i3 - January/February 2021 - 14

Tech

By Susan Schreiner

C 4 T R E N DS

AI and Robotics

Health and Wellness

COVID-19 has fast-tracked the consumerization of health care. Humanoid robots
are entering the home as caretakers or in
hospitals to deliver medication or monitor
patients to minimize the spread of infection. The convenience of telehealth technology and remote diagnostics, as well as
aging-in-place technologies are making an
impact at home.
Humanoid robots are a newer form of
professional service robots. They mimic
human motion and interaction and are
starting to become commercially viable.
The market for humanoid robots will
reach $3.9 billion in 2023, according to
the Robotic Industries Association
(RIA). These robots act as companions
for the elderly and sick, educational
robots or personal retail assistants.
Bio-pharma is deploying AI to discover, research and pilot drugs,

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treatments and vaccines to better mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and other
diseases. AI and robotics are playing a
role in the pharma supply chain, clinical
trial innovations, screening and diagnostics and robotic-assisted surgery.
Many companies are working on
AI-driven health care products and services including:
● Apple is tackling heart health,
cognitive health and elder care. Their
products collect health data, use AI
expertise to interpret the data, and are
forming partnerships to create an
end-to-end ecosystem.
● Google Cloud recently won a project from the Pentagon's new Defense
Innovation Unit (DIU) to " prototype an
AI-enabled digital pathology solution at
select DoD [Department of Defense]
facilities. " Though focused on " predictive
cancer diagnoses " for now, Google plans
to expand the AI model for predicting
Covid-19 diagnoses.
● Microsoft AI for Health Grant
was awarded to the Mount Sinai Health
System in New York to establish a data
science center dedicated to COVID-19
research. " Through this collaboration
with AI for Health, we are leveraging the
expertise of the Mount Sinai Health
System in delivering world-class patient
care and the Azure cloud to bring our
AI-enabled products from bench to bedside, " said Robbie Freeman, MSN, RN,
vice president of Clinical Innovation at
The Mount Sinai Hospital.

● The MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab is
funding 10 research projects to address
the health and economic consequences
of the pandemic. Projects include which
materials make the best face masks,
treating COVID-19 with repurposed
drugs, a privacy-first approach to automated contact tracing, overcoming
manufacturing and supply hurdles to
provide global access to a vaccine.
● Intel is part of an industry
Partnership on AI - aimed at helping
members use AI to improve lives and
society - across vertical sectors.
● Toyota Research Institute (TRI)
is testing robot technologies to create
house-cleaning robots. To teach robots
how to perform a task like loading a
dishwasher, TRI researchers created a
VR environment where a person demonstrates for the robot by manipulating
its arms. The robot then uses machine
learning to determine the best movements inside a simulated environment
to accomplish the task.

Conclusion

Robots powered by AI are providing
solutions to solve common problems
and add value to our lives by helping
children learn better, improve medical
diagnoses and provide health care for
loved ones.

2021

Robotics and AI will be key topics
at CES 2021.

Left to Right: Courtesy of Toyota Research Institute, KTS Design/Science Source.

he COVID-19 crisis is a catalyst accelerating demand for
artificial intelligence (AI) solutions across industries.
New products and services abound for sectors ranging
from retail, supply chain management and health care to manufacturing, sales, finance and transportation. The rise in synthetic
intelligence is transforming industry. The challenge is how to
shift mundane work currently done by humans to robots. The
core of AI is in harnessing, analyzing and uncovering patterns in
data - to empower change and actions.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

12/9/20 3:15 PM

https://mitibmwatsonailab.mit.edu/ https://apple.co/34flP6v https://intel.ly/34e3mrd https://www.tri.global/ https://bit.ly/3aiOA67 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/ai-for-health https://www.ces.tech/

i3 - January/February 2021

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