Robin East

Computer Vision and Deep Learning | Author of Spark GraphX in Action | Comp Statistics and ML MSc UCL | previously CTO @ Boxraw labs | SkyLive Mvmnt architect

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@TheExtremeMusi1 I Hung my Head - Sting

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@Freyy_is Not quite what you’re asking for but The Wasp Factory probably has the vibe you are looking for.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@DavidDeutschOxf Those 2 perspectives are not inconsistent with each other.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@DavidDeutschOxf I think there are 2 different perspectives: first in retrospect, with full information, no-one doubts that the chances of Nazi Germany conquering either was low. The other perspective is, say, the UK after Dunkirk and before during Battle of Britain. Who would have said no chance

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@20th_Centurygal Carpenters

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@RoupenMD @midjourney My point is the claim that billion images per month with 50,000 scanners just isn’t physically possible with any reasonable assumptions. I’m not inclined to trust hype that doesn’t add up.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@jonburkeUK @Jim_Cornelius Trying to install Andy Burnham? It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@JGS952 @PJTheEconomist I guess it’s a matter of interpretation. If the country wants earnings growth then (under mild assumptions) that implies growth in GDP (you can argue with me on that one if you want!). If a government is going to have priorities then relentless focus is needed.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@matsteiner @PJTheEconomist @NickCohen4 “remove all hurdles to house building …. Not that difficult”

Except every government in the last couple of decades has known this and still shied away from it (I wonder why???). Starmer’s biggest failing was having a massive majority and still unable to push through the change.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@JGS952 @PJTheEconomist What he actually says, in a nutshell, is that what people want is earnings growth and the way to deliver that is through supply side changes - tax, planning, regulation, etc

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

Beautifully put!

[Sai Ishaya @Sai_Ishaya_]

"History forgets fast" is funny b/c the MRI history actually makes the Drs' point. Tech bros have been quoting this post for 3 days like it's some eternal "gotcha".

Lauterbur's paper was initially rejected b/c the images were fuzzy. Then the idea was developed, tested, engineered & eventually made clinically useful with active physician participation. That's not a story about ignoring criticism; It's actually a story about surviving it.

Even before Lauterbur, Dr Damadian, a Medical Dr who's regarded as the "Father of MRI" by some scientists, faced brutal gatekeeping. When he dropped his foundational paper, he was instantly flamed by the era's tech ecosystem (physicists & researchers) & blackballed by legacy hardware giants like GE & Siemens.

Drs weren't being Luddites, they were reacting to unproven data in real time, exactly like the academics & tech predecessors of the time.
The resistance wasn't some glitch, it was the system demanding proof as it should have. MRI didn't change medicine by avoiding the critics & attacking the Drs every medical tech will REQUIRE for safe clinical adaptation, it changed medicine by proving them wrong.

That is the bit being skipped. Early rejection does not automatically make every new claim visionary.
Sometimes the weird idea becomes an MRI. Sometimes it becomes Theranos. Sometimes it becomes a wellness/spa product that mostly creates incidental findings & anxious people with beautifully "written" reports.

Medicine is one of the most technology-heavy fields on earth. We put cameras into joints, catheters into coronary arteries, coils into aneurysms, wrap magnets around entire human bodies, robots into theatres &AI into radiology workflows way before other fields caught up.
The idea that doctors are naturally anti-tech is just nonsense.

The fight is with the shortcut. Medicine adopts tech very quickly when it proves itself. X-ray, CT, laparoscopy, stents, robotic surgery, A.I. reconstruction, none of these entered medicine b/c Drs were sitting around scared of the future. They entered b/c the tools answered REAL clinical questions, survived testing, found a pathway & became useful to patients beyond the beautifully made demos directed by Christopher Nolan.

So if Midjourney's scanner becomes useful, Drs will use it. They happily will. The issue is this strange demand that clinicians should clap & dance before the thing has earned its place, as if every criticism is some childhood fear & every launch video is a prophecy that deserves reverence.
For every MRI story, there's a Theranos story somewhere reminding everyone why medicine asks annoying questions before patients become the true-crime fodder in a future Netflix documentary.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@ZbynekDrab I suspect it’s more that they’d prefer $74M to spent where they think it could do more good. I’m not saying they know better but think there’s probably a more nuanced reason for them to be sceptical.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@growing_daniel We still use it though

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

"Our goal at Midjourney Medical is to deploy around 50,000 of these scanners around the world over the next 6 years and use this fleet of sensors to do a billion full-body scans every month."

This clearly isn’t plausible. David Holz isn’t an idiot. What is going on here?

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@CanesDavid @anshulkundaje @CanesDavid X is not the general population. It’s full of weirdos. The general population, mostly has no idea who Midjourney are and literally won’t care about this interesting if speculative technology.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@neal_amin @FredLambert @grok Mammograms for breast cancer, thyroid cancer screening, Lung cancer CT.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@neal_amin @FredLambert @grok Ever heard of PSA?

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@phosphenq "Put up the most minimal fake version you probably can of something and then go sell it."

That certainly turned out well for Elizabeth Holmes.

[Robin East @Insidedctm]

@katheder Why?