Navigating the Clinical AI landscape

Mendel AI
1 Mar 202458:49

Summary

TLDRIn this dynamic webinar, hosted by Endpoints News and sponsored by Mendle, we delve into the evolving landscape of clinical AI and its pivotal role in advancing precision medicine. The discussion features insights from Mendle's co-founder and CEO, Karim Galil, and Unlearn AI's founder, Charles Fisher. Both leaders share their vision on harnessing AI to revolutionize healthcare, from making medicine more objective to enhancing clinical trials. The conversation navigates through challenges, innovations, and the potential of AI in healthcare, aiming to bridge the gap between technology and medical advancements for a more objective and efficient future in medicine.

Takeaways

  • πŸ›  The webinar, sponsored by Mendle, focuses on navigating the clinical AI landscape and charting the path to precision medicine.
  • πŸ‘¨β€βš•οΈ Speakers include Karim Galil, MD, co-founder and CEO of Mle AI, and Charles Fisher, CEO and founder of Unlearn AI, both sharing insights into the integration of AI in healthcare.
  • πŸ§ͺ Mle AI's mission is to make medicine objective by creating the world's largest index of patient journeys, leveraging AI that understands medicine like a physician.
  • πŸ“š Unlearn AI focuses on solving AI for medicine, particularly in making clinical trials more efficient and accurate through the creation of digital twins.
  • πŸ–₯ Both companies emphasize the importance of AI innovation specifically tailored to the clinical domain, beyond general AI applications.
  • πŸ“ˆ The discussion covers the AI market's segmentation into innovators, tool builders, and wrappers, highlighting the roles and impacts of each in advancing clinical AI.
  • πŸ“ The critical role of data in AI development is underscored, especially the challenge of training AI models with complex, real-world clinical data to avoid inaccuracies and biases.
  • πŸ’» The webinar explores the potential of AI to revolutionize clinical trials, with Unlearn's digital twins exemplifying how AI can simulate patient outcomes to streamline trials.
  • πŸ“’ Talent and culture within AI companies are deemed crucial, with a focus on the blend of engineering and research expertise necessary to drive genuine innovation.
  • πŸ“° The dialogue encourages skepticism towards overhyped AI claims, advocating for a grounded understanding of AI capabilities and limitations in healthcare applications.

Q & A

  • What is the mission of MLE AI as described by Karim Galil?

    -MLE AI's mission is to make medicine objective by enabling the world's largest index of patient journeys, leveraging AI that understands medicine like a physician.

  • How does Charles Fisher's background contribute to his work at Unlearn AI?

    -Charles Fisher's background as a scientist with interests at the intersection of physics, machine learning, and computational biology, combined with his experience in machine learning engineering and computational biology, contributes to his work at Unlearn AI, focusing on inventing new AI technologies for medicine.

  • What distinguishes Mendle's approach to clinical AI from traditional methods?

    -Mendle's approach is distinguished by its use of a clinical NLP platform that allows command over the full spectrum of data, integrating both structured and unstructured data into a computer-ready knowledge representation for sophisticated clinical reasoning queries.

  • How does Unlearn AI aim to transform clinical trials?

    -Unlearn AI aims to transform clinical trials by using AI to create digital twins of individual patients, allowing for the forecasting of medical outcomes under various scenarios, thereby making trials more efficient and accurate.

  • What challenges do innovators face in the AI landscape according to the webinar?

    -Innovators face challenges such as the need for long-term R&D investment before product development, the need to differentiate amidst a saturated market of AI companies, and the difficulty in educating potential clients on the nuances of AI technologies.

  • What is Hypercube, as mentioned in the webinar?

    -Hypercube is a product launched by Mendle designed to enhance clinical analytics through an AI platform specifically built for the clinical domain, improving accuracy and scalability in clinical trial matching and other applications.

  • Why do both speakers emphasize the importance of publishing peer-reviewed papers in AI?

    -Publishing peer-reviewed papers is emphasized as it provides scientific validation of the AI technology, helps differentiate genuine AI innovation, and facilitates engagement with scientific and regulatory communities.

  • According to the webinar, how does AI technology face limitations in healthcare applications?

    -AI technology faces limitations in healthcare applications due to challenges like context window limitations, hallucination risks, and the need for explainability, especially in complex clinical reasoning tasks.

  • What is the significance of domain-specific AI technologies as discussed in the webinar?

    -Domain-specific AI technologies are significant because they address unique challenges and requirements of specific fields like healthcare, potentially leading to breakthroughs and advancements beyond the capabilities of general domain AI.

  • How do the speakers view the future of AI in healthcare and clinical trials?

    -The speakers view the future of AI in healthcare and clinical trials optimistically, believing that AI will continue to evolve and provide innovative solutions for previously unsolvable problems, though they acknowledge the current limitations and the need for continuous research and development.

Outlines

00:00

πŸ“’ Introduction to the Webinar on Clinical AI

The webinar, hosted by Car Bball from Endpoints News and sponsored by Mendle, focuses on navigating the clinical AI landscape towards precision medicine. It features two prominent panelists: Karim Galil, MD, the co-founder and CEO of Mle AI, who shares his vision of making medicine objective through AI-driven patient journey indexing, and Charles Fisher, CEO and founder of Unlearn AI, who brings a deep background in physics, machine learning, and computational biology. The introduction sets the stage for a discussion on how AI can bridge the gap between medicine's slow advancement and rapid technological progress, aiming to make clinical research scalable and medicine more objective.

05:00

🌟 Exploring Mle AI's Mission and Innovations

Karim Galil delves into Mle AI's mission to objectify medicine by leveraging AI to create a comprehensive index of patient journeys. He outlines the challenges of integrating technology with the slower pace of medical advancement and highlights Mle AI's journey from its founding to the launch of its first product in mid-2023. Galil discusses the innovative clinical NLP platform developed by Mle AI, which aims to revolutionize clinical analytics by enabling sophisticated queries on consolidated patient data, thereby addressing the inaccuracies and inefficiencies in traditional clinical data analysis.

10:02

πŸ” Unlearn AI's Approach to Enhancing Clinical Trials

Charles Fisher introduces Unlearn AI's mission to pioneer AI solutions specifically for medicine, emphasizing the company's focus on creating AI technologies that tackle unsolved medical problems. He shares insights into Unlearn AI's digital twin concept, which forecasts individual patient outcomes in clinical trials to increase efficiency and accuracy. Fisher explains how this innovative approach can significantly impact the design and execution of clinical trials, particularly in neurology, by providing more precise and efficient methods for evaluating treatment effects.

15:03

πŸ“Š The State of AI in Healthcare and Clinical AI Innovations

The discussion shifts towards categorizing AI companies into innovators, tool builders, and wrappers, with a focus on how each contributes to the AI ecosystem. The conversation then pivots to the specific challenges and opportunities in applying AI within the clinical domain. Both speakers emphasize the importance of domain-specific AI technologies and discuss how companies like Mle AI and Unlearn AI are pushing the boundaries of clinical AI by addressing unique challenges in healthcare, such as the need for sophisticated reasoning and knowledge representation in AI systems.

20:05

🧠 Debating the Capabilities and Limitations of AI in Medicine

The dialogue deepens into a philosophical and technical exploration of AI's capabilities and limitations, especially in complex clinical reasoning. Both speakers share their views on the distinction between machine learning and deeper AI functionalities, such as reasoning and knowledge representation. They discuss the current state of AI, including the challenges of data context, hallucination, and explainability in clinical applications. The conversation highlights the importance of integrating machine learning with structured knowledge to address the nuances of medical data analysis.

25:06

πŸ’‘ Challenges and Opportunities in Commercializing AI for Healthcare

The conversation turns towards the practical aspects of commercializing AI in healthcare, discussing the discernment problem faced by buyers in a saturated market and the importance of distinguishing genuine AI innovation from mere tool use. Both speakers share their experiences with regulatory approvals, the importance of publishing peer-reviewed research to establish credibility, and the strategic focus on innovation to navigate the complexities of the healthcare industry. They stress the need for AI companies to demonstrate real-world efficacy and ROI to survive and thrive in the competitive landscape.

30:06

πŸš€ The Future of AI in Clinical Trials and Ethical Considerations

The final part of the discussion focuses on the potential impact of AI on clinical trials, specifically the concept of digital twins and how they can streamline the trial process by reducing the need for control groups. The conversation then addresses criticisms of current AI methodologies, such as those by Gary Marcus, and debates the need for new AI theories to advance the field. The speakers also touch on the ethical implications of AI in healthcare, emphasizing the need for transparency, accountability, and rigorous validation in deploying AI technologies in clinical settings.

Mindmap

Keywords

πŸ’‘Clinical AI

Clinical AI refers to the application of artificial intelligence technologies in healthcare, particularly in clinical settings, to improve patient care, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes. In the script, Clinical AI is discussed as a transformative tool for making medicine more objective and efficient by leveraging AI to index and understand vast amounts of patient data. The discussion highlights the potential of Clinical AI to bridge the gap between medicine's slow advancement and rapid technological progress, as exemplified by the missions of mle AI and unlearn AI, which aim to innovate in the clinical domain.

πŸ’‘Precision Medicine

Precision Medicine is an approach to patient care that allows doctors to select treatments that are most likely to help patients based on a genetic understanding of their disease. The webinar focuses on navigating the clinical AI landscape to chart a path to Precision Medicine, emphasizing the role of AI in enabling personalized patient journeys and treatments, thus making medicine more tailored and effective.

πŸ’‘Innovators

Innovators, as discussed in the script, are companies or individuals who develop foundational AI models or approaches to address previously unsolved problems. They are characterized by their focus on research and development, employing highly specialized knowledge in mathematics, computer science, and other fields to create breakthrough AI solutions. Examples from the script include mle AI and unlearn AI, which are positioned as innovators in the clinical AI space, developing unique AI technologies for healthcare applications.

πŸ’‘Digital Twin

A Digital Twin in the context of clinical trials, as explained by Charles Fisher of unlearn AI, is a digital replica of an individual patient. This concept involves using AI to forecast future medical outcomes for a patient based on their pre-trial data. It serves as a powerful tool for enhancing clinical trials by simulating control groups and reducing the need for patient enrollment, thereby accelerating the trial process and aligning trials more closely with patient expectations.

πŸ’‘AI Ethics

AI Ethics concerns the moral principles guiding the development and application of artificial intelligence technologies. The script touches on ethical considerations, especially in the context of healthcare, highlighting the importance of transparency, bias mitigation, and the responsible use of AI to ensure patient safety and fairness. The discussion around AI hallucinations and biases in training data exemplifies the ethical challenges in deploying AI in sensitive areas like medicine.

πŸ’‘Machine Learning

Machine Learning is a subset of AI that enables systems to learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions with minimal human intervention. The script discusses machine learning in the context of developing clinical AI applications, such as patient data analysis and the creation of digital twins. It emphasizes the importance of machine learning in AI innovation but also acknowledges its limitations, such as hallucinations and the need for human oversight in healthcare applications.

πŸ’‘Knowledge Representation

Knowledge Representation in AI involves the methods by which information is structured so that AI systems can use it to solve complex problems. The script references the use of knowledge representation in clinical AI to ground machine learning models in medical reality, reducing errors and enhancing the accuracy of patient data analysis. This concept is crucial for enabling AI to perform sophisticated clinical reasoning and make informed medical predictions.

πŸ’‘AI Hallucination

AI Hallucination refers to instances where AI models generate false or nonsensical information as output. In the healthcare context discussed in the script, AI hallucinations pose significant risks, such as providing incorrect medical analyses or patient diagnoses. The conversation highlights the need for mechanisms to detect and mitigate hallucinations, ensuring AI systems' reliability and safety in clinical applications.

πŸ’‘AI Adoption in Healthcare

AI Adoption in Healthcare concerns the integration of AI technologies within medical practices, research, and clinical trials. The script explores the challenges and opportunities of adopting AI in healthcare, including regulatory approval, cultural acceptance within traditional healthcare institutions, and the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes and operational efficiencies. It also addresses the discernment problem, where distinguishing between genuinely innovative AI solutions and those with limited value becomes challenging for healthcare providers.

πŸ’‘AI Talent

AI Talent refers to the skilled professionals, including researchers, data scientists, and engineers, who specialize in developing and applying AI technologies. The script emphasizes the importance of AI talent in driving innovation, particularly in the healthcare sector, and discusses the competitive landscape for attracting and retaining these highly sought-after individuals. The success of AI projects, especially in complex fields like clinical AI, is often directly linked to the quality and expertise of the team involved.

Highlights

Introduction of webinar on clinical AI and precision medicine, sponsored by Mendle.

Karim Galil, MD, discusses his mission with mle AI to make medicine objective using AI to index patient journeys.

Charles Fisher's background in machine learning, computational biology, and his company Unlearn AI's goal to invent new AI technologies for medicine.

Discussion on the distinction between innovators, tool builders, and wrappers in the AI landscape.

Insight into Mendal's AI platform for clinical analytics and the challenges of bridging technology and medicine.

Unlearn AI's approach to creating digital twins for more efficient clinical trials.

Debate on the definition of AI and its implications for healthcare.

The importance of domain-specific AI technologies in advancing clinical fields.

The challenges of AI adoption in healthcare and distinguishing between genuine AI innovation and superficial applications.

The significance of peer-reviewed publications as a metric for assessing AI companies.

Discussion on the ethical and practical challenges of AI in medicine, including data biases and model explainability.

The critical role of talent in the success of AI companies, emphasizing the need for a mix of domain experts and engineers.

Perspectives on the future of AI in healthcare, emphasizing continuous innovation and ethical considerations.

The potential of digital twins to revolutionize clinical trials by reducing the need for control groups.

The importance of maintaining an open dialogue and collaboration within the AI and healthcare communities to foster innovation.

Transcripts

play00:03

hi everyone I'm car bball with end

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points news I'm your moderator for

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today's webinar navigating the clinical

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AI landscape and charting your path to

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Precision medicine we're sponsored by

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mendle and I'm excited to welcome our

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panelists joining us we have Karim Galil

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MD co-founder and CEO of mle AI mle's

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mission is to make medicine objective by

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enabling the world's largest index of

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patient Journeys leveraging AI that

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understands medicine like a physician Dr

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Gil's experience as a physician

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demonstrated that medicine does not

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Advance at the same rate as technology

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with mendal he aims to bridge this Gap

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facilitate clinical research at scale

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and make medicine truly objective Kareem

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is an entrepreneur by Spirit his first

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company Krypton Works LED healthtech in

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the Mina region with customers including

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Fortune 500 companies we're also joined

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by Charles Fisher CEO and founder of

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unlearn AI Charles is a scientist with

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interest at the intersection of physics

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physics machine learning and

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computational biology previously he

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worked as a machine learning engineer at

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leap motion and a computational

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biologist at fiser he was a Philipe my

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fellow in theoretical physics at a CO

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normal superier in Paris France and a

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post-doctoral scientist in biophysics at

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Boston University Charles holds a PhD in

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biophysics from Harvard University and a

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BS and biophysics from the University of

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Michigan if you have any questions

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during today's webinar our panelists

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have reserved some time at the end so

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please hit the Q&A button at the bottom

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of your screen when you think of your

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question this webinar will be available

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on demand tomorrow to re-watch or share

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with colleagues and now I'll pass it off

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to Kareem to get us started

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Kareem um thanks Gary and um Charles and

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I met through an investor like few weeks

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ago and uh we started talking about the

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state of AI in healthcare and we found

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that we have a lot of uh common pain

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points and we thought like the

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conversation

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should get extended so we decided to do

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an endpoints webinar so today is more of

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a casual conversation about how we view

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the state of AI in general state of AI

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in health care what are the challenges

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and we both have a two startups who are

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in the space of AI but not necessarily

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competing to the same product so it's

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going to be interesting to see two

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points of view from two angles um uh

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around the clinical AI space but before

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we get started we thought we give quick

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intro about Manda quick intro about

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unlearn um mandal started in 2017 but

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actually we launched our first actual

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product in around mid 2023 and

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essentially the rest of the journey has

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been around R&D and we see that as the

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Journey of almost AI company today it's

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different than building a software

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company you have to kind of have

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long-term greed re-invest in a lot of

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R&D before you can actually have a

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product we were very fortunate to have

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um investors who believed in the mission

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from the very goodg go the company is

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the most funded clinical NLP company

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today um but around um end of 2023 we

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were very excited to launch hypercube

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and this year we are growing our

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customer base uh we're going to share a

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couple of use cases maybe today um what

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we do at mandal is if we can go to the

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next slide is we view the state of um

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clinical analysis today like everyone is

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using standard stack think of like the

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snowflake the big queries of the world

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keyword search we do standard ETL work

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and that process is is is is pretty

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difficult it cost a lot of money but it

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is very prone to inaccuracies we've seen

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a lot of cases where someone would come

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and say we have 10,000 callon cancer

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patients um running our platform we only

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find 2,000 um but if we go to the next

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slide what we have done here is we've

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built a clinical NLP platform that

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allows you to command the full spectrum

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of your data so it's not only your

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structured data that being said we're

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also able to ingest structured data like

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claims and and and fire and XL7 we

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consolidate all of that in a computer

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ready knowledge representation something

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that the computer can reason over and

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then we provide a platform that allows

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you with no code to query this data and

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do very sophisticated uh clinical

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reasoning type of questions like find me

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patients who have X Y and Z but has

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never went through a treatment for

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example um

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we're very excited about the early

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results there is a paper that we just

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submitted uh for the chil conference and

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uh we see that the product if we also go

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to the next slide

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um um next slide

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please has been uh taken to test against

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uh Chad llama for a use case like

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clinical trial matching so group of

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researchers at tupen has been

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interrogating three systems for certain

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uh number of clinical trials and we're

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able to see that our uh approach has

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been uh showing better accuracy but also

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has been significantly better and

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designed to actually scale in the

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clinical domain from a cost and and from

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a processing time so that's essentially

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what mle does we are U clinical

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analytics 2.0 through an AI platform

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that has been built for for the clinical

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domain um that being said I'll let you

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Charles introduce un

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learn

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yeah thanks thanks Kareem um so unlearn

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is uh basically an AI research company

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um who uh we we're focused on maybe if I

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had to say it really broadly I'd say

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solving AI for medicine that would be

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the mission of of the company um also

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founded in 2017 uh now raised about $135

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million um uh totally about 75 people

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and you know as I said I think that our

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Focus has always been that we're we're

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an AI research company who's focused on

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really inventing new kinds of of AI

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technologies that allow us to solve

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previously unsolved problems

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particularly in medicine that's that's

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our real goal as a company so we end up

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on a lot of these kind of like AI uh AI

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lists um but our main focus today is uh

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in terms of our goto Market strategy is

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that that we work with biotech and

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pharmaceutical companies to help them

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run uh more efficient um and more

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accurate clinical trials so if you go to

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the next

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slide um and yeah just click just click

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to the animations animations but you

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might as well just click them so it's uh

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effectively what we what we aim to be

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able to do to create is a digital twin

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of an individual person and what that

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means is uh let's imagine that that

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Charles participates in the clinical

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trial I'll take data from myself uh

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collected before the clinical trial

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input that into some uh

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uh AI train pre-trained model and I

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wanted them to be able to forecast what

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would happen to me in the future um and

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we'd like to be able to do this for

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effectively any measurement that you

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want to forecast it at any point in the

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future for anything you want under any

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scenario for any person uh so it's a

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very challenging problem uh but that's

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the type of type of thing that we work

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on and then we we partner with biotech

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and pharmaceutical companies mostly in

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phase two and three clinical trials

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starting in neurology uh to to uh

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include patients digital twins to to

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make those trials

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better and next slide I think goes back

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to you Kareem but I could be wrong nope

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it does um so we we thought just to set

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the stage today um kind of uh we put

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together this slide so just kind of see

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like set the stage around how we see the

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state of AI in general and specifically

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around the clinical domain and we

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essentially see there's three big

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buckets of of AI related companies you

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have folks who are actually building

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foundational models or foundational

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approaches towards U an AI problem and

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we like to call those the innovators and

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those are essentially folks who would

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hire mathematicians PhD and computer

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science more like a R&D sophisticated

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approach to again an AI problem that

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hasn't been solved before and needs a

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different unique approach um but then

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there is also a lot of companies to

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today that are coming in the tooling

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space and those make the job of the

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innovators easier uh they provide you

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with compute power they would provide

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you with marketplaces for models they

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would provide you with u uh uh levels of

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abstraction that allows you to build AI

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faster or to deploy AI faster then we

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also see that there is almost now um we

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were making the joke almost every couple

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of hours there is a new AI company and

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bunch of those come and sit into the

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wrapping space and and those would

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essentially leverage technologies that

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are built by the innovators using tools

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built by the tool Builders to put an

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interface on top of a foundational

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technology and essentially build a a use

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case or or a product so there wouldn't

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be essentially um a breakthrough in AI

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it is more of like a productization or a

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layer of of of ux on top of a model

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built with the innovators on the

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innovators side the challenge that we're

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seeing is uh most of the work and the

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attraction has been happening around

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General domain Ai and became a term and

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the idea is you want to build an AI that

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can do everything under the sun and

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there are companies that have been on

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the Forefront of that such as open AI C

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here anthropic Google deep mind but what

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the premises of today's webinar is about

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is more that there is a breed of

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companies now that are doing the same

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type of innovation they're actually

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solving very hard AI problems but

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specifically for the clinical domain or

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specifically for a clinical use case um

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and we believe that this is going to be

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beyond the hype of AI this is going to

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be actually the state where you're going

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to find a lot of domain specific AI

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technologies that are built say for

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healthcare for fintech for for defense

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kind of applications and we see Mandel

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and unlearn to be one of those companies

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that are in the clinical domain yet kind

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of innovating and building breakthrough

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type of Technologies and one question we

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thought we could start off today with is

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like what is AI to begin with I I think

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there is a lot of uh there isn't really

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like a strong definition there is a lot

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of debate actually how would you how

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would you describe how would you define

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AI but again to set the stage here is

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how we think of the market this also set

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the stage maybe we can start with you

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Charles kind of how would you define an

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AI what's the difference between Ai and

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just a piece of software sure um so I

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actually take a very narrow view of what

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AI is uh it in in in my view today um so

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historically if you look back AI was

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sort of a field of research about

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creating computers that are able to

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learn and act on their own without any

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human oversight effectively and that was

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what AI was and there's lots of ways

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that people can do that um but what

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really has become the dominant Paradigm

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in the last

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decade has been things that I would call

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connectionist connectionist and so

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connectionist models are these are a

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sort of class of models that are really

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inspired by the way the brain works I

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might some of us might say Loosely in

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Loosely inspired by the way the brain

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works but that's effectively that's

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effectively the concept so to me today

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I'm actually primar I primarily Define

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ai as as the use of algorithms that are

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inspired by the way the brain works

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uh to to solve problems without uh a

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tremendous amount of human oversight of

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course there's still some human human is

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the teacher effectively but that's

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that's the way that I Define it so it's

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actually relatively narrow so I exclude

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like classical machine learning

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algorithms like random forest or spms I

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actually exclude those uh from from from

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the definition of what would be AI in my

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mind and I I I agree with that

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definition I uh I think the simplest

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definition again I I unlike Charles I

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don't come from a technical background I

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come more from a clinical background but

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the definition that made most sense to

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me coming into that space it's a

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clinical model of the brain it's a

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software sorry a computer model of the

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brain it's essentially you're trying to

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get the computer to model a function of

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the brain or multiple functions of the

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brain but to that extent it has been

play12:47

interesting because uh the way our brain

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works and there's this really

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interesting book think fast and slow you

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have two systems right you have a very

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intuitive system that doesn't think much

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that doesn't take take time to make

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decisions but it would essentially like

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when you're when you swerve your car

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when you're driving when you're

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breathing you're essentially using that

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system but you also have another system

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that is slower more arithmetic that's

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the system that you will use to solve an

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algorithm or to think of a big idea and

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machine learning in many different ways

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mimics that intuitive fast pattern

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recognition system but there isn't a lot

play13:24

of Technologies or companies that has

play13:25

also been working on uh on on on the on

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system on on system one the more

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arithmetic slower ones and essentially

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the way I view machine learning large

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language models neural networks it's

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it's like a parrot in many different

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ways that is looking at a pattern and

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repeating it and when it comes into text

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it makes you to it makes you confuse

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fluency with intelligence but very very

play13:51

few technologies have also system one

play13:53

what what's what's your take on that and

play13:55

how does that affect the use case that

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you are working on

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yeah so

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um I don't know where to start start on

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the use Cas so I'll start on the use

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case and now back into the to the

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broader question um you know what we

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focus on as our use case is really

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different I think from what everybody

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else focuses on um kind of in in

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actually most of the AI research

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Community um because we're not we use

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some stuff that that involves like

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language processing but actually we use

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that more internally uh for our our own

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like internal data cleaning efforts

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that's not like our products are not

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built off of those kinds of things

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externally um we actually use a totally

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different style of of neural network

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architecture that no one else in the

play14:38

world uses um and so the original idea

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for what we were thinking about was um

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not so much how do you create AI to

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solve problems that humans are good at

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but how do you create AI to solve

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problems that humans don't know how to

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solve and so I'm thinking about like to

play14:53

me the the pro the the the one like

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prototypical example it's not from us

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where

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where somebody did this is Alpha fold

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right if you give me the sequence of a

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protein if you write it down in front of

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me and you say Charles what's the

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threedimensional structure of that

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protein my brain cannot compute that for

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you I don't know how to do that um and

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so but those are the kind of problems

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that I'm really interested in it's like

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how do we create new kinds of AI system

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to solve the problems humans don't know

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how to so basically solve scientific

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problems um and but I I'd say that a lot

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of the work that's been going that

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that's gone on over the last decade has

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been kind of more around how do we

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create AI That's able to automate

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problems humans are good at um and so

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those would be things like language Tas

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or same thing with images right you

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think about uh recognizing objects in

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images or now even generating images

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those are things that humans are really

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good at and we're trying to create

play15:45

systems that automate that so um anyway

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so so to me like our our use case is

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super duper different but Kem I forgot

play15:52

the beginning of your

play15:54

question beginning of the question that

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most of the like people basically use

play15:58

machine learning and AI as if it's one

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word it's like synonyms each other when

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essentially machine learning is more of

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like if we use the early discussion

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about AI is a model of the brain the

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brain has two systems there's the

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learning type of a system and there is

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more the arithmetic more system um well

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yeah so so for the work that we are

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doing today I so I agree with you I I

play16:22

think that all AI right now all AI

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methods are sort of um relatively simple

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input output systems um and uh all of

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them uh so so my view is you said kind

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of at the beginning I I wouldn't go so

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so um far as to say that things are just

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parrots I think that they're

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interpolators uh they're very good at it

play16:43

um but I don't think that that the kinds

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of things that we've worked at today are

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are by themselves going to get us to

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True sort of general or super

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intelligence I think that there are

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breakthroughs that are required to get

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to that and um I know people are working

play16:57

on it uh you know reasoning systems and

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other kinds of systems like that but I I

play17:02

think that today they're primarily going

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to give you when I say they they're

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interpolating what I mean by that is

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that they they give you similar answers

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to similar things they've seen before if

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you ask it to create some brand new

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thing that like it's never seen anything

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like that before uh and you're

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extrapolating to some really truly brand

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new situation today's AI systems don't

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don't know how to do that yeah um in in

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our

play17:28

use case here at Mandel our our number

play17:32

one job is to synthesize a patient

play17:34

Journey from complex data so we would

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take thousand PDFs coming from an

play17:39

oncologist some claims data coming from

play17:41

a provide from an insurance company and

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our job is to synthesize um coherent

play17:46

patient Journey from many conflicting

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facts so you would find in one page the

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doctor saying the patient is uh

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metastatic uh but then you look at the

play17:55

pathologist saying the patient is stage

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one and now you have two conflicting

play17:59

pieces of information that you need to

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reconcile which requires a lot of uh

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clinical reasoning and our experience

play18:06

with machine learning only approach or a

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large language model only approach that

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those systems as you said are really

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good at pattern recognition and

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repeating something that humans are good

play18:16

at if they are fed with the right data

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but it cannot do complex clinical

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reasoning like a physician or or a

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clinical expert would would would would

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would be able to and the only way around

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it is to couple it with some sort of a

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knowledge representation or something to

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ground the rules of medicine or the

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concepts of medicine or ground the

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machine learning model into it and it's

play18:39

so interesting because um Yan laun which

play18:42

is one of obviously the few people that

play18:44

won the touring award for for neural

play18:46

network newer architectures was saying

play18:50

the only the neural network today is not

play18:53

even at the level of a brain of a cat

play18:55

and the only way we can come closer is

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if we can couple it with symbolic Ai and

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with knowledge representations and we

play19:01

don't know how um so that's where we

play19:04

have been spending a lot of time how can

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you do complex reasoning with an AI

play19:08

model

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essentially

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um yeah I was just gonna ask maybe um

play19:15

and maybe this is too technical of a

play19:17

question

play19:18

but could you explain a little bit as to

play19:20

how how you would View kind of that as

play19:23

being different from fine-tuning just an

play19:26

existing model on like say met text or

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something like that like what how is

play19:30

that going to be different so when when

play19:33

when you're looking at like a lot of the

play19:36

models today have limitations around the

play19:37

context window and um a clinical record

play19:40

by default will exceed that context

play19:42

window easily which increases the

play19:44

chances of of hallucinating the other

play19:47

thing essentially how how those models

play19:49

would work is it would bring terms that

play19:52

are related to each other closer to each

play19:54

other so an adverse event and fatigue

play19:56

would probably be closer to each each

play19:58

other to each other in the model but

play20:00

once you move to another area you move

play20:02

from uh oncology to Immunology fatigue

play20:04

becomes more of a symptom rather than an

play20:06

adverse event and how can you teach the

play20:08

model to start understanding the nuan

play20:11

differences between those two things um

play20:13

I would say the other thing is no matter

play20:15

what you do when you're are using a a a

play20:18

especially a larger larger language

play20:20

model the idea of hallucination becomes

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incredibly dangerous when you are making

play20:26

some sort of a clinical synthesis of a

play20:28

patient journey and having like almost a

play20:31

filtering layer that would tell you you

play20:33

cannot have headache in your knees like

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headache is probably not going to happen

play20:37

in your knees ever and there is

play20:40

impossible that you can have a stage one

play20:41

patient who's also metastatic at the

play20:43

same time and it's like kind of giving

play20:45

you those like those things are

play20:47

impossible to happen it's just like it's

play20:48

against the the laws of medicine helps a

play20:51

lot and decreasing the hallucination I

play20:53

would say the third thing is

play20:55

explainability in specifically in our

play20:57

use case folks want to know why did the

play20:59

AI why did the AI conclude that this

play21:02

patient has adenocarcinoma and not any

play21:04

other type of of of hisy and you have to

play21:07

be able to trace back the logic and it

play21:10

becomes incredibly hard when you're

play21:11

having a machine learning only approach

play21:13

to the problem I would say those are the

play21:14

three things explainability

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hallucination and the context window of

play21:19

of of medicine in general is generally

play21:21

High you know that's that's an

play21:23

interesting idea because um I would bet

play21:25

that those th well I would bet the um

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those unallowable things if you actually

play21:31

just trained a model on the raw data

play21:33

like to just train a model on Raw data

play21:35

that you would actually learn those

play21:37

things because the data do have mistakes

play21:39

I I absolutely worked on a project I

play21:41

remember where a patient had had uh like

play21:44

a leg amputation at some point and but

play21:46

their medical records later on have them

play21:48

having problems with that leg which was

play21:50

just

play21:52

amputated so if you're just training

play21:54

entirely on the medical records you're

play21:55

actually learning some of the mistakes

play21:57

that are in the Raw data themselves yep

play21:59

uh but then you still have to deal with

play22:01

some Al some of the other problems like

play22:03

the hallucinations and and and and

play22:06

explainability but it's also very

play22:07

interesting because the way folks

play22:09

practice medicine in general is is has a

play22:12

lot of intuition into it so if you start

play22:16

training on like the only way you can

play22:18

get to that is you have to train almost

play22:20

on every medical record in the US coming

play22:22

in from different states with different

play22:24

regulations with different ways of of

play22:25

approaching things to like take out the

play22:28

bias but the other approach would be is

play22:30

like hey no matter how you practice

play22:32

medicine these are the like the Periodic

play22:35

Table of medicine those are the laws

play22:36

that would govern how we would how we

play22:38

would approach um problem

play22:42

um I think one one one topic we talked

play22:45

about is as like both of us are

play22:47

obviously commercializing an AI product

play22:49

into the health care space and this is

play22:52

not an easy space to commercialize

play22:54

anything in general let alone an AI

play22:57

product so H H how is your experience

play23:00

with adoption what how are you seeing

play23:02

the buyers today on the heal everyone

play23:04

wants to buy an AI product but do you

play23:07

think everyone have the right criteria

play23:10

can you can you talk more about that no

play23:12

I mean obviously like you said it's a

play23:15

difficult space uh to to work into um I

play23:18

think for us we have found

play23:22

um I think I I'm going to go with the

play23:25

two the two things that have that have

play23:26

been positive and I've for us and maybe

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two things that I would say that are

play23:29

that are barrier um uh so I'll start

play23:33

with the positives um one of the biggest

play23:36

things for us is is that I think when

play23:39

you're deploying sort of AI based

play23:41

systems into into any sort of medical

play23:43

context um there's usually some kind of

play23:47

extra layer of validation that people

play23:49

are looking for um and so in our case we

play23:52

work in phase two and three clinical

play23:55

trials like we we are working as part of

play23:57

a study protocol actually like our our

play23:59

AI is like written into the protocol of

play24:01

these studies and so we wanted to be

play24:03

able to go through um and get regulatory

play24:06

buying um and so going and getting uh we

play24:09

got a regulatory qualification for one

play24:11

of our methods uh in from the EMA in

play24:16

2022 uh got a letter from the FDA at the

play24:19

end of last year saying that they concur

play24:21

with that and so um working with The

play24:23

Regulators has actually been really easy

play24:26

uh I would say um me I wouldn't say it's

play24:28

fast like you know on a startup time

play24:32

scale working with The Regulators hasn't

play24:33

been fast but it has been a really

play24:35

positive experience and that I think I

play24:37

think the regulatory agencies in my

play24:40

they're were thinking about this

play24:41

correctly and that they're not actually

play24:43

that focused on like you know what is

play24:45

the underlying algorithm and and how

play24:47

does it work and that they're much more

play24:49

focused on the context of use and making

play24:52

sure that however whatever AI system

play24:53

you're creating when you deploy it into

play24:56

some use case that it really work works

play24:57

for that and so I think that that's

play24:59

really good and then you know getting

play25:01

those qualifications has really helped a

play25:03

lot with uh with our sort of go to

play25:05

market the other piece though that I'd

play25:07

say has been a positive is just finding

play25:10

Innovative people uh there are people in

play25:13

the industry like uh who are uh they

play25:17

want to do things differently they want

play25:19

to see technology get adopted or they're

play25:21

frustrated with the current you know e

play25:23

rooms law situation where truck

play25:24

development is just getting slower and

play25:25

more expensive and they want to do

play25:27

something different

play25:28

I think finding those people has been

play25:29

great now the barriers are um one of the

play25:33

big barriers is I I've coined this

play25:35

actually back my friend Austin Austin

play25:37

Juan coin this back when we were working

play25:38

at fiser together but he called it the

play25:40

discernment problem and the discernment

play25:42

problem is that uh there's a bajillion

play25:46

companies that that say they are all

play25:48

using

play25:48

AI um and the people who we're trying to

play25:52

sell to are not experts in AI um and

play25:55

they have uh they to them all of these

play25:58

companies look exactly the

play26:00

same so how do you actually stand out uh

play26:04

amongst all of these companies uh many

play26:06

of whom are are not maybe doing anything

play26:09

particularly Innovative but but you know

play26:11

everyone's using the same language and

play26:13

that would get to my second point which

play26:14

is even inside the Pharma

play26:16

companies uh I at today I feel like the

play26:21

my definition of AI which I described as

play26:23

very narrow which is like connectionist

play26:24

based models that like neural networks

play26:27

has been replaced by uh what I would say

play26:29

the industry uses which is anything that

play26:31

uses a computer this is ai ai so like

play26:35

you ask like what's biostatistics AI

play26:38

what's bioinformatics AI like all of

play26:41

those things have just gotten rebranded

play26:42

as AI um I hear lots of people for

play26:45

example say they're like oh well we are

play26:47

doing AI a we've been doing AI for 50

play26:50

years but that doesn't make any

play26:52

sense because the algorithms that people

play26:54

are using for like modern AI systems

play26:57

have been all like really developed in

play27:00

the last 10 or 15 years so it doesn't

play27:02

make sense if you say you've been doing

play27:03

it for 50 years then you're doing you're

play27:05

not doing uh you're not doing AI in my

play27:07

opinion if you've been doing it 50 years

play27:08

you're using other kinds of

play27:09

computational methods so um so those are

play27:12

that that's been my kind of broad

play27:14

experience what what about you Karem um

play27:18

I in my 's case we don't have uh I mean

play27:22

there is pain in getting regulatory

play27:24

approval and uh my heart goes to all the

play27:27

effort that you had to go through that

play27:29

uh but I think down the path to your

play27:31

point it kind of gives you that stamp of

play27:33

validation that can help a lot in your

play27:34

goto Market in my use case we don't have

play27:37

that so I have to only suffer from the

play27:39

latter point that you made which is like

play27:42

every AI come everything is an AI

play27:44

company till proven opposite and uh to

play27:47

your point also we are seeing the

play27:49

innovators in in every org and those are

play27:51

folks who are actually spending the time

play27:55

um I always get a little bit

play27:58

um I mean I'll put it lightly irritated

play28:01

once I find someone with pure MBA

play28:05

Investment Banking background who took

play28:08

two AI corer courses coming in on a call

play28:12

dcing and AI company um from on behalf

play28:15

of a vendor and that essentially becomes

play28:17

a big problem for us because um we're

play28:20

not we're not looking at the same ground

play28:22

bases and the example I always give my

play28:24

team U when I wanted to buy a a a a ring

play28:27

to my wife to propose I had no freaking

play28:30

clue how to look to buy a diamond for me

play28:32

it's a piece of glass still proven

play28:34

opposite right everything just looks

play28:35

shiny and it's only when I started

play28:37

getting educated like here's the clarity

play28:39

score here is this here is that it

play28:41

actually started making sense to me why

play28:43

would I pay five like 10K I'm not going

play28:46

to say how much I paid for my wife's

play28:47

ring but how much should I pay versus

play28:50

like a 100 bucks right and I feel a lot

play28:53

of the AI buyers today haven't went

play28:55

through that exercise yet of kind of

play28:57

understanding what are the criterias

play28:59

that you should be looking at an AI

play29:01

vendor what we are betting on is that a

play29:04

lot of the pilots that are happening

play29:06

today are going to fail and then

play29:09

companies that actually did have true

play29:11

technologies will will remain and that's

play29:13

the state of every bubble that happens

play29:16

you just raised money and we're seeing

play29:18

in VCS saying the same thing they are

play29:20

not betting big on a lot of AI companies

play29:22

because they assume that most of those

play29:24

Pilots will fail and those who are

play29:26

actually going to pass 2020 for and show

play29:28

clear Roi on the business or clear Roi

play29:31

on the outcomes of for the patients are

play29:34

going to be the AI companies that will

play29:36

eventually survive that that that

play29:41

wave um do you see the same do you see a

play29:44

lot of Pilots happening in in around

play29:46

your your use cases or is it like we're

play29:48

either going to get in or not going to

play29:50

even try the

play29:53

product I mean you know we've been you

play29:56

know in in our case I there are

play29:58

definitely still companies that want to

play30:00

run run like earlier stage like test

play30:03

cases pilots and things um I would say

play30:06

that in some cases we're a little bit

play30:08

we're we we're we're some part beyond

play30:10

that and that we are actually using our

play30:12

methods in some phase two and and and

play30:15

and we're uh working on some protocols

play30:17

for some bigger phase three studies now

play30:20

um so to a degree we're a little bit um

play30:24

we're a little bit but I would say like

play30:25

there's the innovators where we're just

play30:26

beyond that pilot stage like like we're

play30:29

deploying things now with some companies

play30:31

where where there are some Forward

play30:32

Thinking people um and then there are

play30:34

other companies who we hear all the time

play30:36

and I you want to know what makes me

play30:38

irritated is this phrase which is I've

play30:40

heard now multiple times that we want to

play30:41

be your second customer in this disease

play30:43

area or this indication whatever it's

play30:45

like oh you want to be the second like

play30:47

that is just like what's wrong in my

play30:49

opinion that's like what's wrong with

play30:51

medicine is that is that attitude uh um

play30:56

so uh but yeah I mean I I certainly

play30:58

think that there are lots and lots of

play31:00

companies who are

play31:02

um in in in the broader space I think

play31:05

that there are a lot of companies who

play31:06

are working or applying computational

play31:09

techniques or applying various machine

play31:11

learning Technologies to problems in

play31:13

medicine or Healthcare I don't think

play31:15

that there's a lot of companies that are

play31:17

really trying to push the boundaries for

play31:20

uh for how these things really work um I

play31:23

think you know to me one of the biggest

play31:25

challenges for for uh the thinking about

play31:29

the way AI is moving right now for for

play31:32

people in in this industry is they're

play31:35

used to a really slow moving technology

play31:38

um so you think about drug development

play31:40

and Discovery right drug Discovery

play31:41

development takes like 10 or 15 years to

play31:44

develop and bring a new drug to Market

play31:46

and so uh maybe it's a little faster for

play31:49

a medical device I don't know five years

play31:51

probably still seems fast though uh so

play31:54

you're talking about you know five to 15

play31:56

years is the pace o over which things

play31:58

change um but in AI things are CH

play32:01

changing right now every like every like

play32:03

five to 15 days right and so part of

play32:07

what I think is a challenge for example

play32:09

is like you work you might work with

play32:10

somebody if you're really an AI research

play32:12

company then if you've done a pilot with

play32:14

me three months ago you haven't piloted

play32:16

my technology now you piloted my three

play32:18

months ago my prior version we we have

play32:21

the same problem where actually the

play32:23

customer buys the product or gets into a

play32:26

pilot and two weeks later we just

play32:27

launched the newer model and the

play32:29

customer is like two weeks be behind but

play32:31

it's not only two weeks it's it's some

play32:33

R&D work that has been happening for for

play32:35

few but we talked before the webinar

play32:37

about uh areas of like um when we were

play32:42

setting this up we said look like we uh

play32:44

areas of differences between both of us

play32:46

would actually become would make this

play32:48

webinar more exciting so here's one area

play32:50

of difference that that that we can go

play32:52

through when for example we were talking

play32:54

about the idea of like uh headache in

play32:56

the knee or something like that the like

play33:00

what I've heard from you is what I've

play33:01

hear a lot from from clients is like I

play33:03

bet if you actually train a model on

play33:05

more clinical data that essentially that

play33:07

problem wouldn't be solved but when

play33:09

mandal started 2016 essentially we have

play33:12

a team of 100 plus clinical annotators

play33:14

and we have tried every model under the

play33:16

under the Sun from birth back in

play33:19

2019 or something to like the latest and

play33:22

the best today and it essentially does

play33:24

not work it the systems that that amount

play33:27

of data that we have um per patient is

play33:30

too big where the model really gets

play33:32

confused and starts itating nonsense

play33:35

essentially around a patient Journey but

play33:38

here we are like I I view you as a

play33:40

clinical like as an AI expert but we

play33:42

have to go through that debate back and

play33:44

forth the problem is if you and like if

play33:47

if if you and I are going through that

play33:49

or someone on my team is going through

play33:50

that there's some ground truth that we

play33:52

can stick to it becomes 100x harder if

play33:56

I'm talking to someone who has never

play33:58

built an AI model who has never trained

play34:00

an AI model it becomes a a losing battle

play34:03

so what ends up happening is they do

play34:05

follow their own path they come back six

play34:07

months later or a year later and say you

play34:09

know what we just lost whatever $5

play34:12

million on that initiative and didn't

play34:14

work one one actually true case that

play34:17

happened with us is we've been working

play34:18

with a big diagnostic company and they

play34:21

have taken multiple approaches including

play34:23

Google like approaches and there have

play34:24

been voices in the company saying hey

play34:27

like Google is always going to win over

play34:29

a small company like Mel the approach of

play34:32

machine learning is as an only approach

play34:34

is good enough they went through that

play34:36

they found say x number of patients that

play34:39

they thought is eligible for a certain

play34:41

project they had and using our approach

play34:45

it was like 20% of that number and

play34:48

essentially what happened was like well

play34:50

if that's the case Mendel is wrong the

play34:52

other company is right and we had to

play34:54

push for manual error analysis of the

play34:57

two sets of data and guess what ended up

play34:59

happening is actually we were right but

play35:01

this type of friction and like the proof

play35:03

is on you type of type of uh type of a

play35:07

headwinds is what I'm seeing today in

play35:09

the market as uh the biggest challenge

play35:12

for AI companies um including yours or

play35:14

or or

play35:16

mine yeah you know the other thing

play35:19

though with sort of I would say the flip

play35:21

side of some of these things that's

play35:23

really good I I in my opinion about

play35:25

working within kind of

play35:28

space is that um the best marketing the

play35:32

best marketing that any that any of us

play35:34

AI companies can have and it's

play35:36

absolutely been true for us it's just

play35:38

publishing an actual research

play35:41

paper just publish you publish research

play35:43

paper and people at Pharma read it right

play35:46

uh that's absolutely true um for us like

play35:49

I've had people at the FDA uh ask us

play35:51

questions about our papers on archive

play35:53

not even peer-reviewed papers the FDA is

play35:55

reading our archive papers so so I think

play35:57

that that's one of the best parts about

play35:59

working within a scientific field is

play36:01

that if you engage not only not if you

play36:04

actually really engage you be like here

play36:05

are the algorithms that we're using

play36:06

here's these things here's how they work

play36:08

and here's examples of them working in

play36:10

these areas that you get real scientific

play36:11

engagement from the other side I like

play36:14

1,000% agree with that and I think

play36:16

actually talking about like how can an

play36:19

AI buyer assess a vendor I would say if

play36:22

you don't have any peer-reviewed

play36:24

Publications that chances are you don't

play36:26

have any sign on your team because it's

play36:28

not only for marketing your team will

play36:30

ask I want to publish about this I I

play36:32

want to compare against the status quo I

play36:35

think this is a really great point and

play36:36

it's like uh easy easy to go through

play36:39

that checklist if you don't find

play36:41

peer-reviewed Publications com like

play36:43

talking about the technology or

play36:44

comparing the system to like status quo

play36:47

that is for me is already a yellow flag

play36:49

that that something is is not going well

play36:51

um this year we've decided actually to

play36:54

allocate around 70% of our marketing

play36:56

budget towards publishing peer-reviewed

play36:59

Publications rather than actually

play37:01

spending on conferences and and and

play37:03

things like that but I 100% agree with

play37:06

that uh point so what's the most like U

play37:10

provoking AI marketing message that kind

play37:12

of made you feel like oh man that's come

play37:15

on that's too much like something too

play37:18

like like making a big deal of of an AI

play37:21

capability that does not exist or

play37:22

something that just foundationally

play37:24

Incorrect and you felt like

play37:27

that that is

play37:30

outrageous

play37:33

um that's actually a hard question I I

play37:35

don't know if I have seen something

play37:38

that's been like an outrageously

play37:40

overhyped claim I don't know if I

play37:42

actually don't really think that that is

play37:44

that that is really what I have seen um

play37:47

in fact I remember uh JP Morgan one of

play37:50

the previous JP Morgans maybe like JP

play37:52

Morgan early 2023 or something like that

play37:55

I was on a panel with endpoints and I

play37:56

said something about like by the end of

play37:58

the year uh an AI system is going to

play38:01

pass like the bar exam the medical the

play38:03

the mcap the ls it's going to pass all

play38:04

these things just one system that's true

play38:07

right at the time people acted like it

play38:09

was hype um so I actually think that at

play38:12

least for my opinion AI within the

play38:14

healthcare space is under hype I think

play38:16

it is under hype because I think that

play38:18

people focus so much on what has been

play38:22

done they go what have you done and of

play38:24

course that's very very important you

play38:26

got to be able to get things into these

play38:28

clinical trials you got to use them or

play38:30

or whatever use Cas is um but again I

play38:33

think that what people are missing is

play38:34

that it's a rapidly advancing technology

play38:37

um so I to to to me it's less around

play38:40

like people's claims around what AI can

play38:44

do or will be able to do I think that

play38:46

that's largely underhyped to me the

play38:47

stuff is that like when somebody's like

play38:49

hey we use we use sophisticated Ai and

play38:52

then you go what is it and it's like

play38:54

it's it's like sklearn import PCA and

play38:57

it's it's like well that's not that's

play39:00

that's not really what I had in mind um

play39:02

and so but that's actually often but

play39:04

that's kind of kind of what I think is

play39:06

challeng is that's really difficult to

play39:07

tell sometimes uh what people really

play39:10

really are doing um so you have to

play39:12

really I'd say re I've seen papers like

play39:14

this I'm not going to call out who

play39:16

specifically but that I have like a

play39:17

specific paper in mind for example where

play39:19

the whole beginning of the paper talks

play39:21

about some this is uh some deep neural

play39:24

network based model or whatever I forget

play39:26

it is and then halfway through the paper

play39:28

it just switches to using a random Force

play39:31

the title of the paper is like uh deep

play39:34

learning for something something

play39:36

something like this but the Deep

play39:37

learning model loses to just the random

play39:38

force in the in their paper and so the

play39:41

whole rest the whole second half of the

play39:42

paper just like and so we use this D of

play39:44

forest for the rest of our analyses and

play39:45

that's like a fairly well-known AI

play39:47

startup in the Medical Healthcare space

play39:49

that published that paper uh but again

play39:52

they published at least they published

play39:53

the paper so you can read the thing and

play39:55

see what they really did

play39:57

did so um talking about the you're

play40:00

saying like well-known startup um coming

play40:02

into the um we're seeing I'm seeing a

play40:06

lot of the hype happening now on the m&a

play40:08

side of things um so obviously every

play40:11

company is trying to take an AI approach

play40:13

that is going to boil down to like buy

play40:16

or build and the buy is not only like

play40:19

buy from a vendor it's actually bu the

play40:21

vendor Al together and and use the AI

play40:23

capability we're seeing a lot of that

play40:25

happening um

play40:26

but there is a fairly like uh also known

play40:30

startup in in in in our field that has

play40:33

been essentially using um apis from

play40:36

another AI vendor which basically means

play40:38

like you can just go buy your those apis

play40:41

yourself they just have a cooler

play40:44

interface than than what you you would

play40:46

get from the original vendor and we just

play40:48

got that just got to see that this

play40:50

company acquired at like high high high

play40:53

high dollar value and in my mind

play40:56

man like for $5 million you could have

play40:59

done exactly the same thing and you

play41:02

could have just saved another like

play41:03

hundred million or something um so I'm

play41:06

seeing also some of that hype happening

play41:08

on the m&a side where companies that

play41:11

kind of got the right Banker or got the

play41:13

right type of packaging um with some

play41:16

papers that have very interesting titles

play41:19

are and end up doing some interesting

play41:22

transactions that wouldn't have happened

play41:24

I guess had then their more rigor around

play41:27

the AI uh criteria so what are the what

play41:31

are the criteria like if you are buying

play41:33

an AI company or if you are buying an AI

play41:35

product in general what would you advise

play41:38

people to think

play41:40

of um well I honestly actually I might

play41:42

go in a little bit of a different

play41:43

direction on that on that Kem I even if

play41:46

somebody wants to use like an

play41:47

off-the-shelf wrapper they probably

play41:50

still should buy an AI company to do it

play41:52

um uh you know so so at least from my

play41:55

own perspective I mean I can speak from

play41:57

like you know I so I'm a PhD in

play41:59

theoretical physics right um and I'm

play42:02

really an AI researcher and I I

play42:03

attempted to go and work at a big Pharma

play42:05

company and I would describe my

play42:07

experience there kind of as I I like my

play42:10

colleagues and everything but I kind of

play42:11

describe it as an organ rejection like I

play42:14

like it was like there was a very clear

play42:16

oil and water kind of situation um and I

play42:19

I think that that's quite broadly that

play42:22

that the the the culture of companies

play42:24

who are really building these new AI

play42:25

systems very different from the culture

play42:28

of of a traditional company in in

play42:30

healthcare medicine Pharma Life Sciences

play42:33

um I don't think that they go together

play42:36

um and so I I think that that that that

play42:39

building these types of capabilities

play42:42

internally uh having tried to do it

play42:45

myself okay is probably impossible I

play42:48

think it's probably impossible um and uh

play42:51

that doesn't mean people are going to

play42:52

try they're going to try uh but I but I

play42:54

think it's impossible and so I actually

play42:56

think that if people do want to have

play42:59

these internal capabilities they they

play43:00

should go to look for companies that

play43:03

that uh for Acquisitions they should

play43:05

leave those companies semi-independent I

play43:07

mean so one of the examples of like what

play43:10

and I guess I don't know too much I have

play43:11

a few friends who are at it now but um

play43:13

would be like preent design so so

play43:15

Genentech uh in the drug Discovery Space

play43:18

went out and acquired this this AI uh it

play43:20

was a small a company it's actually

play43:22

grown I think a lot since it's been part

play43:24

of genetic but I think that type of

play43:26

model in which if you're looking to

play43:28

really do these things yourself that you

play43:30

you do go out and acquire a company uh

play43:32

for the culture and leave it independent

play43:35

so that you don't mess its culture up I

play43:37

actually think of as being important

play43:39

actually yeah would you do the same if

play43:42

so let's talk maybe this is the last

play43:44

point and we can jump to questions let's

play43:45

talk about Talent um in in my mind like

play43:49

the biggest deterministic Factor around

play43:52

an AI company is the talent uh I think

play43:55

first Mar some VC said they assume

play43:58

there's like lesser than 2,000 people in

play44:01

in the world today who are capable of

play44:03

actually doing a breakthrough in AI or

play44:05

have the the right background for it but

play44:06

anyways it's long way to say like talent

play44:08

and we're seeing the talent war between

play44:11

like Big T can even startups every every

play44:15

capable AI scientist today is getting

play44:18

multiple offers from from from multiple

play44:20

places right so how how much weight

play44:23

would you put on talent because to your

play44:25

point even if company is just wrapping a

play44:27

technology just acquired for for the

play44:29

culture and I would agree with that but

play44:32

I would say the rest of the statement

play44:34

would be if they have ai talent because

play44:36

if you're buying culture you want to buy

play44:38

the AI culture but if you have a company

play44:41

that mainly 100% are software Engineers

play44:44

that has been wrangling apis those are

play44:48

no different than the software Engineers

play44:50

that you already have in in your company

play44:53

and Ive seeing company like Mosaic AI

play44:56

for example acquired by data bricks for

play44:59

enormous amount of money but again it

play45:01

boils down to the talent and even if the

play45:03

company didn't have that much traction

play45:04

so how much weight would you put on on

play45:07

Talent or is your point that as long as

play45:10

they have attempted some sort of

play45:11

innovation they probably have the right

play45:13

traits so still take the risk on that

play45:16

but like how much weight would you put

play45:17

on Talent essentially is my question uh

play45:20

no I mean 100% although I wouldn't put

play45:22

down I wouldn't necessarily put down the

play45:24

software engineering talent I think

play45:26

software Engineers are very important in

play45:27

in in particularly in in ml um but like

play45:31

you mentioned something earlier about

play45:33

you know if your ml team is just a bunch

play45:35

of NBAs

play45:36

then that's that's not really it's not

play45:39

really an ml team uh I do I agree with

play45:41

that you know um I I think that you know

play45:44

companies who but I I that's kind of

play45:47

partly my that's that is my point though

play45:49

effectively what I talk about that the

play45:50

cultural difference which is that you

play45:52

know at unlearn most of our employees

play45:55

have PhD in physics or math or computer

play45:58

science um and it's very very different

play46:01

you know you go to to a life sciences

play46:03

company and everyone also has phds but

play46:05

there phds in biology or their MDS and

play46:07

these are very different disciplines um

play46:10

and and not only the different

play46:12

disciplines because the different

play46:13

backgrounds and stuff but I the there's

play46:15

really there are cultural differences

play46:17

between the between what people care

play46:19

about who come go into those fields and

play46:22

I think the challenge for a lot of the

play46:24

companies uh who are trying to be sort

play46:27

of this te new tech bio set of companies

play46:30

it's actually how do you integrate these

play46:32

cultures um like if you're a small

play46:33

biotech and you're you know like say

play46:35

you're recursion and you're trying to

play46:37

like really simultaneously be a leader

play46:40

in Ai and ML and in drug Discovery I

play46:43

think it's hard probably uh to to to be

play46:46

able to actually really truly have these

play46:48

two separate cultures and get them

play46:50

together so no I agree with you that

play46:52

1,000% you want to be looking for

play46:54

companies that are higher in math

play46:55

physics computer scientists uh but I do

play46:59

I I would say that engineering Talent is

play47:01

as important as research Talent enormous

play47:04

yeah an enormous amount of of of of the

play47:06

progress in ml particularly the last

play47:08

like five years has really been

play47:10

engineering driven more than research

play47:12

driven there is Yan Lun also said this

play47:14

uh let's engineer the heck out of it uh

play47:17

which is essentially if you look at open

play47:18

eye it's like a lot of engineering that

play47:20

happened on a technology like

play47:22

Transformers that has already been there

play47:23

before that but it's like if you a

play47:25

clinical analogy it's like you cannot

play47:27

have a hospital with nurses only or

play47:30

Physicians only and I think it's the

play47:33

same thing you cannot build an AI

play47:34

company with Engineers only or with phds

play47:37

in in math and physics only I think it's

play47:39

a lot of collaboration between both and

play47:41

it's a spectrum of how much the density

play47:44

has to be between those um I know

play47:46

endpoints want us to jump into questions

play47:48

and we have a lot of questions here um I

play47:51

think the most interesting question was

play47:53

for you to say which medical startup

play47:55

company has had that funny up the paper

play47:57

not goingon to say that

play48:00

yeah it's a published paper so people

play48:03

can go look it up themselves yeah uh I

play48:06

think one question for you that I

play48:07

thought was interesting and maybe I can

play48:09

take one for me is like for you was like

play48:11

can AI cut down the time it takes to

play48:13

carry out the clinical trials in

play48:15

particular phase three oh yeah I mean a

play48:17

thousand per this is this is exactly

play48:19

what we're what our goal is to work on

play48:22

um so the basic idea about what we do if

play48:25

you think about so the applying this

play48:27

kind of idea of a digital twin in in a

play48:29

clinical trial so a clinical trial you

play48:32

want to know what would happen to a

play48:34

patient if they got a

play48:35

drug in comparison to what would happen

play48:37

if they don't and so what we're

play48:40

effectively doing is we're using these

play48:42

models to simulate one of those outcomes

play48:45

for a patient um and if that model was

play48:48

perfect you could actually run a

play48:49

clinical trial that doesn't have a

play48:50

control group so you could just say I'm

play48:52

going to take each patient I'm going to

play48:53

create their digital twin I'm going to

play48:54

simulate what would happen if they were

play48:56

if they were assigned to control group

play48:58

and and just by doing that comparison

play49:00

you would be able to to get an estimate

play49:02

to the treatment effect

play49:04

um like you were saying earlier about

play49:06

hallucinations and other things today's

play49:07

AI systems are not perfect uh so the the

play49:10

types of things that we're working in

play49:11

there's still randomized studies where

play49:13

you do have some patients uh being

play49:15

randomized to a real control group um

play49:17

but it's fewer than an an typical study

play49:19

um so you know we might work to say you

play49:22

know half the size of a control group as

play49:24

you would need in a typical study and

play49:26

that cuts off you know potentially a

play49:27

couple of hundred patients for a large

play49:29

for a large trial makes a trial more

play49:31

attractive this is why people are

play49:33

participating in trials in the first

play49:34

place is typically to get access to a

play49:36

new experimental therapy so it's really

play49:38

a win-win and that we're able to do

play49:41

things that that speed up the trials for

play49:43

sponsors but do it in a way that keeps

play49:46

sort of uh the the science rigorous so

play49:49

you get the same kind of rigorous

play49:51

results out of these RCS as other ones

play49:53

uh and aligns with What patients want

play49:55

out of Clin iCal trials in the first

play49:57

place I think one other question um for

play50:01

both of us actually was um what do you

play50:04

think um I know we're going to disagree

play50:06

on this one so let's go through it what

play50:08

do you think uh regarding the criticism

play50:11

of deep learning by some known people

play50:13

like Gary Marcus um that current AI are

play50:16

in worrisome hands regarding AGI and how

play50:20

would that impact medical AI in general

play50:23

um and related more to both of your

play50:25

companies how do you think another new

play50:28

AI Theory could boost your companies you

play50:32

want to take this

play50:34

first sure uh I'm trying to decide how

play50:37

mean to

play50:40

be

play50:42

um

play50:44

so look I I'm sorry but like fun the if

play50:47

you wanna if you want to to go out there

play50:49

and think about like two today's AI

play50:51

systems have have some limitations they

play50:53

do they do that's why people like me

play50:55

exists that's what my job is is to think

play50:57

about how to overcome how to invent new

play51:01

kinds of algorithms that that will

play51:03

overcome these limitations and um do I

play51:06

think that those new types of things

play51:07

will with be within the realm of what we

play51:09

call Deep learning I do I think that

play51:12

there will be different architectures

play51:13

and different training techniques and

play51:14

different loss functions and things like

play51:16

this than we use today but but I think

play51:18

that they will fit with under the same

play51:20

umbrella um I think that uh you know

play51:23

again if you look at what we do at

play51:25

unlearn we actually use a totally new

play51:28

architecture we use a completely new

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kind of architecture that no one else in

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the world uses actually for our machine

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learning approaches it's a deep neural

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network but it's a really weird kind of

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deep neural network super strange uh so

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again we're inventing new kinds of new

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kinds of machine learning like totally

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new kinds of things I I think that um

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the the criticism where people just say

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like hey it won't work it's I I don't

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understand I don't understand what what

play51:57

Gary is doing frankly I like go out

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there and try to build a neural network

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then that that he has never ever

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published anything in which he actually

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trains a neural network that works well

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or trains some other machine learning

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technology that works well on something

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go do it stop just telling everybody

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they're gonna be wrong and go go show us

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how to do it if you think you know so

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well I don't understand I don't

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understand so anyway uh it ended it

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started nice and it got

play52:25

[Laughter]

play52:28

um but I I actually have um probably a

play52:31

different point of view on that um I see

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like sometimes it's that to your point

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there is some extreme in in in how

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shooting I feel like in trying to become

play52:41

objective we're becoming extreme in

play52:44

shooting down some other technology uh

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but to be clear also it's like if you go

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to Home Depot and you buy a hammer and

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you say trust me I can solve every

play52:52

problem in the world with that hammer

play52:54

nobody's going to believe you and I

play52:55

think the AI Community is doing the same

play52:57

we're picking machine learning and

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neural networks and we're saying every

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single problem Under the Sun is going to

play53:02

be solved with this and I feel like this

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is also a failing approach folks like

play53:08

Yan Lun again I'll keep coming back to

play53:10

that is running an AI department at

play53:13

Facebook and they are shipping models

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they have shipped llama and they're also

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talking about the limitations of of the

play53:19

AI Technologies in certain areas

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especially around reasoning um I've

play53:24

personally attended

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um uh presentation by a big AI company

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that I'm also not going to mention their

play53:31

name one of the most famous AI companies

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that just were in the media because

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their CEO left and they brought the CEO

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back but I'm not going to mention their

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name and they went through like a 20

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minutes presentation around applications

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of this technology in healthcare and

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then someone comes in and asks but what

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happens when hallucination goes on uh

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does it ever hallucinate and the person

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says yes it it does and says okay how

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can I tell he said we actually don't

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have a way yet but we warn our users to

play54:00

not take the results as is but the

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reality of the matter is he spent a 20

play54:04

minutes presentation not talking about

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it allog together he only brought it up

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when he was asked so it is not that they

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are telling their users that there is a

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lot of downsides and there is a lot of

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limitations for today's technology I

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would say the second thing is once you

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come into the area of machine learning

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and neural networks essentially the

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training data dictates a lot like

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technology aside training data

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dictates a lot and the fact that the

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company owns what data the model is

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going to be trained on and don't have to

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always disclose what is this data can

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create insane amount of biases that

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literally boils down to the CEO and the

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executive team deciding should we should

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we do this more or not so in my in my

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use case I can train the data on a

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certain drug like I can basically show

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the model patients responding really

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well to lung cancer if they take a drug

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that some Pharma company paid me more

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money for and I can bias my training you

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know like I can bias the training data

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easy to do something like that and I can

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always say sorry it's it's the model or

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the model hallucinated um but there is a

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lot of ethical considerations on what

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data the models are using there's a lot

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of ethical considerations on how we

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present it that being said I also think

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it's a beautiful piece of technology and

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don't get me wrong 80% of our 70% of our

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stack is boils down to machine learning

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models it's a beautiful piece of work

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but on it it on its own is again is like

play55:27

a hammer that's going to solve every

play55:29

every problem Under the Sun I know we

play55:30

have two more minutes left but there was

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an interesting question for you which is

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what is it uh can and I'm excited about

play55:39

digital twins so I'll I'll I'll give you

play55:41

the last two minutes could you help us

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understand in simple words what are the

play55:45

biggest benefits of using digital twins

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in clinical

play55:49

trials oh um

play55:53

sure I mean the big biggest benefit is

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that you can run a clinical trial in

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which fewer people have to be randomized

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to

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control so that allows you to run the

play56:06

trial faster because you just you don't

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if you have fewer patients to enroll

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then your time to complete enrollment is

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faster uh it's usually months faster um

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it aligns better with the expectations

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of patients so you get more people more

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a larger fraction of people uh getting

play56:25

access to the experimental treatment

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which is usually why they participate at

play56:28

all um and we can do this in a way in

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which we make sure that the clinical

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trial produces accurate and unbiased

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estimates of how effective the treatment

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is that's how we've been able to go in

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and work work with the Regulatory

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Agencies to to to get these methods

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qualified for phase two and three

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studies um how all of that works uh I

play56:52

the simple terms in two minutes is maybe

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a little to too hard uh but um uh but

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we'd be happy if anyone wants to to know

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more about about those things just reach

play57:03

out to to us and uh and we'd be happy to

play57:05

talk about it yeah I mean we have a

play57:08

couple of minutes left so I don't know

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if uh at least I'll offer that and I

play57:11

know that uh Charles will do the same

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but I would say like like some closing

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notes Here is like if you look at

play57:17

Charles's background it's celebrate or

play57:19

die my background is Muhammad Ali

play57:22

hitting down someone there is a lot of

play57:24

uh people really trying to scratch the

play57:26

surface here on what AI can do in

play57:29

healthcare and we're we're essentially

play57:31

not doing this only to build companies

play57:33

and and make money I think there's both

play57:35

of us we talked about this like uh both

play57:37

of us come in from a lot of like like

play57:39

there is no there is no motivation for

play57:41

you to like go build Crazy Technologies

play57:45

unless you truly believe in the outcome

play57:46

of that so please reach out to us if you

play57:48

have any questions around AI in general

play57:50

if you're trying to to buy a AI

play57:53

technology and you want some advice on

play57:54

what considerations should should you

play57:56

consider I think both of us would be

play57:57

more than happy to like um be helpful as

play58:00

much as we can um we hope those 60

play58:03

Minutes were the start of the

play58:04

conversation and not the end of of the

play58:07

conversation and uh we wanted to bring

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it to you as organic as it can be and as

play58:11

casual as it can be also so thanks

play58:13

Charles for for that and um for

play58:16

endpoints also for helping us put this

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together yes thank you thanks for

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invting me fortunately that is all the

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time that we do have for today I know it

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was a great discussion lots of great

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questions coming in so thank you

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everybody for tuning in thank you Kareem

play58:29

thank you Charles for sharing your time

play58:30

and expertise and thank you to mendle

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for sponsoring the discussion today and

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points webinars if you'd like to rewatch

play58:36

today's webinar or share it with

play58:37

colleagues a link for on demand viewing

play58:39

will be emailed to you tomorrow I'm

play58:41

Carrie bball for endpoints news thanks

play58:43

for joining and we hope to see you at

play58:44

the next Take Care thank

play58:47

you