Tag: Sundar Pichai

  • Google’s healthcare tech uses AI to predict heart disease with just an eye scan

    Google’s healthcare tech uses AI to predict heart disease with just an eye scan

    Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy (a leading cause of blindness) has shown things in the retinal scans that “human beings didn’t know to look for”, according to CEO Sundar Pichai. The AI eye scans hold information with which Google can predict the five year risk of someone having a heart attack or a stroke.

    At last year’s Google IO, CEO Sundar Pichai announced GoogleAI, a culmination of the company’s efforts to bring the benefits of AI to everyone. DermAssist, Google’s AI program that detects and provides diagnosis for skin conditions, will be available on Google browser by the end of this year.

    Google had also been running field trials across hospitals in India, where Google used deep learning to help doctors diagnose diabetic retinopathy. Pichai says the field trials have been going very well, with AI offering expert diagnoses to places where trained doctors are scarce.

    As luck would have it, the very same eye scans that have helped successfully diagnose diabetic retinopathy also hold vital information that GoogleAI could use to predict the five year risk of an individual having an adverse cardiovascular event.

    Although the idea of looking into someone’s eyes to diagnose the condition of their heart sounds unusual, it actually draws from established research. The rear interior wall of the eye (the fundus) is full of blood vessels that reflect the body’s overall health. Information such as someone’s age, their biological sex, whether or not they smoke, their BMI and systolic blood pressure is readily available to doctors through a simple eye scan.

    According to Pichai, this could be the new basis for a non-invasive way of detecting cardiovascular risk. He says Google will be working with their partners to field trials.

    Another exciting AI-health related development is that AI can help in the prediction of medical events. Machine learning can go in and analyse over 100,000 data points per patient (obviously, more than one doctor could ever do), and then quantitatively predict the chance of readmission 24-48 hours to advance. This is hugely beneficial as it gives doctors more time to act.

  • ‘At least KFC has Pakistani CEO’, netizens react to Twitter’s new Indian CEO

    ‘At least KFC has Pakistani CEO’, netizens react to Twitter’s new Indian CEO

    Indian born Parag Agrawal has been named as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter after co-founder Jack Dorsey’s resignation.

    The news is making headlines in India. This is not the first time that an Indian has been appointed as a CEO of a well-known organisation. Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet, the umbrella network of Google. Similarly, Shantanu Narayen is Adobe’s and Satya Nadella is Microsoft’s.

    Since Agrawal’s appointment, Pakistanis have been tweeting about the Indian CEOs who have taken over the Information Technology (IT) world.

    There are a few hilarious ones.

    https://twitter.com/ChaiNotCoffee/status/1465645570756952070?s=20

  • Google fires top AI ethical expert Margaret Mitchell

    Google fires top AI ethical expert Margaret Mitchell

    Google has fired the co-head of the ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI) team Margaret Mitchell for violating the security policies stated by the company. 

    The previous AI ethics researcher Timmit Gebru, a widely respected leader in AI ethics research, was also fired over similar accusations. 

    Mitchell is known for co-authoring a groundbreaking paper that showed facial recognition to be less accurate at identifying women and people of colour. The system can end up discriminating against them. 

    Mitchell also used automated scripts to look through her email to find evidence of discrimination against her co-workers. 

    Her views were directed at Google AI’s head Jeff Dean and CEO of Google Sundar Pichai; resulting in losing her corporate email access. Her activities were investigated, which led to the termination of Mitchell as well.

    According to Axios, Google said in a statement regarding Mitchell’s firing: “After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees.”

    These recent terminations have stirred a lot of heat for Google regarding diversity. As of now, Marian Croak, a Vice President in the engineering organisation is leading a new centre of expertise on responsible AI within Google.