Member-only story
General Intelligence
UN Warns Most A.I. Isn’t Ready to Fight the Coronavirus
Plus an algorithm that can teach robots soccer, and a facial recognition hack that makes you look like Mr. Bean
Welcome to General Intelligence, your weekly dive into the A.I. news and research that matters.
Machine learning researchers around the world are racing to apply their skills, from computer vision to natural language processing, to tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
But a new report from the United Nations’ artificial intelligence initiative, Global Pulse; the World Health Organization; and the Mila Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute warns that there’s far more work to be done before A.I. can have a meaningful impact on the situation.
“We note that very few of the reviewed systems have operational maturity at this stage,” the report says. “In order to operationalize this research, it is important to define a research road map and a funnel for A.I. applications to understand how this technology can immediately assist with the response, how it might help later on in the evolution of the current pandemic, and how it can be used to combat future pandemics.”
The current slate of coronavirus A.I. research is split into three categories: Diagnosis, finding treatments, and the study of how Covid-19 spreads through populations.
Researchers warn that most of the papers on the coronavirus so far are not peer-reviewed, meaning their scientific significance is still yet to be determined.
“Their full scientific rigor should still be assessed by the scientific community through peer-reviewed evaluation and other quality control mechanisms,” the report says.
Read the whole report here, as it’s a worthwhile explanation of the myriad approaches the research community is taking.
Here are some other interesting A.I. papers from this week:
