Live data from Hacker News

I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

antoine.fi

461–470 of 748 posts

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#461
post #2

I would not use Claude to get a second opinion on anything that’s an image.

What's wrong with Claude? I've asked it to analyze images and even Opus 4 would perfect nail it.

Throw a chess board on there. See how it does. It always gets pieces and positions completely wrong because it’s terrible at analyzing images.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think „the diagnosis” is over simplification and lots of professionals would disagree that there’s always a single one. "The Diagnosis" does not mean "one root cause". Situation: my car has some unexplained vibrations. 1. Mechanic A says that it is the engine mounts 2. Mechanic B says that it is some weirdness in how the exhaust assembly is hanging to the underbody 3. Mechanic C says that it is just my wife farti…

> There is always one "The Diagnosis". No, that is not true at all. This is a kind of thinking a lot of programmers fall prey to. The real world, outside of code, is a very fuzzy and inherently analog place. There is very rarely one in any complex system having a complex problem needing a complex solution. At some point even the definition of diagnosis gets fuzzy. The best demonstration of this in medicine is probabl…

Pyschiatry gets complicated because the failures are not mechanical. Even if you could image every single neuron in a person's head we do not have a very good way to define an algorithm for these issues. I do not have a good answer for psychiatry.

> This is a kind of thinking a lot of programmers fall prey to. The real world, outside of code, is a very fuzzy and inherently analog place.

Having said that, I would vehemently reject and push back against this, and without doubting your sincerity, characterize it as an ad hominem.

The vast majority of issues with the human body are mechanical in nature. Restricted blood flow, unwanted tissue, a broken bone, a bad valve etc. These are causal descriptions of "disease". Where causal descriptions exist, the "One True Diagnosis" principle holds. Psychiatry just happens to be unique in that it is a fuzzy science where we rely on checklists and ultimately all diagnosis is probabilistic.

EDIT:

> This is a kind of thinking a lot of programmers fall prey to. The real world, outside of code, is a very fuzzy and inherently analog place. There is very rarely one in any complex system having a complex problem needing a complex solution. At some point even the definition of diagnosis gets fuzzy.

I would also push back against this mindset in general. This is not a falsifiable claim, it is incoherence as an argument, and I do not need to be a programmer to hold this position.

That the real world is analog is irrelevant to its amenability to causal explanations. Or "fuzzy": "fuzzy" in this context just does not mean anything.

I am not trying to sound exasperated or win internet points, just impress this point on you and anyone reading this. We can write math to predict weather, make it tractable to solve using approximations, tolerate IEEE 754 weirdness, and finally tell what the clouds will do a week from now. This is nature telling us that there is a pattern to how it behaves, and it is the only weapon we have as scientists.

To say that nature is not amenable to explanations is a very defeatist thing to say: neither Newton nor Einstein nor any of the million-odd people that have built modern society would exist if nature did not have causal explanations. I urge you to reject this defeatist thinking.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#464
post #341

A few years ago (before the AI craze), I was misdiagnosed with tuberculosis. I had a chronic cough, and an outsourced radiologist at a clinic found signs of tuberculosis. The findings were sent to the city's tuberculosis hospital, as required by the country's law. The doctors there took the radiologist's conclusion at face value and required me to stay at their hospital for at least 8 months under a strict, prison-li…

What country / municipality are you in? This is not my understanding of Tuberculosis...

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#465
post #6

I'm a radiologist but can't really weigh in without seeing the full 3D MRI dataset. Regarding this point: > They performed shockwave therapy on my shoulder even though a recent clinical practice guideline says clinicians should not use or recommend shockwave therapy for rotator-cuff tendinopathy without calcification; I was told during ultrasound that there was no calcification. Ultrasound isn't a great way to assess…

As a rad tech, YOU TELL ‘EM DOC! I do like some uses of AI I’ve seen that help patients advocate for themselves or understand basic things like blood panel numbers, but it’s really bad at glazing people and leading them down medical rabbit holes kind of like the OP. You would think that the AI would point out that calcium is best demonstrated on Radiographs/CT imaging vs Ultrasound or something to that effect.

i'm sorry, but AIs only "know" about stuff that they have been trained on.

If we would allow AIs to be trained on the petabytes of medical data hidden in hospital systems, they would most likely be much better at diagnosing illnesses and conditions than the average doctor.

(Justifiable) Privacy around medical records so far prevents this.

You think you're cheering for humans, but in fact you are gatekeeping healthcare.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#466
German doctors are very prone to quackery. Including their nurses.

I've overheard a nurse at a university hospital argue with patient who used tape on himself about the color of the tape. She was worried he might use the "wrong color". Again: at a university hospital, where they teach MDs. Half of them recommend homeopathic remedies

In short: quaks.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re describing the problem of continual learning. As I said their “consciousness” for lack of a better term and knowledge does already change from ongoing experience in context which is another of saying for only a short window, today. They are ephemeral, sort of, but that’s a temporary limitation.

I think if your definition of consciousness can fit these things then you’re more open minded than I care to be. Consciousness isn’t really guessing the next thing to say- it’s hard to say what it is, obviously, but blindly feeling forwards with each new conversation doesn’t seem like consciousness or learning to me.

We aren't talking about consciousness, we're talking about learning.

> Consciousness isn’t really guessing the next thing to say-

I don't know what consciousness is either and these debates are a dumpster fire when they happen, but it sounds like you're pulling forward this "LLMs are just predicting the next token" (true by construction) implies that they can't learn or reason or be conscious (2/3 are wrong, the last one isn't falsifiable without a useful definition).

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey what did you do to fix your sleep? Help us all and maybe an llm will index your diagnosis (hi ChatGPT)

For me what helped is taking 7.5 mg of mirtazapine. At higher levels it's an anti-depressant but at lower levels it's an anti-histamine. It gets me drowsy. Together with 0.3 mg melatonin it knocks me out. I only take it 3 times per week max to not have habituation kick in. So 3 days out of 7 days I have guaranteed good sleep. The other 4 days are a toss up. But an average of 5 days of good sleep is much better than 3…

AFAIK mirtazapine shouldn't cause habituation the way actual "sleeping pills" or benzodiazepines do. That's one of the reasons it may be preferable as a sleeping aid, especially in the longer term.

Anecdotally, when I took mirtazapine for sleeping problems, it did sometimes seem to have a stronger effect the first time I took it after not using it for a while. After that the effect stayed stable. Overall it shouldn't cause habituation, and my doctor said as much.

Of course trust your doctor and not strangers on the internet, though.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The machines have no driving force to act in the world. That is fundamental for humans. Twice in your comment you suggest things that you think that I believe, please do not do this.

“It sounds like you believe” is a question, inviting your clarification. I will continue doing that because it’s perfectly reasonable. Also “machines have no driving force to act in the world” is also a mysterious statement but because you reacted so badly to anyone questioning you I will just leave it at that

That is called a leading question and it is not "perfectly reasonable." Resisting your attempts at bad faith discussion is not "reacting badly." I agree though that we should cease discussion.

Re: I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between a _puzzle_ and a _mystery_. In a puzzle, the goal state is known, and as more pieces - data - appears, the goal gets closer. You know how far you are from the goal. A mystery is worse. With each additional piece of data, the goal gets farther away. Everything is more and more confusing. (Popularized by Malcom Gladwell)

Maybe I am missing something but I just find this wrong. Everything is a puzzle: there is one "Truth" or one diagnosis. You (a smart human) should be able to converge on it by cross-examining your LLMs. By themselves, they have no interest in revealing this, no stakes, which makes them tools only useful at the hands of a capable investigator.

The problem is that the diagnosis might not be known for a while. There's a few conditions and diseases that require an autopsy for a guaranteed diagnosis and therefore are diagnosis based on symptoms in clinical settings.
Post reply on HN