Coronavirus pandemic | AI tools can soon use your voice to determine if you are COVID-19 positive: Report

The number of reported coronavirus cases continues to rise in India and other parts of the world. While the government authorities and private labs are conducting swab tests on patients showing coronavirus symptoms, there might be a new tool that lets you know if you have COVID-19 simply through  your voice.

A team of computer science research at the Carnegie Mellon University has developed a tool using Artificial Intelligence (AI) that determines whether an individual is infected with coronavirus by analysing the sound of their cough, the way they speak or even breathe.

The tool is currently at the data-gathering stage where researchers are collecting speech and cough recordings and pairing the information with an already-infected case’s data. The compiled data is fed to the AI algorithm that uses deep learning and machine learning programmes.

“Since the voice production mechanism is so complex and dependent on cognitive abilities, any factor that affects your body or your mind will reflect in your voice. The changes can be in fractions of seconds —  what we call “micro” signatures, that are not audible to the untrained listener, but nevertheless present,” Rita Singh, computer science research professor at Carnegie Mellon University told Hindustan Times.

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She further added that any condition affecting the lungs or the respiratory system has a “palpable effect on voice and even the cough of the COVID patient is distinct from a healthy person’s.

“The tool is basically a self-learning system that is now trying to learn signatures of a COVID infection that shows up in voice, not just in cough,” Singh said, adding that more data it is fed, the more it understands the signatures.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have also launched a similar tool in the form of a Google Chrome and Firefox plugin called COVID-19 Sound app. Mumbai-based Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence is also asking users of its ‘Cough Against COVID’ mobile app to record the sound of their cough and share the image of their test result if they are positive.

Singh stressed upon the fact that the quality and the accuracy of data is crucial for such tools to work. “Such a system needs to be thoroughly vetted by the medical community and thoroughly tested. It must have near-zero false positives and zero false negatives. This is impossible to achieve in a short run, so our goal is tempered down to being able to return more conservative factoids from voice that may still be helpful to everyone,” Singh said.

The Indian government has also launched the mobile-based contact tracing Aarogya Setu app that lets users take a test by answering a series of questions and use location data to determine the level of risk of being exposed to COVID-19.

Reliance Jio has also launched a COVID-19 Symptom Checker Tool with similar features.

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