There seems to be a tendency to hastily use imperfect and questionable data to train an AI solution for COVID-19, a dangerous trend that not only does not help any patient or physician but also damages the reputation of the AI community. Dealing with a pandemic -- as significant as it is -- does not suspend basic scientific principles. Data has to be curated by medical experts, full and rigorous validations have to be performed, and results have to be reviewed by peers before we deploy any solution or even proposal into the world, particularly when society is dealing with many uncertainties. It is safe to say we are all deeply concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic. This coronavirus has drastically changed our reality: We're experiencing stress, restrictions, quarantines; we're witnessing heroic sacrifices of caregivers including staff, nurses, and physicians; we're losing loved ones; and we're facing economic hardships and massive uncertainties about what is in store in the coming months.

The rapid uptake of telehealth services to stop the spread of coronavirus is adding impetus to research to develop innovative new ways of diagnosing and monitoring patients with eye disease. As the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred Australia's health care practitioners to replace many routine face-to-face appointments with phone or video consultations – telehealth has moved into the mainstream. CERA researchers are leading major projects to develop innovative new diagnostic tools that can be used in the home or outside of traditional eye clinic settings. They predict the shift to telehealth services will continue to gather pace after the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. CERA Deputy Director Associate Professor Peter van Wijngaarden is leading research to develop a simple eye test to detect the early signs Alzheimer's disease.

AI ecosystem builder Skymind's collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Malaysia is the first step to build a global research community with a focus on how #AI can better position people to weather pandemics. Skymind Holdings Limited's Shawn Tan says Skymind is committed to the long haul in building Malaysia and the Southeast Asia region as an AI hub for the world, concluding that: "Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination." The following feature takes a behind-the-scenes look at how frontier technologies can try and balance data privacy concerns and the current state of AI in the health crisis.

This is part 2 of a three-part series examining the effects of robots and automation on employment, based on new research from economist and Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu. Overall, adding robots to manufacturing reduces jobs -- by more than three per robot, in fact. But a new study co-authored by an MIT professor reveals an important pattern: Firms that move quickly to use robots tend to add workers to their payroll, while industry job losses are more concentrated in firms that make this change more slowly. The study, by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, examines the introduction of robots to French manufacturing in recent decades, illuminating the business dynamics and labor implications in granular detail. "When you look at use of robots at the firm level, it is really interesting because there is an additional dimension," says Acemoglu.

IoT is drastically changing the world for the better. There was a time when internet connectivity was available only on phones and computers. In the past decade, this focus has shifted to all technologies. Gradually, we are seeing the development of devices that connect to the internet. All these devices collect and share data to make our lives easier. You must know what IoT is by now, but for general understanding IoT is a broad umbrella.

Chest x rays offer a quick screening method for lung problems: A collapsed lung, the buildup of excess fluid, or swollen tissue are all recognizable by radiologists in these black and white images. Doctors also use the images to help quickly diagnosis diseases, such as pneumonia. Making x-ray screening of COVID-19 similarly speedy would benefit over-run hospitals, and the developers of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are hoping that they can help. But getting the data they need from hospitals and ensuring accuracy are challenges that they must first overcome. "In places like New York, where there was this huge explosion of [COVID-19] patients, they're already taking chest x rays alongside viral testing. So why not have a greater immediate impact by building AI [software] to help screen through all those images?" says Alexander Wong, who works on medical image processing problems using AI at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

A California-based startup says it has found a way to shrink typically bulky brain-reading technology into a compact helmet. The startup, called Kernel, has unveiled two new systems according to a report by Bloomberg, both of which are small enough to fit on a helmet-sizes cap. Together, they can both see and record brain activity. The pair of devices, which haven't been pictured or released to the public, reportedly stand in stark contrast to other commercial brain-reading equipment like electroencephalography machines which are rather bulky and require a trained technician to use. Other devices like the magnetoencephalography machine take up an entire room and require patients' heads to be confined inside.

Security officers in China are wearing AI-powered smart glasses to find people with a fever, one of the main symptoms of the coronavirus. The specs use a thermal imaging camera to measure someone's temperature from up to 1 metre away. The glasses were developed by AI startup Rokid, which claims each set can check the temperature of several hundred people in just two minutes, the South China Morning Post reports. When the devices identify someone with a fever, they send an automatic alert to staff and make a digital record. The specs are being donned by security guards in Hongyuan Park, part of a wetland preserve in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

After decades spent discussing how and what to teach in the classrooms, the focus is now turning more to implementation, experts said at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) conference in Doha, hosted by the Qatar Foundation on 19-21 November. Ministers and education experts discussed in Doha how to reap the benefits of the digital revolution as new challenges arise from teaching students across the world in the era of artificial intelligence. OECD countries spend on average 4.5% of their GDP on education. At the same time, education itself is transforming to adapt to a changing planet. The constant retooling of labour skills will be a central element of a European Commission paper on the future of the EU social pillar, to be published on 26 April, EURACTIV.com In an increasingly uncertain and unstable world, citizens are expected to become life-long learners in order to remain relevant for a fast-changing labour market that will be disrupted by machines.

Alice envisions the future is a unique program run by Microsoft in partnership with Avanade and Accenture which allows high school girls around the world to develop their understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – the world's leading technology in terms of its potential for building a better future. Named after Alice's inspirational and curiosity-driven adventures in Wonderland, participants are treated to workshops led by industry experts, in addition to receiving help from Microsoft, Avanade and Accenture mentors to develop their own projects, before pitching them to a panel of judges. "When we look at the gender gap among AI workers, it makes me think that we really need to do something," says Ana Maria Stanciuc, EMEA Education Marketing Lead at Microsoft. "Events like this help teach girls to trust their imagination, to believe in their ideas, and to show that there are no limits. "Having different mentors helping them with design-lead thinking, technical and business skills is an incredible resource.