2 ms·

Not really - if you can collect enough data to use as input to an ML algorithm, you can most likely diagnose the virus directly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L

Not really - if you can collect enough data to use as input to an ML algorithm, you can most likely diagnose the virus directly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_diagnosis_of_viral_infections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_diagnosis_of_viral_...). ML seems redundant in that case. And if ML wasn't redundant, you have no training set containing the relevant bio-markers and a binary variable indicating COVID-19 presence.

danielquinn 7y ago
Hmm. I think I see what you're saying. Presumably if one of the markers you'd want to capture is "presence of antibody for covid-19", and if the device you're using can do that, you wouldn't need ML -- obviously. But I was thinking a little more macroscopically. We don't have any device that can see antibodies or anything as obvious in real time. Instead, we have to collect samples and test them separately in controlled environments while we look for specific markers we know to be signs of infection. What ML does well though is see patterns in data we don't. Rather than find specific markers, I was thinking we could feed a series of different values into a model to see if a pattern emerged. We can't observe the virus directly, but we can measure the percentage makeup of different chemicals in someone's breath and see if there's a pattern in those we know to be infected vs those we know aren't -- the training set would be the pile of tests already conducted. Then we can apply that model to new data and test the results.
- 0x01101 7y ago
  > see if there's a pattern in those we know to be infected vs those we know aren't You don't know who is infected and who isn't. That was my second point about not having a training set.
  - danielquinn 7y ago
    But we do know. Thousands of manual, slow tests are being run every day. The idea would be to collect those samples and their results for use in the model.
    - 0x01101 7y ago
      > Thousands of manual, slow tests are being run every day. Yeah - separate labs spread all over the world, using different protocols collecting different data points on different populations and answering to different companies and/or governments each of them with their own laws and regulations. You can't just "get all the data" in this case.

danielquinn 7y ago

Hmm. I think I see what you're saying. Presumably if one of the markers you'd want to capture is "presence of antibody for covid-19", and if the device you're using can do that, you wouldn't need ML -- obviously. But I was thinking a little more macroscopically. We don't have any device that can see antibodies or anything as obvious in real time. Instead, we have to collect samples and test them separately in controlled environments while we look for specific markers we know to be signs of infection. What ML does well though is see patterns in data we don't. Rather than find specific markers, I was thinking we could feed a series of different values into a model to see if a pattern emerged. We can't observe the virus directly, but we can measure the percentage makeup of different chemicals in someone's breath and see if there's a pattern in those we know to be infected vs those we know aren't -- the training set would be the pile of tests already conducted. Then we can apply that model to new data and test the results.

0x01101 7y ago
> see if there's a pattern in those we know to be infected vs those we know aren't You don't know who is infected and who isn't. That was my second point about not having a training set.
- danielquinn 7y ago
  But we do know. Thousands of manual, slow tests are being run every day. The idea would be to collect those samples and their results for use in the model.
  - 0x01101 7y ago
    > Thousands of manual, slow tests are being run every day. Yeah - separate labs spread all over the world, using different protocols collecting different data points on different populations and answering to different companies and/or governments each of them with their own laws and regulations. You can't just "get all the data" in this case.