AI listens in on emergency calls to diagnose heart attacks

If you dial the emergency services in Denmark, soon you won't just get a human operator, but an artificially intelligent assistant will be listening in too. Developed by start-up Corti, the system kicks into action when some dials 112 in Copenhagen, then it starts listening for signs of a possible cardiac arrest. To do this, it first uses speech recognition software to transcribe what's being said before analysing the text. Once it is confident of a diagnosis, it flashes an alert on the screen for the operator to see. Identifying cardiac arrest over the phone is one of the trickiest tasks for an operator.