Audio AI App Can Detect Coroavirus in Coughs

MIT researchers announced they have now found that people who are asymptomatic may differ from healthy individuals in the way they cough. These differences are not decipherable to the human ear. But it turns out that they can be picked up by artificial intelligence.

In a paper published in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, the MIT team reports on an AI model that distinguishes asymptomatic people from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings, which people voluntarily submitted through web browsers and devices such as cellphones and laptops.

“The effective implementation of this group diagnostic tool could diminish the spread of the pandemic if everyone uses it before going to a classroom, a factory, or a restaurant,” said co-author Brian Subirana, a research scientist in MIT’s Auto-ID Laboratory, in a press release issued on October 29, 2020.

Ultimately, they 'envision that audio AI models like the one they’ve developed may be incorporated into smart speakers and other listening devices so that people can conveniently get an assessment of their disease risk, perhaps on a daily basis.'