Not all AI is an LLM. So yes.

no, but not for why you think.

because it’s far more effective to scan samples from you than whole organs.

Short answer, yes.

Finding complex patterns in noisy data is an application that AI is actually well suited for. It still requires human follow-up. Anyway, human experts make mistakes in these areas as well. There is a good chance that a well designed AI could be more accurate.

What’s the difference between one technology you don’t understand (AI engine-assisted ) and another you don’t understand (human-staffed radiology laboratory)?

Regardless of whether you (as a patient hopelessly unskilled in diagnosis of any condition) trust the method, you probably have some level of faith in the provider who has selected it. And, while they most likely will choose what is most beneficial to them (cost of providing accurate diagnoses vs. cost of providing less accurate diagnoses), hopefully regulatory oversight and public influence will force them to use whichever is most effective, AI or not.

Honestly? Before the AI craze, I’d have said yes, because I believe AIs tailored to do one specific thing can outperform humans. Today? I’d rather not, as I could not let go of the thought that it might be somme shitty model quickly put together by the nephew of the CEO…

I’m not sure we, as a society, are ready to trust ML models to do things that might affect lives. This is true for self-driving cars and I expect it to be even more true for medicine. In particular, we can’t accept ML failures, even when they get to a point where they are statistically less likely than human errors.

I don’t know if this is currently true or not, so please don’t shoot me for this specific example, but IF we were to have reliable stats that everything else being equal, self-driving cars cause less accidents than humans, a machine error will always be weird and alien and harder for us to justify than a human one.

“He was drinking too much because his partner left him”, “she was suffering from a health condition and had an episode while driving”… we have the illusion that we understand humans and (to an extent) that this understanding helps us predict who we can trust not to drive us to our death or not to misdiagnose some STI and have our genitals wither. But machines? Even if they were 20% more reliable than humans, how would we know which ones we can trust?

Would I trust the accuracy of the output? No, but it might be a decent warning to get tested to make sure. Would I trust a company with pictures of my genitals attached to my identity? Certainly not an AI company.

No

Ok press the start button and slowly scan your penis, asshole and testicles. First apply included wax and pull forcefully and swiftly to remove hair.

No.

Honestly? I’ve leaked pics of those voluntarily, so curiously I’d be a-okay with this one.

just post your junk on bluesky and crowdsource it.

Every passing day we delve deeper into this hole that is a cold technology driven world. Instead we really should be taking the time to share our outbreaks with friends and family.

Locally run AI, yes. Hosted AI, no.

I dunno, maybe the diagnosis is fine but the companies that run it are sure to save copies. I can just see databreaches now, “5 million stolen dick picks uploaded to dark web”. Complete with labelling of which ones are diseased though, so that’s a help.