3 ms·
Just curious, why are drug names such a disaster? Do LLMs not understand pronunciation keys?
by 8n4vidtmkvmk 2mo ago
Just curious, why are drug names such a disaster? Do LLMs not understand pronunciation keys?
- thunderfork 2mo agoPeople pronounce drug names all sorts of ways, and there's a lot of them (with a steady trickle of new ones)
- munk-a 2mo agoDrug names are frequently BS loaded with strange consonants without singular pronunciation guidelines (sadly English isn't German) so humans already have a lot of variation in how things are pronounced - models then need to comprehend those variations, regional dialects (like those fuggin' ahs from Boston). It ends up being quite a lot of variation. As some examples: Wegovy, Ixempra, Qvar, Keflex
- recursive 2mo agoWow, those names are actually real. They sound like fly-by-night compliance "brand" names on amazon sellers. How did those get approved by a multi-billion dollar marketing team?
- SoftTalker 2mo agoThey need a name they can trademark, and common words can't be trademarked. It's sort of a .com domain name problem, all the good names are already taken so you just go for something you hope is pronouncable.
- Scoundreller 2mo ago> They need a name they can trademark, and common words can't be trademarked Iunno, pretty sure a car manufacturer will sue me for trademark infringement if I try to manufacture a Beetle under my brand name. The bigger answer is regulations in some places against the drug name inferring what it treats. If you want to do global marketing; you gotta go for lowest common denominator: something meaningless in every language/slang.
- Polizeiposaune 2mo agoTrademarks. And the patients generally don't have a pronunciation key. Doctors prescribing might not, either.
- Scoundreller 2mo agoEven in the industry… the names are sometimes pronounced in much different ways.
- purplemoonx 2mo ago[flagged]