Summary Reader Response #4
In the article "How Artificial Intelligence, Robots Enhance Forest Sustainability in Finland", McQueen (2019) states that the Finnish Forest Centre is in charge of overseeing the conservation of Finland's forests and hence came up with an ambitious solution to use robots to autonomously execute most of the forest conservation tasks. McQueen mentions that the data used has to be precise and attainable before the Finnish Forest Centre can use it to train the robots. Aerial and lidar imagery is used to construct forest inventories and record tree measurements and information on species. The data the robots need is then placed in a geographic information system (GIS). The development director of the Finnish Forest Centre, Hamalainen, and his team see robots bringing benefits. People owning more than 65% of Finland’s forests can have simpler and more proactive management of their forests. McQueen reports that the Finnish Forest Centre is also using Artificial intelligence (AI) along with the robots to produce precise data and decrease the amount of work in the field. AI combines the data from GIS, imagery sources, climate and weather datasets, precise measurements of the forest can be obtained, and forest inventory predictions can be improved. It can also detect signs of spruce bark beetle attacks as well as provide relevant information on the volume and species of wood. The machine testing algorithms are being tested to obtain the same measurements as those measured by inspection crews in-person. Through AI, Hamalainen states that “we want the data to be so accurate that users can see and sell without having to go to the forest”. Currently, 85% of the cases have reliable data, while the remaining 15% is being improved.
Over the years, many other countries have seen benefits through the implementation of AI in sectors such as healthcare, national security as well as in efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. This implementation has brought many transformations and improvements to the country's technology, increasing its efficiency and capabilities.
Within the context of Southeast Asia, Singapore has implemented AI extensively in its healthcare sector and has seen drastic improvements and benefits for both patients and doctors. Firstly, AI has helped patients to manage their illnesses or conditions while at home through the use of coaching applications by being provided with virtual aid through chatbots. For example, Stein et al. (2017, as cited in Liu et al., 2020) created a fully automated health coaching mobile application for overweight adults that is driven completely by AI. Results showed that the application was as good as face-to-face lifestyle involvement when it comes to achieving weight loss for the users. As for doctors, Trueman and Lago (2019) mention that AI is now capable of detecting skin cancers, examining chest x-rays and performing diabetes screens, all from a patient’s retina scan. It is also able to sift through large numbers of healthcare-related documents and reports produced every year. This means that doctors will not need to read through every document on their own, which would save them a lot of time. AI also allows them to make the best choice when picking new treatments. All these show how AI has significantly changed the healthcare system in Singapore by transforming its processes and providing better technology to improve the lives of people.
In the United States of America, AI is being used to enhance national security. West and Allen (2018) state that the American military is making use of artificial intelligence to look through huge piles of data and video recorded by surveillance and then notify human analysts of unusual or shady activities or patterns so they may look more into it. Adopting AI helps find suspicious activity much more quickly as humans will not need to look through hours and hours of footage. Necessary investigations can then be carried out and subsequently apprehend any criminals before any damage can be done. This shows how AI helped maintain and uphold the country’s peace and security.
In the current situation where Covid-19 is prevalent, South Korea is using AI to fight against the pandemic. Watson, Jeong and Hollingsworth (2020) mention that Korea was able to develop a Covid-19 test kit in a matter of weeks due to the use of an AI-based big data system housed by the company Seegene. A second example is that according to the article “COVID-19: How Korea is using innovative technology and AI to flatten the curve” (2021), AI was also used in Korea to help categorize confirmed cases through the use of “VUNO’s Chest X-ray AI Image Support Decision Tool” which is capable of examining the lungs in three seconds using x-ray images. For Korea’s case, artificial intelligence has helped the country manage Covid-19 better by allowing the quick development of test kits and categorizing confirmed cases so patients may receive the proper respective treatments based on the severity of their conditions.
Nonetheless, AI by any means is still imperfect. One such widely known use of AI is autonomous vehicles. It has the capability to increase the safety of its drivers by helping them detect their surroundings and calculating the risks of collision and making the necessary adjustments to avoid it. It can also reduce the need for manpower in work-related cases, such as driving delivery trucks or even car-sharing and taxi services, by replacing drivers completely and going fully automatic. However, when humans become too reliant on AI, people may become complacent and accidents can be more prone to happen. West and Allen (2018) wrote that in March 2018, Uber suffered a blow when an autonomous vehicle in Arizona hit and killed a pedestrian as the AI failed to detect and avoid the pedestrian. AI may have transformed many sectors positively in wondrous ways, but there are still flaws in it, as shown in this incident, making mistakes and creating undesirable outcomes. Humans will still need to work on improving it and use it with care and caution to mitigate the risks of such incidents happening.
In conclusion, countries that have implemented artificial intelligence have seen an enormous jump in their progress in the relevant sectors in terms of technological advancements and achievements, which has provided many benefits for the people. However, AI is far from being a perfect technology, as it is relatively new and still has the potential to make mistakes. As such, AI programmers and engineers will need to explore and improve AI more to move towards the direction of perfection. Until then, people will need to work hand in hand with AI instead of being fully reliant to ensure that no unwanted outcome occurs, and work on a solution for the issue so it doesn’t happen again.
References:
Covid-19: How Korea is using innovative technology and AI to flatten the curve. AI for Good. (2021, September 2).
Lago, C. T., Lago, C. (2019, March 12). How Singapore is using Artificial intelligence. CIO.
https://www.cio.com/article/221994/how-singapore-is-using-artificial-intelligence.html
Liu, S., Ko, Q. S., Heng, K. Q. A., Ngiam, K. Y., Feng, M. (2020, November 17). Healthcare transformation in Singapore with Artificial Intelligence. Frontiers.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2020.592121/full#B10
Stein, N., Brooks, K. (2017, November 1). A fully automated conversational artificial intelligence for weight loss: Longitudinal observational study among overweight and obese adults. JMIR Diabetes, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.2196/diabetes.8590
Watson, I., Jeong, S., Hollingsworth, J., Booth, T. (2020, March 13). How this South Korean company created coronavirus test kits in three weeks. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html
West, D. M., Allen, J. R. (2018, April 24). How artificial intelligence is transforming the world. Brookings.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-the-world/#_edn2
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