How AI could help in the fight against COVID-19

From developing drug treatments to predicting the next hotspot, artificial intelligence may help researchers, healthcare workers, and everyday people offset the impact of the coronavirus. As the worldwide fight against coronavirus COVID-19 continues, companies and governments around the world are pulling out all the stops in an effort to stave off the pandemic's worst impacts. One tool in that toolbox that might prove particularly useful is artificial intelligence (AI). Even though AI has been around since the 1960s, it's only been in the past few years that its adoption outside of science labs and research institutions has really taken off. Perhaps the most common application of AI people have come into contact with today are virtual assistants like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, which rely on natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to understand human speech.