. Shada Mountain should be added to the list of historical geological heritage sites.

Saudi Arabias mountains are among the most beautiful in the Middle East with geological features rarely found in other mountainous areas. Shada Mountain, for example, reveals rocks in the shape of wildlife, birds and sometimes humans.

The caves were used for shelter thousands of years ago. Today, some people still use the caves as dwellings, while others have become tourist attractions.

That is why I decided to use the ancient caves, carving inns into them and trying to create more space inside, Al-Shadwee said. The process is difficult because the granite rocks are hard and make my job extremely difficult, he explained.

Al-Shadwee said that he hopes this new form of geological tourism will attract visitors from around the world.

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Artificial Intelligence to add more than $133bn to Saudi Arabia's GDP - Arabnews

Distinguished technology leader and AI expert Dr. Harry Shum becomes an angel investor in Asensys, a novel blockchain system designed to empower the decentralized web

SEATTLE, March 5, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --Asensys, a next-generation, high-performance system that brings throughput and capacity to a new, scalable level, is pleased to announce former Executive Vice President of Artificial Intelligence & Research at Microsoft Dr. Harry Shum as an angel investor.

Dr. Shum is a famous AI researcher, who is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Fellow for his contributions to computer vision and computer graphics. In 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering of the United States and elected an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK in 2018.

Dr. Harry Shum expressed, "Brendon and the Asensys team have developed a system to support the scaled throughput and capacity necessary to realize the promise of the decentralized Web, based on solid peer-reviewed research work on NSDI. I very much look forward to working hand-in-hand with the Asensys team to bring this solution to the forefront of internet technology innovation and ensure that our digital lives empowered by AI are secure and trustworthy."

Dr. Shum's expertise in AI will provide Asensys with an advantage in building a system that works for an increasingly AI-powered economy. AI algorithms are already deployed across finance, e-commerce, and media verticals, but the possibilities enabled by combining forces with blockchain are mostly untapped. Blockchain technology and AI together will drive the evolution of digital society with blockchain allowing for the effective application of AI without weakening data security or privacy.

Asensys Founder Dr. Brendon Wang boasts an impressive background himself, having published dozens of papers in such highly-reputed journals as ACM/TOG and USENIX/NSDI and been granted many US patents for his work. Dr. Wang formerly was a lead researcher at Microsoft Research where he focused on distributed computing systems for high-performance GPU computing and blockchain systems. He earned his PhD from the Institute of Computing Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences focusing on parallel computing and computer graphics.

"I'm honored to announce Harry Shum, as an angel investor in Asensys," said Asensys Founder Dr. Wang. "Involvement by such an acclaimed computer scientist is an unbelievable endorsement of the system we have created to address blockchain's scalability problem and provide a solid infrastructure for the decentralized Web that benefits everyone in the future."

By introducing the novel concept of Asynchronous Consensus Zones, Asensys is able to reduce redundancy of network tasks and process transactions much faster than legacy blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. When Asensys performed a test including 1,200 virtual machines worldwide to support 48,000 nodes, the Asensys system delivered 1,000 times the throughput and 2,000 times the capacity of the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, as reported in the NSDI research paper.

As the Asensys team continues to develop its novel infrastructure for the decentralized Web, the involvement of Dr. Shum as an eminent technology leader and the former Executive Vice President of Artificial Intelligence & Research at Microsoft represents an important milestone in the project's rollout and build-up of institutional credibility.

To stay up-to-date on Asensys news and updates, visit the website: https://asensys.com/

For media inquiries, please contact Kili Wall at (310) 260-7901 or media(at)asensys(dot)com.

About Asensys Asensys is a new-generation, high-performance system that brings throughput and capacity to a new, scalable level. Asensys aims to meet the needs of the modern digital economy with its novel blockchain infrastructure that will enable web users to realize the full potential of the internet by providing the foundation upon which decentralized applications can be built.

Headquartered in Seattle, WA with a global team, Asensys was founded by Dr. Brendon (JiaPing) Wang, whose research has been published in highly-reputed journals, such as ACM/TOG, and who also has been granted many US patents for his work on distributed computing and blockchain systems. At the prestigious NSDI'19 conference, Dr. Wang and the Asensys team demonstrated how to conquer the Blockchain Trilemmathe idea that decentralization or security must be sacrificed to achieve high performance.

SOURCE Asensys

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Asensys Announces Former Executive Vice President of Artificial Intelligence & Research at Microsoft Dr. Harry Shum as an Angel Investor - Yahoo...

THIS EVENT IS POSTPONEDMore Information Coming Soon

Artificial Intelligence (AI) - a systems ability to collect and interpret data, to learn from data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and complete tasks is at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and is transforming every aspect of our global society. From healthcare to business, climate change to entertainment, defense and education, AI is changing our world and how we interact with it and each other.

While AI is simplifying and enhancing many aspects of our lives, the technology does not come without its issues. Many have concerns about privacy, data collection, and the impact on workers who could potentially be displaced by the technology. Regulation and oversight will be imperative to ensure that the technology isnt being abused, and it is important to consider the ethical implications of this emerging technology.

WPI alumni and researchers are at the center of it all.

Join us for this special event, hosted by Michael Wallent 91, corporate vice president of Enterprise Mobility Management Products for Microsoft Corporation, where a panel of WPI alumni and faculty will discuss the possibilities and ethical implications of AI and how we can harness its potential to be a force for good.

Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Time: 6:00 PM

Location: The Kalaloch Room in Building 35 of the Microsoft Corporation Main Campus-3940 159th Ave NE,Redmond, WA 98052

Due to security measures at the Microsoft campus, advanced registration is required.

Michael Wallent works at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington and is the Corporate Vice President of the Enterprise Mobility Management group. His team develops services to help companies manage employee use of PCs and mobile devices. Michael joined Microsoft in 1996 and worked on Internet Explorer, Windows and Windows Server.

Michael lives in Seattle with his wife Anh, and kids Peri, John and Daniel. Even though hes been in Seattle for more than 20 years now, hes a die-hard Pats and Sox fan (root for where you are from!). Michael grew up mostly in Rhode Island, where his parents taught him about east coast perseverance and how to quickly clean lobsters. Hes often found in the mountains, spending time with skis and friends.

Michael graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1991 with a B.S. in Computer Science.

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Critical Conversations: Artificial Intelligence, Our World, and You - WPI News

Results from Farnells second IoT Survey also show increasing confidence in companies to lead IoT development.

AIoT is the major emerging trend from the survey, demonstrating the beginning of the process to build a true IoT ecosystem. Research showed that almost half (49%) of respondents already use AI in their IoT applications, with Machine Learning (ML) the most used technology (28%) followed by cloud-based AI (19%).

This adoption of AI within IoT design is coupled with a growing confidence to take the lead on IoT development and an increasing number of respondents seeing themselves as innovators. However, it is still evident that some engineers (51%) are hesitant to adopt AI due to being new to the technology or because they require specialized expertise in how to implement AI in IoT applications.

Other results from Farnells second Global IoT Survey show that security continues to be the biggest concern designers consider in IoT implementation. Although 40% cited security as their biggest concern in 2018 and this has reduced to 35% in 2019, it is still ranked significantly higher than connectivity and interoperability due to the type of data collected from things (machines) and humans, which can be very sensitive and personal. Businesses initiating new IoT projects treat IoT security as a top priority by implementing hardware and software security to protect for any kind of potential threat. Ownership of collected data is another important aspect of security, with 70% of respondents preferring to own the data collected by an edge device as opposed to it being owned by the IoT solution provider.

The survey also shows that although many engineers (46%) still prefer to design a complete edge-to-cloud and security solution themselves, openness to integrate production ready solutions, such as SmartEdge Agile, SmartEdge IIoT Gateway, which offer a complete end-to-end IoT Solution, has increased. 12% more respondents confirmed that they would consider third party devices in 2019 than 2018, particularly if in-house expertise is limited or time to market is critical.

A key trend from last years survey results has continued in 2019 and survey results suggest that the growing range of hardware available to support IoT development continues to present new opportunities. More respondents than ever are seeing innovation coming from start-ups (33%, up from 26%), who benefit from the wide availability of modular solutions and single board computers available on the market. The number of respondents adopting off-the-shelf hardware has also increased to 54% from 50% in 2018.

Cliff Ortmeyer, Global Head of Technical Marketing for Farnell says:

Opportunities within the Internet of Things and AI continue to grow, fueled by access to an increasing number of hardware and software solutions which enable developers to bring products to market more quickly than ever before, and without the need for specialized expertise.

This is opening up IoT to new entrants, and giving more developers the opportunity to innovate to improve lives. Farnell provides access to an extensive range of development tools for IoT and AI which provide off-the-shelf solutions to common challenges.

Despite the swift integration of smart devices such as Amazons Alexa and Google Home into daily life, evidencing a widespread adoption of IoT in the consumer space, in 2019 we saw a slight shift in focus away from home automation with the number of respondents who considered it to be the most impactful application in IoT in the next 5 years reducing from 27% to 22%. Industrial automation and smart cities both gained, at 22% and 16% respectively, underpinned by a growing understanding of the value that IoT data can bring to operations (rising from 44% in 2018 to 50% in 2019). This trend is witnessed in industry where more manufacturing facilities are converting to full or semi-automation in robotic manufacturing and increasing investment in predictive maintenance to reduce production down times.

The survey was conducted between September and December 2019 with 2,015 respondents participating from 67 countries in Europe, North America and APAC. Responses were predominantly from engineers working on IoT solutions (59%), as well as buyers of components related to IoT solutions, Hobbyists and Makers.

Originally posted here:

New Research from Farnell Reveals Strong Adoption of Artificial Intelligence within the Internet of Things Ecosystem - IoT Business News

CARY The ongoing spread of the coronavirus is sparking urgent searches for a vaccine to counteract it. Several Triangle firms such as Lenovo and Heat Biologics have joined the fight. Also bringing powerful and emerging technology to the battle is software and data analytics giantSAS, a heavy investor in artificial intelligence and a world leader of tools to extract information from so-called big data information gathered from many sources.

In an exclusive Q&A with WRAL TechWire,Theresa Do, Support Manager for Federal Healthcare at SAS, talks about the potential uses of AI, machine learning and analytics to combat the corornavirus and future health threats. Do also is a Professor ofEpidemiology & Biostatistics at George Washington Univ. in Washington, DC.

Developing new treatments and creating vaccines and antiviral medications for newly discovered viruses is a difficult and time-consuming process, traditionally involving lots of trial and error. AI and advanced analytics can help improve the application of current treatments and speed up the development of new ones.

Theresa Do

For example, AI specifically deep learning is currently being used to help radiologists make better treatment decisions based on medical imaging. Chest x-rays of patients infected with the new coronavirus may serve as input into AI models that can help physicians make faster diagnoses as the outbreak continues. AI can also help here by examining data from similar viral diseases and using that data to predict what types of vaccines and medicines might be more effective.

Data and analytics are the lifeblood for decision-making during infectious-disease outbreaks.Analytics can provide insights about the spread of a disease and the effectiveness of public health action, which can improve the response.The more information people have about case counts, mortality rates, how a disease spreads and how contagious it is, the better decisions they can make to limit, prevent and treat the disease. Public health and scientific data must be shared freely and rapidly with stakeholders and key decision makers so they can take action.

For decades, SAS has provided analytics software to public health and government agencies in the United States and around the world, helping them improve the health and well-being of their citizens. Governments hold much of the critical data needed to understand current conditions during an outbreak, but analytics companies like SAS offer an ability to synthesize this data with other non-government data and specialized tools to get the most insights from this unified data. These data-driven insights support better, faster government and public health decision-making. Events like the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak require public and private sectors to work closely together to limit disease spread and save lives.

Collaboration, integration and rapid information sharing are essentialto improve response and recovery for infectious disease outbreaks.Gone are the days when only governments and public health organizations had valuable data to fight epidemics. Disparate, non-traditional data setscan serve as sentinel sources everything from travel and census data, to demographic information and animal migration patternscan be applied to the public health threats. But the key is how to take advantage of all this data and emerging new data like genetic sequences.

Advanced analytics and AI (particularly machine learning) are essential tools to put data to work and save lives. With more and diverse data sets, the challenge is to synthesize everything to derive the insights needed to make decisions. Asolid data management ecosystem and platform where the data can be stored, cleaned, scaled and shared among key stakeholders and decision makers is essential. So, its not just about the data, but also how that data can be used effectively in global collaboration to fight the emergence and spread of disease.

Finally, having enough good data is a challenge when a new, or novel virus is causing a disease outbreak. Advanced analytics are only as good as the data they can explore, analyze and sift through. For COVID-19, collaboration will continue to improve as more data is shared.

Analytics has an important and growing role to play in the detection and monitoring of all viral-disease outbreaks. Critical insights about disease spread and the effectiveness of public health action can be derived from analytical approaches, which helps decision-makers adjust and adapt their strategies and responses.

AI and machine learning in particular are valuable tools for healthcare professionals and policymakers to reduce or better manage the impact of emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19. Machine learning is designed to consider large amounts of data, find patterns in that data and detect anomalies, and in many cases offer predictions.

AI can help health authorities better detect infectious disease outbreaks by analyzing sentinel data sources for early warning of potential threats.AI can be applied to models on common themes or topics to help identify common symptoms among new and evolving public health threats. Moreover, AI can help to automate data analysis, identify patterns and build models of risk factors to help in scenario analysis of transmission. And when it comes to identifying paths of transmission, AI can aid in the search for a host and/or index case, as well as tracking possible contacts.

When SARS emerged, there were fewer data sources that could be leveraged, such as social media, Internet of Things (IoT) devices and technologies to help with diagnostics. Phone apps for tracking of health data and diagnostics were not yet present. (The iPhone came out in 2007, four years after SARS broke out). With the advent of the iPhone and new types of apps and technologies, scientists can leverage a lot more data for analysis in addition to the available sentinel sources.

Today there are more ways that people can communicate to quickly distribute public health prevention efforts and quell misinformation regarding public health threats such as the some of the misinformation around COVID-19. Providers have more information at their fingertips via technology versus when SARS first broke out during the early stages, as well as the availability of the internet. However, with COVID-19, there is still a lot more to be uncovered and learned.

For any infectious disease outbreak, good responses need good data that can be shared readily and acted upon quickly. That was true then for SARS, and its true today for COVID-19.

Lenovo, Intel team up to accelerate analysis of coronavirus genome in vaccine search

Morrisville-based Heat Biologics joins global effort to discover coronavirus vaccine

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High tech vs. coronavirus: Using artificial intelligence, analytics are weapons SAS brings to the fight - WRAL Tech Wire

Last year, the HKMA commissioned a study into the application of Artificial Intelligence technology (AI) in the Hong Kong banking industry. The report, published on 23 December 2019, summarises insights from academics and industry experts on AI. One key finding was that almost 90% of the surveyed retail banks had adopted or planned to adopt AI applications. 95% of banks which had adopted AI expressed their intention to use AI to shape their corporate strategy, mainly prompted by the need to improve customer experience, stay cost effective and better manage risk.

To help the banking industry understand the risk and potential of AI, the report covered the latest development trends, potential use cases, status of AI development in banking, challenges and considerations in designing and deploying the technology, as well as the market outlook.

This report is the first in a series of AI-related publications produced by the HKMA. The full report can be accessed here.

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HKMA's paper on Artificial Intelligence in the banking industry - Lexology