His point is that while we're over here arguing over whether a particular AI is "really" doing certain things (e.g. knows what it's doing), it can still cause tremendous harm if it optimizes or hallucinates in just the right way.
1,548 karma · joined August 25, 2011
YC Badge: 0x5f13795afeb814fbb03c6bb069dc4361525ac2dc
I agree with you about getting the word out in a grassroots way, and we've definitely been to some of the hardest-hit areas out there. The problem is that 80% of opioid users aren't currently seeking treatment and are just like you and me, but living with a secret problem. Those are the people we want to reach and let them know there are options for them.
In terms of regulations restricting what we can say publicly, besides FDA regulations around medical claims we're allowed to make, our biggest obstacle is that many of the common channels available to startups for building awareness are restricted or blocked entirely. Facebook and Google, for example, both require LegitScript (https://legitscript.com/) certification. We're in the process of going through that and it may take several months. That's also a requirement for us to be able to do payment processing through services like Stripe, since we qualify as a "high-risk business" since we do both telemedicine and addiction-recovery services.
But even when we do have those certifications, Google, Facebook, Reddit, and many other sites have a blanket ban against targeting users who are part of addiction and addiction-recovery groups.
It's not that we can't comply with any of these regulations (and in fact, we're working on many of them as we speak), but many of them are really onerous and time consuming for a startup given the stage that we're at.
Unfortunately, it's going to be quite a while before any psychedelics are FDA-approved. Right now, MDMA and Psilocybin are both in FDA trials (Phase 3 and Phase 2, respectively) but I think Ibogaine is still quite a ways out.
Interestingly, in terms of your comment about Ibogaine's use outside of the US: other countries besides the US (and Canada) have not really seen quite the same problem in terms of opioid addiction as we have here in the US. This is mostly due to American pharmaceutical companies historically having been really successful at convincing US doctors to prescribe opioid-based pain medication [2], and due to the fact that pain was added as a 5th vital sign in 2001 by the Joint Commission [3]. That isn't to say that other countries haven't had problems with opioid addiction, but it hasn't generally been at nearly the scale of the problem in the US, and other countries have had varying rates of success with solutions that haven't been possible in the US thus far.
[1] https://maps.org/research/ibogaine-therapy
[2] There's a really great John Oliver segment about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U
[3] https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/publichealth...
Kratom is certainly one of the solutions that people trying to overcome opioid addiction are resorting to, but it's unclear whether it's effective — not enough studies have been performed, and it's not an FDA-approved treatment for opioid use disorder. There's also some evidence to suggest that kratom actually leads to more health problems than it solves [1].
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/prescription-...
Maybe Pyret isn't for beginners, and it's intended to teach people who already have some basic knowledge more advanced concepts like functional programming. That's fine.
But to a total beginner, the syntax of Pyret is definitely a step back in terms of readability.
In what world is:
fun square(n :: Number) -> Number:
n * n
end
def square(n):
return n * n
Usually in the case of a deadlocked decision between co-founders, you can resort to a board vote, after which you resort to a vote among shareholders.
If, say, two co-founders split equity and they're both on the board, then a disagreement could lead to a problem. If, however, only one of them (usually the CEO) is on the board, then there's no deadlock there.
Sometimes people recommend giving one co-founder (again, usually the CEO) one extra share so their vote can break a deadlock. But putting only the CEO on a board is another way to deal with that problem without having to worry about extra shares.
In a recent Planet Money episode (#688: Brilliant vs. Boring), they talk about how when John Bogle first introduced the index mutual fund in 1975, it got a lot of criticism (and not much adoption) with people claiming that they were "un-american" and "Bogle's folly".
It's possible that there's some sort of concentrated media push going on here, but the story hasn't changed much in the last 40 years. And I would hope that if people with a lot of money were trying to smear index funds, they'd at least come up with a new angle.
Not true. What about education?
Am I the only one that doesn't think this is ridiculous? We already pay for the water we use to take a bath or a shower. So basically this amounts to free showers. Isn't that something to be happy about?
Specifically:
- Poorly defined co-founder relationships - Not being explicit about hacks - Telling a half-truth
You're free to disagree about whether these are the important reasons why Seth lost their trust, but to say that he didn't address the reasons why is just untrue.
It's all online and here are some of the lessons we teach: The command line, Setting up Github, Going online with Heroku, Registering a custom domain.
The idea is to show people how to build a simple Pinterest-like photosharing web app. We're going to be expanding that to include other web apps (like Airbnb and Reddit).
If you're interested @austenallred I can give you access and I'd love to hear your feedback. Email mattan at onemonth dot com