Facebook develops A.I. to predict likelihood of worsening Covid symptoms
Summary
Artificial intelligence researchers at Facebook claim they have developed software that can predict the likelihood of a Covid patient deteriorating or needing oxygen based on their chest X-rays. William Moore, a professor of radiology at NYU Langone Health, said in a statement: "We have been able to show that with the use of this AI algorithm, serial chest radiographs can predict the need for escalation of care in patients with Covid-19." He added: "As Covid-19 continues to be a major public health issue, the ability to predict a patients need for elevation of care — for example, ICU admission — will be essential for hospitals." The researchers said they used an AI technique called "momentum contrast" to train a neural network to extract information from chest X-ray images. A neural network is a computing system vaguely inspired by the human brain that can spot patterns and recognize relationships between vast amounts of data.