Alexa, Siri, the personal assistants developed by the companies Apple and Amazon, are so advanced that they can detect if the user they are interacting with has a heart attack. According to some details that appeared today, it seems that personal assistants can detect symptoms such as abnormal breathing, or gasping, and can detect if the user is having a heart attack.
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington discovered that people who have heart attacks have symptoms of this kind, which can also be detected by Siri, Alexa, or even Google Assistant. The sounds produced by people having heart attacks are apparently unique, and can be used to teach personal assistants how to correctly detect them.
As soon as such a sound is detected, the personal assistant can call the emergency services on its own to alert them to the fact that a person is dying. Of course, it takes some time for personal assistants to learn how to accurately identify a heart attack, but in the future they could save many lives.
"We envision a contactless system that works by continuously and passively monitoring the bedroom for an agonal breathing event, and alerts anyone nearby to come provide CPR. It's sort of a guttural gasping noise, and its uniqueness makes it a good audio biomarker to use to identify if someone is experiencing a cardiac arrest."
