This AI engine only needs a whiff of your breath to detect illness

Researchers at a British university are working on an artificial intelligence (AI) engine that can diagnose illness simply by smelling the breath of a person. Andrea Soltoggio, a member of the data science team at Loughborough University, said the engine is being taught how to identify a range of illness-revealing substances that humans might exhale. "Compared to that of animals, the human sense of smell is far less developed and certainly not used to carry out daily activities. For this reason, humans aren't particularly aware of the richness of information that can be transmitted through the air, and can be perceived by a highly sensitive olfactory system. AI may be about to change that," Soltoggio wrote in an article for online publication Smithsonian.com.