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Here's the structural problem I see: there are acres, literally, acres of computer science types in SF and certain other enclaves, slaving away on ads when they

Here's the structural problem I see: there are acres, literally, acres of computer science types in SF and certain other enclaves, slaving away on ads when they would rather be curing cancer. But they don't know the first thing about cancer. Meanwhile, there are enclaves where biologists are slaving away capturing data and not even realizing it's data. "Bookkeeping data" they might call it. There should be mixers between the biologists and the computer scientists. Especially non-academic physicians and computer scientists. Look at Kaiser-Permanente, Sutter Health, or Defense Health Agency. Huge orgs, very little research. Data falling off the shelves and they don't know what to do with it.

nonbel 9y ago
Please no mixers. The AI/ML/CS people should start their own different, better approach.
slavik81 9y ago
Mozilla Science runs the global science sprint each year to bring scientists of all kinds together with developers. I bet there's lots of projects that could still use help. https://github.com/mozilla/global-sprint/issues https://github.com/mozilla/global-sprint/issues
amazingman 9y ago
You’re not wrong. Especially not about the ads. What we need, unfortunately, are (at least) 2 very difficult things to achieve legislatively: 1. A legal framework for health-related products & services that meaningfully protects individual privacy, and yet also preserves the conditions for the kind of velocity and rate of change that brings technological progress to the masses reliably and quickly. 2. Massive academic funding for more “pure” research in hardware & software design, engineering, the philosophy of what’s possible, the phenomenon and ethics of what we choose to build, and so on. TLDR Pay more people more money to do important research in the public domain, which I can’t help but think would attract many of the CS types you mentioned.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  > a legal framework that protects privacy yet brings technological progress to the masses quickly That exists, but there's upfront educational costs that need to be handled first. > Massive academic funding Look at Europe: their acedemics work much more closely with industry. Get a someone who can code in a room with a physician, and I garuntee they can find a problem to work on. Show a successful prototype, and we're way below "minimum viable product" here. Show a graph with real data and money will start looking for you. Computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists, and engineers need to go to biology conferences. And biologists should be going to math, ML, and software conferences.

nonbel 9y ago

Please no mixers. The AI/ML/CS people should start their own different, better approach.

slavik81 9y ago

Mozilla Science runs the global science sprint each year to bring scientists of all kinds together with developers. I bet there's lots of projects that could still use help. https://github.com/mozilla/global-sprint/issues https://github.com/mozilla/global-sprint/issues

amazingman 9y ago

You’re not wrong. Especially not about the ads. What we need, unfortunately, are (at least) 2 very difficult things to achieve legislatively: 1. A legal framework for health-related products & services that meaningfully protects individual privacy, and yet also preserves the conditions for the kind of velocity and rate of change that brings technological progress to the masses reliably and quickly. 2. Massive academic funding for more “pure” research in hardware & software design, engineering, the philosophy of what’s possible, the phenomenon and ethics of what we choose to build, and so on. TLDR Pay more people more money to do important research in the public domain, which I can’t help but think would attract many of the CS types you mentioned.

killjoywashere 9y ago
> a legal framework that protects privacy yet brings technological progress to the masses quickly That exists, but there's upfront educational costs that need to be handled first. > Massive academic funding Look at Europe: their acedemics work much more closely with industry. Get a someone who can code in a room with a physician, and I garuntee they can find a problem to work on. Show a successful prototype, and we're way below "minimum viable product" here. Show a graph with real data and money will start looking for you. Computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists, and engineers need to go to biology conferences. And biologists should be going to math, ML, and software conferences.