Live data from Hacker News

Midjourney Medical

midjourney.com

331–340 of 927 posts

Re: Midjourney Medical

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t make me tap the sign. Bayes Theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem There’s a very good reason we don’t test asymptomatic people in low incidence populations. Basically all positives are false positives when you do that, no matter how accurate the test is. When you’re testing healthy randos for everything the odds of a positive being false have so many 9s it would make an SRE weep. Unless this is…

So you are certainly correct but you can also tighten up your definitions for true positives as you have more information on your false positives. There may exist additional signal as well. To your point though I think there is a difference between collecting and evaluating additional data sources and using them as diagnostic tools. I suppose I fundamentally disagree with the implication of your post that there is no…

Positive for what, exactly? Quoting convnet, above:

> The downside, and the reason why most doctors do not recommend full body scans, is that every human body is a bit weird and there will almost always be something "wrong" that will be visible in a full body scan. This can lead to unnecessary testing, anxiety, and even unnecessary procedures. Many of these oddities flagged by the scan would never have caused any actual issues had the patient never been aware.

The fundamental problem is that you generally can't diagnose simply from shapes. Scans show shapes, shapes cause concern, concern leads to invasive procedures, results are negative.

Also, overdependency on "spas" for health information could lead to an atrophy of other sorts of medical information gathering and diagnosis. e.g., there's no mention in the dreamy description of this spa experience of getting a blood draw or a patellar reflex test.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#332

I think a lot of medical diagnosis could be solved with mass data collection if it was cheap enough. Right now, blood draws are somewhat routinely done because they provide a lot of human-interpretable indicators from a small number of values, and there is some evidence that e.g. "dogs can smell cancer" etc. (i.e. some diseases cause detectable odors). With a big enough data set of [all kinds of bio values, including…

It's a controversial and complicated idea. The downside, and the reason why most doctors do not recommend full body scans, is that every human body is a bit weird and there will almost always be something "wrong" that will be visible in a full body scan. This can lead to unnecessary testing, anxiety, and even unnecessary procedures. Many of these oddities flagged by the scan would never have caused any actual issues…

I've heard this argument before and it's always seemed downstream of capacity constraints and the current incentives of the healthcare industry.

There's a reason why billionaires like David Rockefeller, Larry Ellison, and Rupert Murdoch are able to live much longer lives than average, and having an oncall health team (that I'm sure does frequent testing and monitoring) is a big contributor to that.

More testing and data collection doesn't mean that every single anomaly would need to be investigated or communicated with the patient, but would provide a better longitudinal view that can help with disease prevention and health optimization.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#333
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely an important point to consider, in fact something I think everyone in these conversations should be cognizant of, and also why it makes me believe the actual conversation should move to whether the device improves false positives/negatives rates or not (or at least has a chance to), which then might warrant wider access/use.

A better question is if people are going high-res, why not go high-res with tests whose accuracy is known, and for which there are useful, data-driven treatments? Instead of casting a net of unknown quality every month, comparing against a null dataset (there does not exist a large dataset of these scans with outcomes for given markers). Why not advocate cheap, easy blood/urine tests with higher frequency? Those test…

True, though those things don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#334
post #317

slide 28 https://s27.q4cdn.com/524696391/files/doc_presentations/2026...

And slide 25, although it is questionable if this is really the result of such a device like Midjourney is presenting.

If it is then wow!

Re: Midjourney Medical

#335
> But suddenly, you have a huge library of data about your health.

With "you" being a VC backed startup aiming for the next $1T IPO. What could possibly go wrong?

Re: Midjourney Medical

#336

I think a lot of medical diagnosis could be solved with mass data collection if it was cheap enough. Right now, blood draws are somewhat routinely done because they provide a lot of human-interpretable indicators from a small number of values, and there is some evidence that e.g. "dogs can smell cancer" etc. (i.e. some diseases cause detectable odors). With a big enough data set of [all kinds of bio values, including…

There's a ton of variation within medical testing and tons of different conditions affect test results in similar ways. VERY FEW tests (test classes maybe: biopsy, microbiology, skeletal Rö) can yield diagnoses in the first place. Most testing is used to support (not confirm!) and reject possible interpretations.

This non-invasive everything-scanner sounds more like science fiction.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#337
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t make me tap the sign. Bayes Theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem There’s a very good reason we don’t test asymptomatic people in low incidence populations. Basically all positives are false positives when you do that, no matter how accurate the test is. When you’re testing healthy randos for everything the odds of a positive being false have so many 9s it would make an SRE weep. Unless this is…

If this argument was as solid as you say, then all routine checks would be pointless. I don't know about traditional blood testing, but a permanent implant which checks HR, pressure, glucose, temperature & oxidation would be pretty useful, not necessarily to diagnose anything, but to provide data for doctor when patient has actual symptomps.

Math does indeed make for solid arguments. If you want to make a counterargument then you have to address their math, which you didn't.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#338
post #36

So if it works: Awesome. The spa approach is a little weird. FDA workaround?

I think it is because they want something that feels nice so people will go there more often?

So they get more data of the same person over time.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a controversial and complicated idea. The downside, and the reason why most doctors do not recommend full body scans, is that every human body is a bit weird and there will almost always be something "wrong" that will be visible in a full body scan. This can lead to unnecessary testing, anxiety, and even unnecessary procedures. Many of these oddities flagged by the scan would never have caused any actual issues…

"It's a controversial and complicated idea. " It is neither controversial nor complicated to detect some cancers by scent. Taking the "headspace" of something is also not really complicated. There are people who can reliably smell/detect Parkinson: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/8202745...

You gloom on one aspect, the smell. OP focuses instead on full body scans themselves, and the irrelevant issues with everyone's bodies they would highlight.

Re: Midjourney Medical

#340
Companies are awfully confident of advertising "revolutionary" ideas that don't even have a testable prototype. I too have a dream of world peace and eternal human prosperity that I would like to sell. Any interested investors?
Post reply on HN