investing https://xitter.cf/t.co/OmxXzAeGyh , learning @legiblebio
Joined June 2012
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- Following1.7K
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shoumik retweeted
one of the most ambitious humans alive: @isaakfreeman — if you are a chemist or biologist you should join their team while it’s still a startup
help make humans more capable while building out some of the most advance automated labs out there!
shoumik retweeted
I’m as AI safety-pilled as the next guy, but if you’re the OpenAI employee responsible for teaching the models to speak normie patois, you’ve done more damage than every “misaligned” action combined
shoumik retweeted
Would you choose your healthiest embryo?
@herasight ranks embryos by predicted disease risk, height, autism risk, and even IQ. I sat down with @JonathanAnomaly to separate the real science from hype and dig into the ethics of creating future people.
Full episode:
Embryo selection and the science of creating future people with @JonathanAnomaly from @herasight
00:00 - From Academia to Herasight
07:12 - Is Embryo Selection Controversial
11:31 - Polygenic Scores Explained
21:14 - Why Insurance Hasn’t Covered It
28:18 - Who Uses Screening and Why
32:35 - IVF Limits and Future Tech
36:52 - Selection vs Editing and Gattaca Fears
42:07 - Ethical Boundaries
43:01 - Breakthrough Imputation Proof
48:49 - Winning Clinics Over
51:18 - Ethics Backlash Explained
55:28 - Preference Cascade Theory
59:19 - Blank Slate Debate
01:03:09 - Pleiotropy Tradeoffs
01:08:29 - Autism Risk Predictor
01:13:37 - Repro Tech And Birth Rates
01:20:17 - Relationships And Family Futures
01:24:25 -Books Recs
shoumik retweeted
I’m from San Francisco, grew up in Texas, and my family is from India. I find people who get worked up about any of these types of questions to usually be way oversensitive. Almost always it’s just someone making conversation.
shoumik retweeted
Every cell on our planet has come from other cells. A single blade of grass is more advanced technology than rockets, medicine and quantum computers. We cannot even come close to creating cells from scratch. And then lets talk about brains, we don't even know how memories are stored or why we sleep!
I think it's pretty safe to assume that consciousness is much more complicated than a model you can run on a few couple year old gpus.
Mostly an intuition that biological life has innate value that cannot be artificially replicated.
But I’m far from certain, and what creeps me out are the people on here who *already* seem eager to permanently cede the rights of known living things (humans, animals, biosphere) in a misguided worship of something that is only a mimicry of life.
“Beware false idols” persisted in the bible for good reason!
Embryo selection is one of the most interesting technologies out there. If you could choose your kid’s height, would you? What about intelligence? Or more saliently, the risk of key diseases that your kid might be predisposed to? And how do we even know the tech is real?
I discuss all this and more with @JonathanAnomaly , whose company @herasight is imputing polygenic risk scores for embryos based on fairly accessible inputs.
The quagmire of ethical and scientific questions all this presents, I think, is ultimately tractable and offers reason for optimism
Embryo selection and the science of creating future people with @JonathanAnomaly from @herasight
00:00 - From Academia to Herasight
07:12 - Is Embryo Selection Controversial
11:31 - Polygenic Scores Explained
21:14 - Why Insurance Hasn’t Covered It
28:18 - Who Uses Screening and Why
32:35 - IVF Limits and Future Tech
36:52 - Selection vs Editing and Gattaca Fears
42:07 - Ethical Boundaries
43:01 - Breakthrough Imputation Proof
48:49 - Winning Clinics Over
51:18 - Ethics Backlash Explained
55:28 - Preference Cascade Theory
59:19 - Blank Slate Debate
01:03:09 - Pleiotropy Tradeoffs
01:08:29 - Autism Risk Predictor
01:13:37 - Repro Tech And Birth Rates
01:20:17 - Relationships And Family Futures
01:24:25 -Books Recs
shoumik retweeted
the point of being a hater is having taste. For everything you hate on you must have something you just as enthusiastically recommend. Otherwise you’re a cancer upon society
shoumik retweeted
Tomorrow with @JonathanAnomaly from @herasight
We discuss the tech behind embryo selection, how to reduce suffering, and the liberterian ethics underlying it all
shoumik retweeted
when purchasing data, pharma wants to know how the data will help advance a particular program or make a specific development decision. for the AI labs, the question is whether the dataset improves a model’s ability to understand and predict biology across many problems. that creates demand for data/experiments who’s value is distributed across many future programs.
initially, the labs may buy whatever useful biological datasets exist (indiscriminate), but eventually demand will shift toward commissioning specific experiments that resolve gaps in a model’s understanding (discriminate).
6-12 months ago the large labs started buying bio data
this spend is starting to ramp very aggressively. the labs are somewhat indiscriminate buyers with enormous budgets. the therapeutics market has long had buyers of data (large and small pharma) but they've historically been the exact opposite of huge-budget and indiscriminate
this shift will distort the bio startup market in a bunch of ways. there will be a lot of short-termist behavior to try to get in front of this capital firehouse. but unlike the AI data labelers (mercor, et al) and the robotics labelers (mecka, et al), the bio startups serving up this data have a chance to emerge from this period with businesses that don't rely on selling data
the best bio startups will use these sudden resources the labs are dumping on them to supercharge their novel assay and work towards independently powerful models and eventually directly produce therapies
bio is the final frontier and its a very exciting time ahead for bio startups IMO
shoumik retweeted
What if an MRI could write, not just read?
Talked with @consciousrepo from aion.bio about reclaiming MRI as a bioelectric mapping device, making imaging more accessible, and what a “medbed” actually means if you take the physics seriously
Full ep:
Read + Write MRIs with @consciousrepo of Aion.Bio
Michael Levin’s latest paper - 0:34
Benjamin’s journey to bioelectricity - 3:37
How MRI works - 11:52
Longitudinal imaging - 17:11
MRI vs. ultrasound - 26:15
Making MRI more accessible - 28:57
Bioelectricity and the medbed - 36:39
Building in St. Louis - 57:39
Better have a better long term business than selling data to labs
6-12 months ago the large labs started buying bio data
this spend is starting to ramp very aggressively. the labs are somewhat indiscriminate buyers with enormous budgets. the therapeutics market has long had buyers of data (large and small pharma) but they've historically been the exact opposite of huge-budget and indiscriminate
this shift will distort the bio startup market in a bunch of ways. there will be a lot of short-termist behavior to try to get in front of this capital firehouse. but unlike the AI data labelers (mercor, et al) and the robotics labelers (mecka, et al), the bio startups serving up this data have a chance to emerge from this period with businesses that don't rely on selling data
the best bio startups will use these sudden resources the labs are dumping on them to supercharge their novel assay and work towards independently powerful models and eventually directly produce therapies
bio is the final frontier and its a very exciting time ahead for bio startups IMO
shoumik retweeted
Discussing read + write MRIs and bioelectricity with @consciousrepo tomorrow
Opinions, not knowledge.
Would give an academic a heart attack but that’s VC showbiz baby
Sir Michael Moritz is a true legend. My first week at @sequoia, my first partner meeting, and I feel completely clueless. The discussion revolves around a chip design company, which I literally know nothing about. Then and now. Michael asks me what my point of view is, and I reply that I know nothing about it. At the end of the meeting, Michael approached me and said softly, "You were hired for your opinions, not your knowledge," then walked away.
My first VC learning. One of many I learned from Michael.
shoumik retweeted
There’s an irony in Texas being the flashpoint of latest race discourse. I’ve lived all around the US including the most liberal of cities. But most integrated place I’ve lived has been Houston, full of White, Black, Hispanic, Nigerian, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and many more.
Could’ve very easily been me in that pic a few years ago at DKR. The fact that this retard is running for state wide office and feels emboldened to post this is abysmal
Anyway, hook em horns 🤘🏽
shoumik retweeted
We're now deep into the era of whiny, racist losers trying to ascend to positions of power, transforming the land of opportunity into the idiocracy. But America is not a land of losers. Send these little men packing. Destroy them in the midterms.