How to Stop Hating AI: 5 Ways It’s Helping Us Live Longer

It’s easy to hate artificial intelligence. After all, we’ve seen some pretty spectacular failures – like the employment AI algorithms that analyzed job applications to try to find the best candidates but ended up discriminating against women. Or the image recognition algorithms that struggled to correctly identify darker faces. Everybody who dislikes AI quickly points to Terminator’s Skynet, and we eye roll and/or chuckle about the worst case scenarios. AI has become a foil of sorts for what we fear most by focusing on the propensity for death and destruction instead of the benefits. Newsflash: anything can kill you at any given time. Just watch an episode of Murder She Wrote.

But looking past its pitfalls and highly visible growing pains, what we know right now is that AI is already having an incredible impact on our lives – for the better. AI is already in your pocket and has been for a while by way of smartphones and before that our search engines.

It’s truly not an exaggeration to say that AI is helping us live longer, healthier lives. Here’s how.

1. Catching Trouble Before It Starts

The science fiction of yesterday is today’s reality: AI can detect diseases earlier than human doctors – and those extra minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

Take sepsis for example. It’s a leading cause of death in hospitals in the U.S., contributing to one in three inpatient deaths nationwide. A life-threatening complication of infection, sepsis triggers a chain reaction throughout the body that can lead to death within hours. Prompt diagnosis and treatment is absolutely crucial. 

With the help of AI, earlier detection of sepsis is now possible. We’re already seeing pretty incredible results from machine learning systems that predict which patients are most likely to develop the condition. 

One program, called Targeted Real-Time Early Warning System (TREWS), reduced in-hospital deaths from sepsis by a staggering 18 percent. A similar project, Sepsis Watch, was deployed in the Duke University Health System and has also dramatically cut the number of sepsis-induced patient deaths. 

But that’s not all. Automated predictive models like these can identify patients at risk for a multitude of conditions – like breast cancer, cardiac arrest, and diabetic retinopathy. In partnership with healthcare providers, AI brings real-world, on-the-ground impact that literally saves lives.

2. Defying the Sands of Time

Aging isn’t for the faint of heart. For most of us, bodily deterioration and disease are inextricably associated with getting older. But it wouldn’t be such a scary prospect if we could look forward to staying healthier for longer.

That’s what one biotech company hopes to accomplish. BioAge Labs uses a machine learning AI platform to analyze data from a vast bank of biological samples, revealing various biomarkers that are associated with healthy longevity. 

These biomarkers of long-term physical function are essentially sets of proteins whose levels can predict your future functional status, grip strength, walking speed, and more. The goal is to develop drugs that can trigger changes in these biomarkers to mirror what’s found in people who do retain high levels of physical function into advanced age.

BioAge has already achieved success in various clinical trials, such as for a drug targeting muscle atrophy. Slowing down muscle atrophy allows people to maintain more strength as they age, reducing the severity of osteoporosis, falls, and other injuries, and helping them stay physically active for longer. 

A healthier, more active life is generally a longer life. So as AI continues to reveal new insights about aging biology as well as identify drug targets in key longevity pathways, it’s bringing us closer to extending human lifespans. 

3. Turning the Tide on Ocean Pollution

The bad news: our oceans are choked with plastic debris that threatens delicate marine ecosystems. The good news: AI can help clean it up.

One such project is The Ocean Cleanup, which employs a passive cleanup system backed by AI and machine learning to remove plastic from the world’s waterways. 

It’s a lot of plastic trash to deal with – millions of tons enter our oceans every year, mostly through rivers. The Ocean Cleanup takes a two-pronged approach to tackle the problem – to prevent plastic from reaching the ocean and remove the plastic that’s already floating out there. 

First, bridge-mounted cameras are placed along rivers to capture images of floating objects moving toward the ocean. AI analyzes the images to distinguish plastic from organic debris, and then a solar-powered autonomous extraction unit called the Interceptor, collects the plastic before it makes its way out to sea. 

Things are a little more complex in the ocean. Sensors attached to passive cleanup systems continuously gather data on winds and currents, and an AI algorithm runs simulations to map how these systems move through the ocean while rotating currents collect plastic in enormous patches. This allows The Ocean Cleanup to allocate cleanup resources most efficiently. 

Ultimately, the project plans to combine these two systems at a large scale to reduce ocean plastic by a whopping 90% by 2040. 

4. Easing Mental Health Challenges

Many of us have encountered conversational AI tools already, like customer service chatbots online. But AI chatbots can go so much further than that.

Some of them are like having a therapist in your pocket. Wysa, an AI-based mental health digital companion, delivers cognitive behavioral therapy via smartphone app. It was granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) following clinical trials last year. 

Can chatbots fully replace in-person counseling? Perhaps they shouldn’t, yet. But Wysa comes pretty close. Peer-reviewed studies found it to be effective for managing chronic musculoskeletal pain and associated depression and anxiety, while outperforming standard orthopedic care and matching the efficacy of in-person psychological therapy. That’s quite a feat for a chatbot.

Plus, the platform is always available, day or night. While it might not be the best idea to rely on AI as your only mental health resource, Wysa and other apps like it are a solid option to complement in-person treatment when you need it most. It’s safe to say that AI-based cognitive behavioral therapy is here to stay – for good reason.

5. Rescuing Disaster Survivors

Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria earlier this year caused widespread devastation and loss of life. The disaster claimed tens of thousands of lives, while countless survivors were trapped among the rubble for days in the aftermath. Rescuing them was an extremely time-consuming process.

However, there was a new high-tech method on the scene, enabling response teams to assess earthquake damage in a matter of hours rather than weeks. A visual computing AI system called xView2 – still in its early development phase – was deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense to aid ground rescue missions in the region. 

Using a deep learning algorithm called semantic segmentation (which associates a label or category with every pixel in an image), the xView2 system analyzed each individual pixel in satellite images. By examining their relation to surrounding pixels, the algorithm could assess and categorize the state of buildings and other objects on the ground. 

Damage caused by the earthquake was highlighted in orange and red on the images, with darker shades indicating greater severity. xView2 actually ended up pointing out areas with damage that rescue workers were previously unaware of. 

Within minutes, a standardized map of affected areas could be shared widely, helping to coordinate and prioritize responses – both saving time and saving lives. 

Embracing a Brighter Tomorrow

Artificial intelligence can save us time and effort in so many different contexts, and at its best, it can help save our lives and safeguard our planet. That’s really the bottom line. 

But we’re only just beginning to explore its applications out in the real world. As AI joins forces with human ingenuity and continues to expand into uncharted territories, the road ahead promises innovations we can hardly begin to imagine. 

Buckle up, kids. It’s going to be a wildddd geeky ride.