I've been reading this website on and off for years now, and I remember one time I read that a silicon valley startup was selling a "smart cup" that would send you detailed statistics of how much water you drank (assuming you used your smart cup for every drink throughout the day). I suspect if I pitched this to doctors, they would say just drink when your thirsty; you don't need all that data.
But that's not the point, right? The cup cost way more than your average cup. There's a certain type of person who will spare no expense on gadgets and supplements that promise "wellness," and it doesn't matter if it actually produces results or not. Ray Kurzweil supposedly takes dozens of vitamin pills a day, and I imagine the end result is expensive piss, but guys like that will pay anything for the fantasy that they could live forever.
I'm not a doctor, so I can't say if this midjourney stuff has actual value. But considering they first plan to deliver this in a fancy spa, and that it's coming from a tech company, not pharma, my reflex is to question the medical value of this data. It just smells too much like one of those pricey, dubious wellness products, and a lot of us here are the ideal marks for such a scam.
It's funny because these criticisms are similar to the ones that Raymond Damadian faced when he was trying to develop the MRI. He was criticized for just being a doctor and not an NMR specialist, criticized for making bold claims based on the crude initial images that he presented, criticized for being too exuberant about the potential of the technology, criticized for only having a small group of non-expert graduate students and his own self-taught electronics and machining knowledge. He eventually founded his own company to commercialize the technology and even then he fought an uphill battle for 8 more years.
The criticism is also similar to those faced by Theranos. Survivorship bias is always a factor when looking backwards.
I think the only way you figure out which data has value is by collecting it first. And I don't trust pharma any more than I trust tech.
I'm 100% OK with health-conscious yuppies that have too much disposable income being the guinea pigs paying for this until if/when it demonstrates medical value.
> But considering they first plan to deliver this in a fancy spa, and that it's coming from a tech company, not pharma, my reflex is to question the medical value of this data.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the entire pharma industry is not exactly known for their motivation to research and develop therapies for the betterment of humanity. Case in point, the opioid crisis, wherein pharma’s goal was to just sell as much of the drugs as possible without regard for the impact those drugs were having on the people taking them.
I’m not saying this to defend tech — they’re guilty of the same things. I am saying this to suggest that if this play by Midjourney to reject VC funding and really lean into a community supported research lab works then you might end up with something closer to an altruistic approach than you would have otherwise.