AI in the Battle Against COVID-19: Transforming Healthcare and Pandemic Response

Abstract: AI has emerged as a promising tool in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to widespread efforts to harness its capabilities. This paper explores AI’s role in six key areas: early warnings and alerts, tracking and prediction, data dashboards, diagnosis and prognosis, treatments and cures, and social control. While AI holds potential, its impact has been limited due to challenges such as data scarcity and overwhelming volumes of unstructured information. Addressing these issues requires a delicate balance between data privacy and public health, along with robust human-AI collaboration. Though these obstacles may not be fully resolved in time to significantly influence the current pandemic, systematic collection of diagnostic data remains crucial for saving lives, refining AI models, and mitigating economic consequences.