AI is getting better at doing what humans do, and at the same time, its performance is more efficient, quicker and at a lower cost. The potential of AI is vast and we are yet to see its full capability in the years to come. We will take a look at some ongoing AI projects that will shape our future and increasingly define our lives on this planet. In this article, we explore how AI can save the planet, improve healthcare and achieve sustainable development.
#1. AI-Empowered Healthcare
One of the biggest potentials of AI is in the area of healthcare. Health is a global issue that knows no border and that has an impact on every person. Many countries and organizations are working together on the common goal of achieving better healthcare and promoting healthier lifestyles. Applications in this area span from improving healthcare in a global context to problem-specific solutions that are underway transforming local hospitals. Implantable health devices are already becoming mainstream, with pacemakers and cochlear implants being the market leaders. 3D printers can create human parts that can be used in replacements and transplantations. Disease detection based on computer vision applied to medical imaging has already shown higher prediction accuracy than when it is performed by humans. Our favorite project in this area is healthcare.ai. Healthcare.ai software is designed to streamline healthcare machine learning. It is aimed at simplifying the build, scaling, and deployment of machine learning models. This is an open source software that enables free access to practical algorithms for healthcare applications. It contains easy to train models suited for healthcare IT and it makes machine learning available to everyone in healthcare.
#2. AI-Powered Education
AI4Good is a public charity that makes Artificial Intelligence education accessible to everyone. Their main goal is to create an inspiring and rewarding environment for AI practitioners that will help AI thrive and become a positive catalyst in our societies. Their AI-powered Education Project deals with the lack of personalized education models. Since many students have different backgrounds and thus different knowledge levels, the goal is to customize the learning process so that it suits the individual needs of each student. They are primarily focused on developing online educational tools for children and their application is able to generate questions based on the child’s learning needs.
#3. AI For the Green Environment
AI is helping researchers by providing fresh insight into complex environmental processes such as climate change, clean energy, air, water, and land pollution, deforestation One of the major concerns is marine species that are at high risk of extinction. Marine life is endangered not only by global toxic pollution problems but also by human activity such as fishing, which leads to ecosystem collapse. Industrial fishing is a very dangerous activity because it is difficult to monitor it and it leads to overfishing of some species to the point of near extinction. Last year, Kaggle organized The Nature Conservancy Fisheries Monitoring competition with the aim to provide support in a battle against overfishing. Participants were asked to develop a model that can detect when the protected fish were caught. The algorithms were fed with video data of suspected fishing. The goal was to accelerate the video review process because it takes 6 hours for an officer to review 10 hours of potentially illegal fishing activity. We believe that such competitions increase awareness of environmental protection.
#4. World of Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is an experience of digitally transformed and enhanced reality. It is achieved through a computer-made enhancement of visual and auditory perception. Wearable gears such as Microsoft’s HoloLens are one of the greatest technological revolutions of the century. They offer their users a mixed reality experience that allows transport to any place imaginable. Such devices can also improve collaboration and communication among people. A complete transformation of one’s surroundings adds an AI layer to every aspect of daily life, while still being able to access real-world tools. We think that such technologies will eliminate the need for mobile devices as we know them today and open the door to fully immersive interactive environments.
#5. AI Promoting Sustainable Development
AI is becoming an important tool in efforts to advance sustainability and achieve a better future for everyone. Additionally, initiatives that assess the societal and environmental implications of AI technologies are being actively promoted. In this way, we can make sure that AI capabilities are utilized to create a real sustainable society. The utilization of limited natural resources has a large impact on the climate around us. AI has the potential to make the industries that exploit natural resources more productive and sustainable. Additionally, monitoring of energy use will facilitate the transition to smart and sustainable cities. We believe that AI is yet to show its full potential in providing noncommercial benefits to society. A project that we want to bring to your attention is created by “AI for Good”, which is the leading United Nations (UN) platform for dialogue on Artificial Intelligence. Their strategy is aimed at supporting projects that promote the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In one of their projects, they utilized “Mask R-CNN”, which is a standard object detection model, to detect homes. This model was especially important during Hurricane Michael that hit the United States. Researchers were able to detect damaged structures on post-hurricane imagery and help save the people who were trapped inside them.
