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AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

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Re: AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

#11
post #2

> “The models are so similar—they almost all use the same techniques with minor tweaks, the same inputs—and they all make the same mistakes,” says Wynants. “If all these people making new models instead tested models that were already available, maybe we’d have something that could really help in the clinic by now.” Sounds about right.

I'm curious what people find is more likely given this evidence: - 100s of models were done incorrectly, and none even remotely correctly - there is no phenomenon to correctly model Both seem extremely unlikely. Not sure what the alternatives are.

100s of models that all make the same wrong assumptions are going to be equally worthless.

You can make all the models about phlogiston you want, none of them are going to accurately explain fire.

Re: AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what people find is more likely given this evidence: - 100s of models were done incorrectly, and none even remotely correctly - there is no phenomenon to correctly model Both seem extremely unlikely. Not sure what the alternatives are.

That's a false choice. There's also: - Technology not suitable or adequate for this use case. I mean, we've been to the "AI over-promises and under-delivers" rodeo before.

You think a 100% failure rate on the hottest topic in the world right now is likely?

Re: AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what people find is more likely given this evidence: - 100s of models were done incorrectly, and none even remotely correctly - there is no phenomenon to correctly model Both seem extremely unlikely. Not sure what the alternatives are.

100s of models that all make the same wrong assumptions are going to be equally worthless. You can make all the models about phlogiston you want, none of them are going to accurately explain fire.

Right, so is phlogiston to fire as our current understanding of what's happening is to reality?

Re: AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

#16
post #2

> “The models are so similar—they almost all use the same techniques with minor tweaks, the same inputs—and they all make the same mistakes,” says Wynants. “If all these people making new models instead tested models that were already available, maybe we’d have something that could really help in the clinic by now.” Sounds about right.

I'm curious what people find is more likely given this evidence: - 100s of models were done incorrectly, and none even remotely correctly - there is no phenomenon to correctly model Both seem extremely unlikely. Not sure what the alternatives are.

My guess would be that it's hard to get a clean well labeled dataset where case and control datasets are otherwise similar. Particularly, in a pandemic the people doing the data collection are otherwise occupied.

Another problem you have is when you do it right the results look worse than a biased dataset. So there's some incentive to continue working with a biased dataset.

Re: AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false choice. There's also: - Technology not suitable or adequate for this use case. I mean, we've been to the "AI over-promises and under-delivers" rodeo before.

You think a 100% failure rate on the hottest topic in the world right now is likely?

> You think a 100% failure rate on the hottest topic in the world right now is likely?

Yeah. Attempts at powered flight had a 100% failure rate in the 1800s.

It's kind of absurd to think that "AI" (especially in its current incarnation) must be able to solve any "hot" problem that it's thrown at.

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