Small-AI Models Gain Traction Around the World
One morning in 2019, Adebayo Alonge was in a Cape Town hotel room, preparing to demonstrate his startup's AI answer to a serious problem in African health care: counterfeit medication, which kills thousands of people across the continent every year. The RxScanner is a handheld spectrometer that scans a pill with infrared light, then sends the item's molecular profile to an AI model equipped with a pharmaceutical database. In seconds, the AI identifies the medication from its molecular profile-or reports that it's phony.
Key Takeaways
- Pharmacies were using the system in more than a dozen countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, and Alonge's native Nigeria.
- They produced it 2 hours later, and that saved the demo.
More importantly, the work birthed a new version of his device, which can authenticate a pill in places without broadband, computers, or even reliable electricity.
- (According to a World Bank Report issued in November, only 0.
7 percent of internet users in the world's poorest countries have used ChatGPT, compared to a quarter of all internet users in the most developed nations.
- " By contrast, small AI can deliver useful, even life-saving services to people in areas that have none of those things, Banga said.
In India, where the government's AI plans call for more development of small AI, many such systems are working for farmers.
- Moez Altayeb For Alonge, Rovai, and other advocates, small AI is not just "a promising trend," as that November World Bank report calls it.
Stats & Key Facts
- #Pharmacies were using the system in more than a dozen countries, including One morning in 2019, Adebayo Alonge was in a Cape Town hotel room, preparing to demonstrate his startup's AI answer to a serious problem in African health care: counterfeit medication, which kills thousands of people across the continent every year.
- #The spectrometer connected to the AI model-but the data center was 14,000 kilometers away and bandwidth was limited.
- #7 percent of internet users in the world's poorest countries have used ChatGPT, compared to a quarter of all internet users in the most developed nations.
- #" Low-Power, Small-AI Models on Devices Small AI models can run on a variety of low-power devices, including [from left to right] an Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense, a Seeed Wio Terminal, and an Arduino Portenta.
Pharmacies were using the system in more than a dozen countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, and Alonge's native Nigeria. But that morning in South Africa, it didn't work. The spectrometer connected to the AI model-but the data center was 14,000 kilometers away and bandwidth was limited.
"Our server was in the United States, and just to get the result of a single scan was taking me over 5 minutes. " So Alonge immediately asked his engineers to shrink the AI model down to a smaller, low-power, unconnected version that could run entirely on his Android phone. They produced it 2 hours later, and that saved the demo.
More importantly, the work birthed a new version of his device, which can authenticate a pill in places without broadband, computers, or even reliable electricity. It also turned Alonge into an advocate for this kind of "small AI. " Small AI for Global Health Care Access Small AI is a far cry from wealthy nations' colossal large language models (LLMs), hyperscale data centers, multibillion-dollar investments, and debates about AI consciousness .
For more details please read the original article at IEEE Spectrum AI.
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