The subtext you're missing here is that GPT with access to the entire corpus of medical data could undermine the entire money printing machine (referring to US healthcare here). What test would cost thousands of dollars if the only human cost to run it is drawing some blood and putting it in a machine?
The actual process of doing blood work is often surprisingly complicated.
However, the basic idea actually is possible, but only for a very select few of the tests they proposed (which they still unfortunately didn't really get right of course). My point is that, unfortunately, the tests that are possible to do now won't get a company to form out of it - simply because they ruined the scene for everyone. Anyone trying to get a company going in this area and raising money for it will be met with a complete block of resistance because of the precedent set, even if the technology is actually completely reliable.
So, no very quickly people were calling Theranos either incompetent or fraudulent.
My point is that the general idea was not a bad idea, and because it was so badly mismanaged (trying to add too many products and run before walking, using other companies' tech illegally, etc, etc) we now are worse off because few people want to attempt doing the possible ideas in this space (because people think none of it is possible - which is simply not true).
The company that could reliably be made is far less 'attractive' of course, but it would still be quite beneficial.
We looked it up and it cost a little less to *buy the FDA approved equipment for your house, and run the test every day for an entire month*.
It's absolutely heinously broken - almost completely due to insurance companies. Insurance should be made illegal and obsolete due to the insane hindrance it is to progress in humanity.
You really didn’t provide enough information for a more detailed analysis, but for example there’s a reason hospitals don’t just use the cheap COVID tests and call it good.
There is a reason I mentioned FDA approved equipment though - it is substantially more expensive to have that label (despite being able to purchase items that claim similar parameters, those need to be exhaustively tested). Despite this, the statement that purchasing some types of equipment for your home and using it regularly, is still often far cheaper than going to the physicians office and getting a test once.
I suppose I am a bit out of the typical demographic though, as I would rather use my own TEM made in my garage to do quick analyses of lab materials than take it to my colleagues across the hall and sign up for a slot on their more resolute EM. Being able to work independently and have your own data is a nice thing sometimes.
When they're cheap outside the USA, it often just means the companies aren't attempting to recoup any r&d costs outside the US
Your friend kinda sound like a moron in general tbqh
I'm a BIG supporter of using things like ChatGPT, google, and sci-hub to do your own medical research because the whole system where some physician diagnoses you based on an extremely limited amount of data collected in a haphazard manner after a few minutes of observation because he's experienced and smart or whatever is incredibly dumb. The way people hold it up as the ethical standard which we cannot deviate from because it would be too dangerous is utterly baffling to me. The status quo totally lacks ethics and mostly serves to line the pockets of a cartel of doctors with a monopoly on access to medication and treatment who often condescendingly think patients are simply too irrational to treat themselves without their help.
I legitimately cannot wait for this field to mature and medical self-help with AI assistance becomes the norm.
When I finally blacked out and fractured my spine, first responders detected a lifelong cardiac arrhythmia in the back of an ambulance. Only with that knowledge have I been able to receive care and begin to heal emotionally from that abuse.
AI-assisted medicine will prevent many of these mistakes in the future.
I had to see the only available primary doctor to see anyone else, which automatically prompted medical releases that, even if unethical, would have still made it technically legal. If it was an emergency room trip, there were always the same 2-3 physicians there, so they were all fully aware of me from the first episodes. Same deal with labs when you've got only one or two options in town for anything, and they have your consent to release PHI since that's the only way to send results.
I hope that more founders build and innovate in the field to provide efficiencies throughout the whole system to lower costs and provide high quality care for everyone that needs it.
Especially the people that will read about diseases and get anxious they have them, and while you can validly say they have anxiety issues they don't have whatever they just read about 99% of the time.
Even if there's a real disease of some sort, you don't want to diagnose with the latest guess in someone that keeps guessing different things. Their treatment needs improvement, but confirmation bias is not how you do it.
And it's pretty clear that for many people, they don't feel like their needs are being met.
Happened to my granma when she was 90. She had convinced her doctor prescribing her 5 or 6 drugs. She swallowed them until she was so weak she had to go to hospital, where the tests revealed that she was 100% sane. She didn't like it.
Then when the patient asks ChatGPT if the tests could give false negatives, it could provide some very valid-sounding answers that say repeat testing might be necessary.
This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s currently happening to an old friend of mine. They won’t let it go because ChatGPT continues to give them the same answers when they ask it the same (leading) questions. At this point he can get ChatGPT to give him any medical answer he wants to hear by rephrasing his questions until ChatGPT tells him what he wants to hear. He’s learned to ask questions like “If someone has symptoms _____ and ____ could they have <rare disease> and if so how would it be treated?” A real doctor would see what’s happening and address the leading questions. ChatGPT just takes it at face value.
The difference between ChatGPT and real doctors is that he can iterate on his answer-shopping a hundred times in one sitting, whereas a doctor is going to see what’s happening and stop the patient.
ChatGPT is an automated confirmation bias machine for hypochondriacs.