Mike, On 4/14/08, Mike Dougherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have little interest in downloading your software and tables and > arcane howto for making it all work. In my opinion, you really can't > call your product AGI until I can converse with it directly - either > via it's own email address or (for a 'real-time' Turing test) an IRC > channel. I will concede that AGI has little interest in Dr. Eliza, and I have little interest in AGI as it seems to be individually defined here. Hence, I plead "no contest" to this statement. > How difficult would it be for you to extend the Dr Eliza interface > with an IRC bot frontend? I have looked extensively at this. There are a number of issues: 1. It won't be widely useful without a LOT more knowledge. Remember, my choice of CHRONIC illness - those conditions that doctors can do little/nothing for, yet with the advancement of various sorts of alternative health care approaches, many of these DO have effective interventions. People typically having these conditions fall into some particular social categories: a. The elderly, many of whom won't talk with anyone who doesn't have an MD. If they had only gone down to the nearest clinic and saw the naturopath on duty, many of them wouldn't have their "chronic" condition. b. The poor, who can only qualify for mainstream MD care without paying for it themselves, and they don't have the money for such risky investments. c. In any case, most people with chronic health conditions do NOT have Internet access! 2. "conversing" with Dr. Eliza can be frustrating, because it insists on talking about whatever it sees as pivotal, and has no internal ability to converse about whatever it is that the patient thinks is important. More often than not, some passing indirect mention of a seemingly irrelevant symptom will turn out to be the clue that puts it all together, so Dr. Eliza may start asking about that symptom to make sure that it is real since so much depends on it. I really can't imagine Dr. Eliza ever competing for ANY Turing-related prize, because it so completely lacks the "personal touch". 3. My present front runner plan is to lurk on many health-related sites, analyze every posting, and wait until it sees enough to be really sure about "saying" something (has seen enough to propose a complete cure), and then post the questions or reply as appropriate. Alternatively, service emails, which encourages people to write carefully thought out problem statements. > If it is as accurate as you claim, Obviously, it is no better than its knowledge base. > it might help a lot more people by > dispensing "see a REAL doctor to get X checked out" than as ... well, > whatever it is now. I agree. An alternative plan that might be worth a LOT of money is to forge a relationship with a nationwide medical provider like Group Health. Dr. Eliza is pretty good at dragging out the details even if you don't look at its opinions about them. If you like the advice and it requires medication, then just click the button and show up at the Group Health pharmacy, show your ID, and pick up your meds. If you reject its advice, at least your doctor can read the health statement a LOT faster than he can listen to you talk. No matter what happens, the provider would come out ahead. There are a number of political pitfalls in this, but I am still looking for just the right provider to do this with. Even with an accuracy rate that exceeds "average" doctors, I'll be as > likely to dismiss it as I would dismiss a real doctor - but the > machine doesn't need to play golf or drive expensive cars so it can > devote the time that people can't (or won't). The whole thing hinges around *difficult* problems, *chronic* illnesses, etc.If you doctor can fix a problem, then you don't need Dr. Eliza, though the price is certainly right. However, when your doctor tells you to cancel your magazine subscriptions, as mine once did, then at least some people open their minds to alternative advice. [I had a doctor say, > "Your iron level is too low, eat more red meat." followed immediately > with, "Your cholesterol is too high, eat less red meat." Please excuse me for a moment while I change hats... Iron (a pure free radical) levels are regulated by your central metabolic control system to keep the total free radical level where it wants it to be. Most doctors make such opinions without testing, and sometimes the levels are low FOR A GOOD REASON. One fellow from Australia was downwind from some British A-bombs that were tested, so he was full of free radicals from the fallout. His iron levels were regulated to be low. He could (and did for a while) eat iron pills like candy and his levels didn't move a bit. Most of the iron hype is obsolete by decades, and comes from old Geritol ads. I presume that your doctor had his/her share of gray hair? Drug companies have literally bought and paid for laboratories to lower the "normal" range for cholesterol in order to sell more pills. Before the drug companies got into the act, 220 was the norm. Now, 200 is the maximum. Note in passing if your body temperature is low AND your cholesterol is high, then you probably ARE in trouble. However, correcting your body temperature is a MUCH better fix than lowering your cholesterol below what it should be. Note in passing that most cholesterol lowering drugs do reduce heart attacks and stroke, but do not extend life! Why? Because suicides then kill as many people as the heart attacks and strokes would have. I don't know about you, but I would certainly rather die of a heart attack or stroke than be SO damn depressed that I kill myself. In short, your doctor was probably messed up on BOTH counts. > I was > thinking, "Your diagnosis is unusable, I want my co-pay back" ] You have no idea how much doctors fight any effort at quality control. Wait until some car hits you and your doctor's screwed up report gets sucked into the settlement negotiations. With a low iron level and a high cholesterol you probably wouldn't have lived much longer anyway, so why should they pay for any lost income? Only a month ago I saw this sort of crap happen to a severely injured lady I know (different details, same idea) - and it probably cost her several hundred thousand dollars! Steve Richfield ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
