We live in a world where technologies such as Artificial Intelligence AI, Machine Learning ML, Natural Language Processing NLP, and many others have made a significant impact in major walks of life.
The developments that we see in the field of Artificial Intelligence AI, is the dedicated efforts of AI researchers who work tirelessly to bring about new innovations and emergence of technologies, making things easier for people in the society.
Regina Barzilay is a well-known AI researcher, renowned for her work in NLP, machine learning, and neural networks. The credit for awards and accolades that she has received goes to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) where she is presently a professor. She has carried out much of her research at MIT. Regina Barzilay has acknowledged the contribution of MIT in her life in interviews.
Regina Barzilay – Winner of the first Squirrel Artificial Intelligence AI award
- Regina Barzilay is a professor at the famous MITs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence laboratory (CSAIL).
- She is the first winner of the Squirrel AI award for Artificial Intelligence for the benefit of Humanity.
- The Squirrel AI award is a recognition for her work and brilliant research in Artificial Intelligence AI.
- Regina Barzilay was honored with a prize of $1 million for her work in AI in medicine.
- She made use of machine learning to diagnose breast cancer and develop antibiotics.
- Her work in AI technology has resulted in a transformational impact on society.
- She began her career by working on Natural Language Processing (NLP).
- In 2014, she survived breast cancer and changed her focus to identifying breast cancer using machine learning algorithms and developing drugs for the same.
What did the Squirrel Award mean for Regina Barzilay and the Artificial Intelligence world in general?
- Artificial Intelligence AI has penetrated several industries. However, there are still some sectors where AI technology has failed to make an impact or is doing so very slowly.
- The recommender systems powered by AI technology are used in everyday life. However, hardly anyone bothers to know about its functioning. People are just happy to use it.
- On the other hand, AI in healthcare has not yet been accepted completely by society.
- The Squirrel Award AI received by Regina Barzilay would grab the attention of the people and change their opinion and mindset about adopting AI technology in different fields.
- This in turn will propel AI research and give a new push and momentum to the AI community.
It is all about adopting and integrating artificial intelligence
- Going back to the history of inventions, the first attempts were often failures and the actual success was achieved later on. This is true for AI technology as well.
- It is a reality that we are not completely ready for AI.
- The AI researchers and scientists need to figure out how Artificial Intelligence AI can be integrated in different fields, and not just healthcare alone.
- Learning, education, manufacturing, material designing, city planning, gaming, etc. are some of the areas in which it is possible to integrate AI technology.
- Also, AI research needs to focus more on creating more powerful algorithms that function in highly regulated environments.
- At present, the use of AI tools and technologies is flourishing rapidly in areas where the failure cost is not huge.
- For example, if an AI-powered translation or spell check gives you the wrong result, you may be okay with it. However, if this happens with AI in medicine, the consequences can be quite disastrous.
- Speaking of AI in healthcare, if a doctor prescribes a wrong drug or gives an incorrect treatment to a patient, there can be some really serious implications.
- Several AI algorithms can perform tasks better than human beings. For artificial intelligence AI to be embraced completely by different industries, responsible AI algorithms are a must.
Breast cancer diagnosis changed everything for Regina Barzilay
When diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, Regina Barzilay had a lot of questions in her mind. She thought that breast cancer was pretty common in the US and with so much patient data available, the hospital can easily use it in her treatment. However, she came to know that most of the data was available in text form which was not easy to extract from the US hospital. Being an NLP practitioner herself, Regina Barzilay made use of NLP to access the data that was available about breast cancer.
Making use of image recognition for predicting breast cancer
- From NLP, her focus shifted to using image recognition in mammograms to predict patient risk for developing breast cancer.
- The use of image recognition technology made it possible to predict if any individual would get breast cancer or not, and how far would it progress if someone already had it.
Data-driven AI makes predictions easier
- If the AI tools were applied to the mammogram of Regina Barzilay, it would have been possible to find out about breast cancer before the actual diagnosis.
- White spots are present in every mammogram.
- Biopsy needs to be conducted on the white spots which the doctor feels may be cancerous.
- It is important to take the right decision and avoid doing unnecessary biopsies.
- Data-driven AI helps doctors in identifying the white spots perfectly and in an organized way.
It is true that Artificial Intelligence AI is not going to solve all the problems of humans. However, it is a fact that even under normal situations, it is a challenge to adopt the use of AI tools into a process and ensure that it is regulated properly. This is because we do not have the capacity to do it. AI technology is something for the future. Unless we trust it completely, we are not going to see it move forward at a rapid pace in all the fields.
