We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. Inside: an eye photo that may flag a pregnancy danger early, a Danish bill against AI fakes, and two more good things. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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This week in AI
Four reasons to worry a little less.
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An eye photo that may warn of a pregnancy danger early. A bill against AI fakes of your face and voice. Free AI classes for workers. Three minutes, start to finish.
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Stoic anchor
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“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca · Letters to Lucilius 13.4 · translated by Richard M. Gummere
Plenty of AI news is written to frighten. This week’s good news is quieter: an earlier warning, clearer rules, new skills. Each one turns a vague fear into a next step someone can actually take.
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The big one · Health
An eye photo may flag a pregnancy danger months early.
High blood pressure in pregnancy, including preeclampsia, is the second leading cause of maternal death worldwide, and it is usually diagnosed only after 20 weeks. Researchers at Columbia and NYU built Visionary AI to read the tiny blood vessels in a photo of the back of the eye. In Nature Biotechnology on Oct. 6, it predicted preeclampsia from photos taken early in pregnancy.
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0.81
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Prediction score
out of 1 in the outside test (0.5 is a coin flip), vs. 0.73 for a standard risk calculator
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6–13
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Weeks pregnant
when the photos were taken, outside test
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1,267
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Pregnancies
followed at Columbia
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A quick photo, no needle. Timing matters: trials show low-dose aspirin started before 16 weeks can lower the risk of an early delivery with preeclampsia.
The catch: the outside test was small, 66 pregnancies with 13 cases of preeclampsia, and the authors say larger studies are needed.
Source: Nature Biotechnology
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Also good this week
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Rights
A bill against fakes of your face and voice.
On Oct. 8, Denmark’s culture minister put a bill to parliament that would make it illegal to share realistic AI imitations of a person’s looks or voice. It protects ordinary people and artists alike, and a main goal is getting big tech platforms to take fakes down fast. It isn’t law yet; the minister hopes it takes effect at the new year.
Source: Danish Ministry of Culture (in Danish)
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Work
Free AI classes for working people.
On Oct. 9, the state of Victoria, Australia opened applications for an A$8.2 million program that teaches workers to use AI in their own jobs. Employers in key industries can enroll staff in free four-to-six-week courses or one-day workshops run by RMIT, Melbourne Business School and Swinburne.
Source: Premier of Victoria
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Health
A nudge that got more people their flu shot.
Geisinger, a Pennsylvania health system, used an algorithm to find patients at high risk from flu and told them so, in three randomized trials with more than 90,000 patients. Those told about their risk got vaccinated 1.1 to 1.4 percentage points more often than people sent a plain reminder. Mentioning the algorithm didn’t lower vaccination rates.
Source: Nature Human Behaviour
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Unexpected connection
Sunflowers showed engineers where to put the mirrors.
At some solar plants, hundreds of mirrors aim sunlight at one tower, and they shade each other. Engineers at MIT and RWTH Aachen rearranged them like the florets of a sunflower, each turned about 137 degrees from its neighbor. In their model, the spiral used 20 percent less land than the plant near Seville it was based on, with less shading. A good idea can come from a field next door.
Source: MIT News (2012)
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Try this week
One prompt. Not clever.
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Here's what I'm dreading: [describe it]. Split it into what has actually happened and what I'm only imagining might happen. For each imagined part, ask me how likely it really is.
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Seneca warned his friend about suffering in advance nearly two thousand years ago. Claude makes a calm partner for checking a fear against the facts.
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Onward
Good news in AI, with a Stoic anchor.
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Your turn
What's one thing AI did for you this week that actually helped? Hit reply and tell me.
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