Artificial Intelligence and the COVID-19 Pandemic - Future of Privacy Forum

Machine learning-based technologies are playing a substantial role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts are using machine learning to study the virus, test potential treatments, diagnose individuals, analyze the public health impacts, and more. Below, we describe some of the leading efforts and identify data protection and ethical issues related to machine learning and COVID-19, with a particular focus on apps directed to health care professionals that leverage audio-visual data, text analysis, chatbots, and sensors. "Machine Intelligence (MI) is rapidly becoming an important approach across biomedical discovery, clinical research, medical diagnostics/devices, and precision medicine. Such tools can uncover new possibilities for researchers, physicians, and patients, allowing them to make more informed decisions and achieve better outcomes. When deployed in healthcare settings, these approaches have the potential to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of the health research and care ecosystem, and ultimately improve quality of patient care." Now – with the development of the pandemic resulting from the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), medical providers, institutions, and commercial developers are all considering whether and how to apply machine learning to confront the threat of this current crisis.