A robot from the Institute of Informatics may replace doctors when diagnosing diseases
Currently, tests are used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases, in which the doctor writes down the patient's answers on paper. As part of the collaboration with the EWA project researchers, the SAS Institute of Informatics participated in the development of an application that can screen for Alzheimer's disease based on the description of images on a mobile device. This was explained by the linguist Mgr. Róbert Sabo, PhD. of the Department of Speech Analysis and Synthesis at the popularization event.
"As part of the APVV basic research project ALOIS, we are investigating how social robotics can be used in diagnostics, where the patient could directly interact with the robot, whom we have taught to understand and speak Slovak," added R. Sabo.
During the Researchers' Night, the scientist was part of a team that presented how communication with artificial intelligence could look like in practice. According to Dr. Saba, the goal of the ALOIS project is to test the capabilities of the robot and to comment on whether it is possible to put it into practice. And if so, what prerequisites must be met. "As part of the project, we cooperate with the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University, where they recruit people for testing. We collect, analyse and evaluate the recordings." Based on machine learning, the robot could thus be able to process at least an initial result for the doctor, or a certain amount of healthy patients would be filtered out. Recruitment was even done directly at the event.
Visitors could experience what such communication might look like on site. The Furhat robot was also part of the argumentative battle of high school debaters from the Slovak Debate Association on the main stage in Bratislava's Old Market and became one of the main stars at this scientific popularization event.
President Zuzana Čaputová, who talked to the robot about the future of the Slovak Republic, also visited the stand of the Institute of Informatics.
You can download the free EWA application for Alzheimer's disease screening (via the attached QR code) and try it via the Google Play platform.
Prepared by: Stanislava Longauerová
Photo: Katarína Gáliková, Martin Bystriansky