Is this product really AI? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 06:36:20 pm
content: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l748k0y77oSo this is supposed to be an AI powered stethoscope. Now my medical understanding is rather limited so help me. Is this a case of it being deemed easier to just throw the data at AI and let it come up with a result rather than writing specific algorithms to analyze data or can AI actually do something that a traditional program cannot (even if written by a competent person).Are we getting to the point where AI is used out of laziness and partly as part of the selling hype? Is this like me taking my new skills of programming an ARM cortex M4 based micro-controller and running it at 120 MHz just to blink and LED every second along with the added complexity of voltage regulation and external oscillators rather than use a 555 timer and a few passive parts?Or like my car "charger" (EVSE) that has - wow IOT - in it, which is not a good thing, but an over use of internet communication technology to connect to my car (when both can get a signal with is rare) so that it can talk to the car to find out the battery status rather than just use the existing ethernet over power comms protocols that would require the relevant hardware because a micro and mobile receiver was easier for the developer.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 06:46:05 pm
content: QuoteYes!!!

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 06:57:00 pm
content: ...and there is no going back, save for a massive, extended internet and power outage.Right about the time when pdf files were introduced....someone would create a document, convert it to pdf and save it on a webserver. Then email a link to the document to be read.Now we have come a long way. You can take your short and to the point writing, run it through AI to make it "read good" , run it through Adobe's recentabortioncreation to add AI assisted pizzaz and then email a link to the pdf.The recipient can in turn feed your overprocessed pdf to their AI summarizer, so they can end up with your initial point.It's progress!!!

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 07:08:16 pm
content: ...as for the article...there is some confusion going on...is it a stethoscope or more convenient way to produce an EEG ?QuoteSo...not a stethoscope...and if it is an ECG, I expect trained doctors know how to interperet it without "AI" blah blah.maybe kaysight soon will come up with an AI powered power probe that monitors a voltage to tell you how noisy the voltage is. Which will be great for visually impaired observers!!

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 07:40:25 pm
content: It's typical BBC weekend reporting, regurgitating press releases with minimal effort. From another site:Quote..so it appears to be a combo device.Automatic ECG(EKG) analysis is far from new - I once worked for a company who did it using nothing more than a bunch of op-amp filters and a MC6800 micro some 4 decades ago, although to be fair pattern-matching type analysis is probably one of the better uses for "AI" tech.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 07:52:25 pm
content: This appears to be the trial for those interestedhttps://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/5/e098030I always struggled with a stethoscope because my sense of rhythm is so hopeless I could not always reliably determine the timing of extra sounds within the cardiac cycle - so I suppose I would welcome a device such as this which does the hard thinking for me.However, I completely cringe whenever the "cloud" is mentioned, especially in the context of medical data or services - I'm sorry Mr Smith, I can't listen to your heart today because out Internet connection is down" or, worse "I'm sorry Mrs Bloggs, I can't diagnose your heart failure because our practice manager forgot to renew the electronic stethoscope subscription and she's on holiday in Jamaica for the week".

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 07:57:48 pm
content: Someone has a prototype and is running the idea up the flagpole to see who salutes it.Without stating the specificity and sensitivity (a.k.a. False positives and negatives) it is worthless.If it is LLM AI, then - like other medical diagnostic tools - it could be making recommendations on the background music/noise. After all, other such diagnostic tools have decided on the basis of the scanned font, or the patients' position. The core problem is that it is fundamentally impossible to knowwhya decision is reached.But AI has been declared to be The Solution, so it will be funded.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 08:38:22 pm
content: Oh yes, it is really AI. And since the model for this will be very large, it will need to run on remote servers and so they'll give away all of their patients' "intimate" data to them, including ECGs. The patients probably won't know.And I'm not making this up: the protocol says:QuoteThe AI stethoscopes will be paired with smarphones, which looks, well, ideal in terms of data security.The main selling point is, from what I get, to optimize health-related expenses by avoiding possibly unnecessary complementary (and expensive) examination that GPs would otherwise deem necessary in their usual practice.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 08:41:56 pm
content: So basically this is to save doctors salaries. I wonder what we will do when we rely so much on AI that no doctor actually has any real experience.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 08:59:09 pm
content: There will be restricted specialized AI by medical areas, and doctors will pay fat jucy subscription fees to have access to it.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 09:04:09 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 08:41:56 pmIt will hasten the demise of the species.That and the Sixth Great Extinction ought to do it.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 09:15:18 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 08:41:56 pmWe'll try to water our food plants with Brawndo — it's what AI says plants crave, after all — and slowly die out, unless we manage to kill everybody and everything off with the biological and radiological weaponry we already have. I bet we just evolve into less individualistic, less intelligent, but much more social mammals.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 09:21:45 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 08:41:56 pmSalary would be a secondary consideration. At the moment the limiting factor is the number of doctors/GPs.Work smarter, not faster - or somesuch patronising drivel.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 09:24:08 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on August 30, 2025, 08:59:09 pmAnd once data is inside the walled garden, the contract will specify the excessive fees for liberating it.TheThere's a reason people cheered when PC arrived - they liberated them from timeshare bureaux.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 09:58:22 pm
content: About 15 years ago I worked on an ultrasonic spirometer, that could detect most lung disease in about 30 seconds.The entire thing in high quantity could be made for like 40-50 EUR. And every single house doctor should have one, because it's a no brainer. And it works with 90% accuracy. No AI, no magic, just certain threshold values.The fact that your GP doesn't have one, and it's not the first thing they put into your mouth if you cough... It tells you everything that you need to know about the medical industry. Even after a worldwide pandemic with pulmonary issues.No AI is needed, what's needed is that someone needs to get filthy rich on others people suffering, then they will do something.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 10:13:27 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on August 30, 2025, 09:58:22 pmYou need to be really careful with statistics; they areverysubtle and deceiving."90% accuracy" is completely meaningless.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 10:48:37 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on August 30, 2025, 10:13:27 pmWellll, is it?If the instrument could actually, provably detect lung disease in 9 out of 10 cases, then I'd say that figure would be correct.But that might not be the case here.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2025, 11:03:34 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on August 30, 2025, 10:13:27 pmhttps://youtu.be/pjvQFtlNQ-M?si=u6TMWmvTmMqZ5vQF

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 06:01:20 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on August 30, 2025, 10:48:37 pmYes, it is completely meaningless. Is that positive accuracy or negative accuracy? What's the probability of there being a problem in the first place?Consider the stats of DNA profiling. It used to be that people in the UK were jailed since there was a 1 in a million chance that profiles matched by accident. But if there are 60million people in the UK, and every one was profiled, then there would be 60 matches. In other words the 99.9999% chance was really 1/60, i.e. 1.6% chance the accused did it. That's the prosecutor's fallacyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacyThat is amajorissue for screening for rare conditions, and even for breast cancer, where ~10 people areunnecessarilytreated for every life saved.TL;DR: the statistics really should include Bayesian probability.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 07:12:53 am
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 06:36:20 pmI'd say - this cannot be brought to market soon enough.I'm in the (un)lucky position to have had my heart diagnosed by a specialist - the instructor for the education of PhDs specializing into the recognition of heart diseases. He had two PhDs with him, as students, and they took 30+ minutes to discuss the audio and visual results.Which leads me to the point: Heart problems are very common, however your regular doctor does neither have the experience nor the machinery to diagnose subtle problems. A stethoscope will catch very serious problems (flaps not closing), but if a similar device will use audio and signal analysis while comparing to known results, this could really help *every* doctor out there. Even if it's only to initiate further checks.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 09:04:12 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on August 30, 2025, 10:48:37 pmDepends on the disease, for asthma it was more accurate than the typical GP.All it does is taking a deep breath through a tube. The patient needs minimal amount of training, and them not trying hard enough is usually the source of errers. Zero complications, almost zero effort, and the results can be shared with a specialist. Unlike listening to your lungs with a stethoscope .And it's the accuracy is the least important part of my message, I'm not surprised that tgzzz attacked that one. He is really a nasty person isn't he.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 10:26:45 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 30, 2025, 09:15:18 pmOne day I had a similar rant with a friend, about the human species "devolving" like idiocracy predicts.He pointed out that from DNAs point of view, that isn't devolving. Whatever increases the biological success rate is the right course of action. If humans get more biologically successful by being stupider, then it's still evolution and adaption to the new environment.If that was the whole deal it would obviously be temporary as sooner of later the "comforts" of modern life would erode, stop working and then the real threats of nature would return and natural selection would weed out those not capable of adapting quickly.However, I don't see things going that way. Look at this way, be honest with yourself and answer, "Am I a domesticated animal?" Consider how long you are likely to survive if there were no shops open. Would you or many of the people around you be capable of surviving in the wild with or without fellow human cooperation or competition. I think the majority of people will come to the uncomfortable realisation that they are basically domesticated."So who are the farmers going to be?", is the real question.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 04:32:26 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on August 31, 2025, 10:26:45 amThat is exactly why I wrote "evolve", not "devolve". There is no "devolution", it is all just adaptation.I grew up north of the Arctic Circle. It is only my health issues that keep me in a city now.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 06:52:26 pm
content: Quote from: Haenk on August 31, 2025, 07:12:53 amSorry to hear that you have a heart condition, and I quite understand your desire to have better diagnostic techniques. But then everybody does!The issue is whether this device does or could or cannot improve outcomes for the patient - and based on the information in this thread, that is completely undetermined

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 07:49:51 pm
content: My concern with things like this is that we are entering into the territory of "a little bit of knowledge is dangerous". So a nurse can now just stick this thing on you and a computer decides for her. Our bodies are far more complex than one measurement. Having a specialist consider the whole patient can be a lifesaver.To give a "simple" example, my eyes. Unfortunately here in the UK the NHS has nothing to do with eyes. Instead a bunch of private ripoff merchants run their own opticians and charge exorbitant amounts of money for miss-prescribed glasses that really cost nothing like what they are sold for.So I saw the first one, he was a full blown optometrist you know, had written papers and everything, but also very arrogant. He immediately spotted that my eyes were 0.5 diopter different. But he decided that if I had glasses that were 0.25 diopter different my eyes would correct themselves, he refuted the idea that tinted lenses would help me. I was in agonySecond opticians bought out the practice of the first , I suspect they largely copied his prescriptions and I got nowhere.Third opticians, they contradicted the first saying that my eyes would not adjust and that it was best to have glasses that were what the test said. They found my eyes to now be 0.75 diopter different. Again within months I was in agony.Fourth opticians: this guy was a graduate so did it by the book. I beat him by just a few months in realizing that my nose was not central to my eyes and so I had 2 pupillary distances to consider.I then went back to the third opticians where I was told that a test would vary from day to day, this contradicted the affirmation of all previous opticians including their own that even if your eyes are tired from the lack of the correct glasses it will not affect the prescription outcome.......BULLSHIT!OK, so now I prescribe my own glasses because non of these people care about "the whole" they just want to prescribe me two lenses and a frame and charge me. The overall system assessment is that:1) yes my nose it not central to my eyes, but it is not a fixed deviation, this is all due to a hair lip and cleft pallet, something that opticians neither know or care about. My nose is crooked both across my face as well as coming out. So the actual deviation will depend on where on my nose the frame sits. This means that in a traditional optician and frame fitter setting they will miss this and the PD's will be wrong. Every frame has to be assessed, I've actually found the direction of the deviance reverse on some frames.2) My eyes are not different at all. because of the muscle memory built up in dealing with the poor situation they had they would not relax properly during tests.3) I am one of those people that suffers from light, I do need tinted glasses, either a blue or maybe just a grey to cut light UV is also very painful to me, especially when looking at that light bulb that is a screen. The difference in diopter found was due to one eye being more tired than the other or trying harder to deal with the light. When you go for a test you are shown black letters on an illuminated white background!!! the worse thing for someone that suffers from excessive light.4) the nose pads on glasses can cause the most awful pain to the eye area, it is difficult to tell the difference between a poor prescription and the pain due to the nose pad.With all the different misconceptions these people have or related things they do not care about I have spent hundreds if not thousands of pounds getting different glasses. Fortunately this is not my heart and I can actually understand much of it myself. What really pisses me off is that with all these incompetent people around I need a prescription from one of them just to buy the glasses that work for me..... So I have to get them from chine where I won't be hassled for a wrong prescription.Given my experience what do you think would happen if we left it to AI to prescribe glasses? Sure, majority of times it would be right, some of us would be in agony for life. Then we would pay the same money for no one to even do the work.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2025, 09:27:55 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 31, 2025, 07:49:51 pmI'm going to have to correct you there Simon - the NHS has a lot to do with eyes; I am quite certain the ophthalmic surgeons that I know would be most miffed to find that they don't exist.What they don't have much to do with the the provision of routine eye tests and standard corrective vision glasses - which, as you observe is mostly in the private sector.QuoteYes, you do seem to have had problems.Picking through your points :-I think that there was a belief among older optometrists that vision would correct itself if the prescription wasn'tquiteright and it would "help" vision to under correct - not sure that is current and I think modern optometrists would aim to fully correct, but generally not over correct vision - this online comment gels with what I have heard from colleagues.QuoteNo your nose is not in the middle of your eyes, no one's is. Which is why each side is (or should be) measured when fitting spectacles.Yes, getting your eyes tested on two different occasions, even the same day, even the same optometrist can produce different results depending on your levels of eye and general fatigue. Not sure if your "BULLSHIT" comment applies to those who told you this was not the case or those who told you it was.I'm puzzled by your comment that the optometrist would not allow you to have tinted glasses - this is normally a quit separate choice, usually stylistic, that you will make with the dispensing optician (might be the same person in a small practice, obviously).All optometrists should be "full blown" "graduates" and registered (unless you get a trainee in which case that should be made clear).You might have more problems because of your cleft palate/hair lip but all faces suffer the same issues to a degree - and yes, badly fitted frames can beveryuncomfortable. the nose pad position can usually be tweaked without going back to the shop (plastic frames might need you to get your hot air out).I'm also not sure why you have to get your glasses from China - there are several on-line manufacturers these days.Ultimately opticians probably want to get it right for you - as you observe specs cost a fortune these days and I'm sure they want repeat business given the profit margins that must be involved.Maybe the thing to do is to try to make appointments when your eye fatigue is "moderate" and as representative as possible - i.e after a bit of screen time but not too much and when you are not too tired generally. Give your problems with fitting I would try to find an optician where the dispensing will be done by the same person each time you go so they can build up experience with your face.It sounds like you've tried everywhere locally so maybe going further afield is needed - I wouldn't necessarily be put off by a different branch of a franchise you have already tried, the service is very much going to depend on the mix of staff anyway.I hope you eventually sort out somewhere that you trust and gives you the service that you want - if you need correction for your vision glasses (or contacts - have you thought of trying those; could never get on with them personally being astigmatic) are a hugely important part of your life so I completely agree that it is important to get them right.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2025, 06:52:04 am
content: My BULLSHIT comment was on the idea that no matter the state of my eyes the prescription will come right. I don't think its just fatigue it's also that my muscles adapt to the bad situation and that comes through into the prescription that is then compensating for the wrong thing, so really it's been a case of incrementally getting it better until the prescription stops changing.The first optician who was a big wig in his industry with some funny ideas told me he did not believe in visual stress. He offered me a small selection of what I assume were decorative tints none of which were the exact one I wanted so I chose the closest but I now know that it was so far out it could have caused a problem. Spec savers and I believe other large chain company's don't offer colour tints, So I ended up with online ordering. Now that my prescription is pretty much correct I can get prescription sunglasses and the range of colours is wide enough that I can get something that seems to work.There is a local optician that deals with visual stress so I may try them next.My more general point was that I as a non medical person but a technical one have realized how many things come into play with glasses prescriptions, a relatively simple "diagnostic" according to the profession just looking at my eye lenses and prescribing a counter lens is sufficient. But in reality there is so much more to it, if someone were to try and automate this with AI or even just programming, how good would it be? Given the amount of what could be considered non eye variables I have found I doubt a computer could easily replace a human in deciding on a prescription for anything but the easiest of patients that may be the majority.You see another thing comes into play or this comes into play with another thing. I have ADHD, this basically means that I become quite tired as I struggle to cope. OK I am on medication that deals with the lack of stimulation. But if I am fatigued due to my eyes how much of my problem is that I am tired due to my brain doing overtime to run my eyes ? It all plays in together and all humanity wants to do is throw machines at things that humans may not have fully figured out.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2025, 08:02:54 am
content: Quote from: Simon on September 01, 2025, 06:52:04 amIt would create a prescription for all three of your eyes.Never forget that LLMs work by assembling sentences and paragraphs from words thatstatisticallyappear in the context of the question. When humans do that, the result is word salad and they are called bullshitters.As for optometrists, as withallprofessionals the quality and personality varies. I often get a long way by letting them know I'm an engineer and want to solve the problem together, recognising they know more than me but I want to learn a bit about me. Best result was during a discussion about my test results with a specialist. I said "oh, sounds like X", and he replied "yes, and at that point you know more than most GPs"My optometrist has all sorts of machines, including ones that measure the, ahem, specs of my current specs. I found them through personal recommendation and have been satisfied, although I don't have the issues you have. Hence diagnosing the severity of a medical problem based on thefontin the scan (different hospitals treat the more severe patients) and on patientposition(lying or sitting). Those misdiagnoses were not apparent because there was no indication ofwhya result was output.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2025, 02:13:51 pm
content: Regarding eyesight, yes, thing is, it tends to fluctuate quite a bit depending on various factors and that's particularly noticeable if you have a larger correction. So measurements taken on a particular day and time may not be representative of your "average" eyesight. The ideal would probably be a correction that can adapt instead of a fixed one, but that's for another century, I guess. It's not really about determining the best correction (which those "AI" machines would try to do), but adapting dynamically, and that's a completely different matter.One tip if you have myopia (unless very light) is not to wear your correction while doing close-up work / work on a computer for extended periods of time. If your eyesight is too poor to do this without correction, preferably use a lighter correction that just works for these situations. If you keep wearing your full prescription in these contexts, your myopia is almost guaranteed to end up worsening. Your eyes adapt over time. If you wear contacts, that becomes a problem to be particularly aware of, as you're basically "stuck" with your full correction all the time until you take them off.I think eyesight correction is still rather "underserved", using techniques that are ages old, with technological advances that make only a minor difference so far. But I don't think "AI" will solve much at this point.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 02:12:44 am
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 06:36:20 pmDepends what you mean by AI, I guess. The short answer is YES, there are models that are better at pattern recognition than what we can generally just code, and that's because we don't know exactly what they're looking for/at. They're trained given a huge set of known data.And this is an active topic in the medical field. What do you do with this kind of model that has obvious benefits, but that you can't really describe algorithmically the way you really ought to. Last we looked at it, I think the general approach is to lock down a model, and then launch representative data at it and verify that it performs to the claimed spec. From there, it's up to the doctor to make a decision.So you use it as an additional data point. Oh, the thing noticed that maybe you might have a problem here. Doctor can take action on that, order more tests, etc, taking the totality of their examination and history into account.It's just another tool, and the hope is always that you eventually learn more about why it performs so well, and then you can be more precise and describe an actual algorithm.It's AI in the old fashioned sense of the term...like from maybe 10 years ago and prior.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 07:54:39 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 02, 2025, 02:12:44 amAI meaning varies over time.The problem with LLMs is that neither do they know what they are looking for/at. And by implicationand as found in practicewhen they turn on the red or green light, nobody knows why they did that. That has been a known problem since the early-mid 1980s, and is being rediscovered now.That worries researchers. Is should worry you, because you will be affected by it sometime in the future, e.g. "application refused" or "treatment denied/inappropriate" or "you are a high risk reoffender".And nobody can tell you why or give you sufficient information to allow you to counter "because the computer says so". That really is KafkaesqueA corollary of not knowing how decision was reached is that nobody can predict what the next decision might be: trivial changes demonstrably completely change the decision.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 08:32:58 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on September 02, 2025, 07:54:39 amOn EEVblog and maybe some other expert forums: it meansneural network.Everywhere else: something being done automatically e.g. by a computer or electronic component. For example: if(temperature < 22degC) turn_heater_on(); else turn_heater_off(); is a very typical example of modern-day AI.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 08:42:24 am
content: Gamers have had AI since PacMan or even before.

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 07:23:00 pm
content: Quote from: DimitriP on August 30, 2025, 07:08:16 pmThe first to put "Powered by AI" on their box wins.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 07:43:52 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on September 02, 2025, 08:32:58 amFully agreed.In the medical field, ever since high-performance CCD X-ray sensors were developed in the nineties as a result of advances in particle accelerator sensors and sensor manufacturing, neural networks have been used to detect suspicious patterns in X-rays (2D) and computer tomography (3D) imaging. They started with dental X-rays, if I recall correctly.It is not called "AI" then nor now, because it was/is not used like large language models or even large neural networks are used now, but more like more traditional "character recognition" type, to detect for example faint granule patterns and other well-known indicator patterns that just are not that easy for the human eye to detect (except with lots and lots of practical experience).

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 10:18:48 pm
content: One of my audience's favorite topics. Several factors in this thread are due to misunderstandings, marketing, hype, and other similar issues.Companies, hell, everyone, are "AI washing" things everywhere. The layperson will likely find it near impossible to know the differences.Machine Learning, AI, and deep learning are not the same things.Neural networks, Bayesian algorithms like I worked with in the early 2ks for anti-spam, are Machine Learning.I also worked at a company that developed similar machine learning for medical monitoring of patients. It's an aid, not a replacement for qualified medical personnel.LLM is a type of AI based on neural networks, but the significant factor is the transformer layer for processing. It's a misconception that LLMs are just fancy predictive text systems. The fact is, we actually don't know why LLMs work the way they do or why they are astonishingly accurate. The math predicted negative results if we kept feeding models data to learn, but that's not what happened. So humans share something with LLMs, doctors also don't know how the human brain works as a whole/consciousness, and so on.I think its fair to use the AI term generically for the modern state of the art but its good to remember that most of that is LLMs which is only a subset of AI.LLMs are horrible at math, a common way to test LLMs once was to ask it "How many letter 'r' s are there in strawberry?". Simple math is something it can't do well. LLMs are also "stuck in time". This means they only know what they were trained when they were trained. Ask an LLM who won the big sports event last weekend and it won't know. But there are ways around that. RAG or retrieval augment generation is a way to "feed' an existing data model more data and recent information. Then the big one Agentic AI. This is going to change the way everyone lives. That's deep enough for a topic of itself. Well, most of these sub-topics are.Today, one of the biggest topics I spend time on is AIGW (AI Gateways). These are AI systems that talk to AI systems and govern them. The industry has developed and largely settled on MCP (Model Context Protocol). It would be fair to think of this as an MQTT for AI. Each can attach and announce its capabilities and then participate in routing queries to the best LLM or agent, on a model for inter-AI communications. Gateways are the governors.Lastly, LLMs are heavily biased by their programmers and the data sets they are fed. This leads to curious situations, such as requesting photos that should depict a single ethnic background, but actually represent a diverse set of ethnic backgrounds. If you wish to see some odd answers, ask your favorite LLM, "What is the most racially diverse country in the world?"In the realm of security, there are three major questions: who's asking, what are they asking, and what data is being handed out. Followed by who's scraping my data.As far as AI taking jobs, there is no doubt that it will at least change the number of required people at the minimum and completely wipe out certain types of jobs on the maximum side. If the job/role is primarily around rote memory and the ability to find, classify, accrue, and match data sets. Well, I'm sorry. Unlike technological advancements of the past, AI will land hardest on white collar jobs. Programmers, engineers, lawyers, finance, doctors, IT, and more are huge targets. Blue-collar jobs, such as reception, support, food services, and warehousing, to name a few, are at the top.In my opinion, the worst problem is that it will eliminate entry-level positions and those requiring experienced knowledge for a large number of roles, impacting the very young who would want a start on the ladder, and the older employees who have traditionally served as a source of experience and knowledge. Yes, AI can learn and very rapidly develop expertise.There's a myriad of anecdotes about hilarious AI failures. Don't be fooled, large companies are dumping billions into this and even contracting for the output of entire nuclear reactors, such as those on Three Mile Island. (Microsoft) It's not the human-level AI that is predicted to land around 2040-2050, but it's going to be dramatic/already is.I've worked in this industry through several inflection points. The dawn of the internet, www, Y2K, Web 2.0, smartphones, the cloud, social networking, and now AI. AI, at least, has the potential to be the biggest one since the WWW bubble.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 10:34:43 pm
content: Quote from: Cyclotron on September 02, 2025, 10:18:48 pmYet, it is factually true that they only process text (or rather, their numerical input is mathematically transformed plain text input), and have absolutely zero to do withmeaningorlogicorcorrectness. A "perfect pretender" is a much more accurate term than "fancy predictive text system", because that is what training enforces.Some recent research in LLM-to-LLM communications does indicate that they have an exceedingly strong subtext, so much so that any kind of controls on short snippets of text used between LLMs is unable to stop hidden preferences and biases from transferring. This also implies that the "astonishing accuracy" in LLM outputs is actually derived from some human subtext in training input. (It also matches what we understand about pattern matching/recognition in neural networks. Think it as if the proverbial "bullshit detector" some of us have is actually at least partially based on pattern matching on subtext/information conveyed indirectly, and something like that is what the LLMs have partially developed from being trained on a crapton of human textual output.)If so, the quality crash when LLMs start being trained on data generated by other LLMs will be similarly much worse/stronger than predicted, because that correctness subtext does not survive the LLM transform at all, when experimenting with LLMs trained by LLM output. We do not even really know what that subtext is, or how to detect it, other than discovering LLM-specific biases do cross over in just a couple of paragraphs of innocuous-looking human-readable text snippets.

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 10:57:44 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 02, 2025, 10:34:43 pmOn one of my recent journeys to Vegas for talks, I got to sit in one of Yann LeCun's (Facebook, I think sp? on the name) sessions. The big issue on training and one that I guess I didn't know about is the simple truth that humans don't document "common sense." So, AI LLM models lack common sense in their learning, and it sometimes leads to comedic issues. The other was around the concepts of scaling and his views on it not leading to AGI.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 11:29:42 pm
content: Quote from: Cyclotron on September 02, 2025, 10:57:44 pmThat is exactly behind the reason many believe that LLMs are extremely unlikely to develop true intelligence being based on human output, and also behind the idea that embodiment, a physical body and a way to physically interact with the world in the same kinds of environments humans live in is needed for AGI to develop.Basically, that even though we cannot even define what "common sense" is, and honestly very little of our own output reflects "common sense" or "intelligence" much, the physical world will teach that (and intelligence, too), because it has done so for humans and many other species. Not just tohominidae, but as different families asoctopoda(octopuses and related species) andcorvidae(corvids and related species), both known for their problem-solving skills.Essentially, that the necessary "subtext" for intelligence, logic, rationality, and "common sense" to develop, is provided by interacting in the human-scale physical world.That does not mean many suppose it is impossible to happen in other contexts. Most just assume that if it does, it is likely to be inscrutable and non-undestandable to us humans. But, because we can interact in useful ways with other animals across phyla, although best with social species in thechordataphylum, it is the best bet we have.

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 02, 2025, 11:48:21 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 02, 2025, 11:29:42 pmAgreed. I either thought up or heard the example of food and water, what they commonly mean to us, and everything around us. What's hot, what's cold, what's the threat of death? As you say, the senses we have developed simply by surviving and evolving in the natural world.I must admit that I find it amusing that there's a recent article I read about a scientist who believes there's evidence for this being a simulated universe, based on his theory of "Infodynamics." ..... I paused and found it.https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a64378430/simulation-theory-new-physics-law/

author: GigaJoe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 12:32:17 am
content: speaking about heart condition diagnostics ....around 2000 year , i visited doctor with my son, and old lady doctor , with stethoscope diagnosed my son some minor heart imperfection condition , i'm was kind of amused ...as the only one ( another doctor diagnosed same thingi , and no one else ... )so i ask my friend doctor about such curious case ... and respond was kinda interesting .... No one actually anywhere in the medic school or whatever medical education center ... do not train future doctors to recognize heart noise by stethoscope . Use to it was a special simulator with some different kind special membranes where passing air simulate the sound of heathy non healthyheart , and you actually train itself to recognize it .... Such thing doesn't exist anymore .... in some cases , recording with artificially raised volume . but not such natural, barely sensible noise from heart . So in theory you should learn it as intern ... but really)

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 12:48:26 am
content: I just had an exam last week with a new doc. (He's a "DNP": what the hell isthat? Never heard of that. Turns out it's a"doctor of nursing practice".)Anyhow, he listened to my heart and pronounced it to be in good health just based on his stethoscope listening. Turns out that he's something of a cardiac specialist, has a lot of diagnostic experience in that field and is able to determine what's going on with a heart's action just by listening to the valves opening and closing, blood flow, etc. I believe him, that he's not just listening casually and then just making shit up.Gave me a sense of increased confidence in the doc.

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 01:13:02 am
content: Quote from: GigaJoe on September 03, 2025, 12:32:17 amThat makes me curious how different regions/countries vary in medical training.After having an oil check/prostate exam, I asked my young doctor (probably 27-28) how they hech they know what they are feeling for during that exam. The answer was "models". I said, 'Oh, like prosthetic models", they replied, "Well, yes. But we have real human models that the medical school pays for their time." I asked, "Wait, what, people volunteer to have this exam done multiple times in a day by students?"The last bit was the funniest, there are "regulars" for volunteering and the pre-med students often nickname them to avoid being too personal. There was one while my doctor was in school called the manicurist. The volunteer came with a complete kit and did all the students' nails prior to their exam. I can only guess why.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 10:06:51 pm
content: Quote from: Cyclotron on September 02, 2025, 10:18:48 pmYeah, exactly. It's a big catch all phrase. It's hard to talk about it intelligently.I think it's pretty common for it ALL to be lumped into AI, and that's unfair to everyone. It's even unfair to lump all of the problem domains for any particular AI together because they all have a similar characteristic of being rock stars at some things and completely useless at other things. And the more general ones have various competence in the middle.I'm not hopeful. It's been over a hundred years and people are still taught that electrons orbit around a nucleous. And something like 10% of Americans resonate with flat Earth. I think we're stuck with this.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 10:29:00 pm
content: Yes, from the article:"It takes an ECG (electrocardiogram), recording electrical signals from the heart, and sends the information to the cloud to be analysed byAI trained on data from tens of thousands of patients."There are also apps which will present the statistical data to you, which are useful, eg:https://biosignalssolutions.com/Quote from: Analog Kid on September 03, 2025, 12:48:26 amI'm sure it tells you a lot and is good enough if you have no symptoms.The gold standard though would be a 24-48h recorded ECG and an echocardiogram (ultrasound). Heart can work fine while you are listening, but freak out at random times or when stressed.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 04:36:51 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 03, 2025, 10:06:51 pmWellll, they do, at least to a first approximation, right?(nucleus)

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 04:53:08 am
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 06:36:20 pmI think this is not a hype, but a scam...Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 08:41:56 pmIn fact, we are already seeing this: finding truly experienced doctors who combine deep practical knowledge with strong diagnostic intuition is increasingly challenging. If this trend continues, there’s a genuine risk that, in the near future, there may be no physicians left with substantial real-world expertise.I fear that medicine could then devolve into a mere commercial exercise, where patients are offered various gadgets and fake "medications" pushed by marketed manufacturers to alleviate symptoms, while genuine treatment becomes impossible due to the lack of expertise, established methodologies, and truly professional practitioners.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 07:44:14 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 04, 2025, 04:36:51 amThe issue is with "an orbit" versus "an orbital".Is green the first approximation of money?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 08:46:58 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 03, 2025, 10:06:51 pmAll models are wrong, but some are useful.QuoteThere are more dangerous examplesAnd, of course, 37.3% of statistics are just plucked out of thin air.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 11:04:31 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 04, 2025, 04:36:51 amNo, not even in an approximation, but it's not because you're ignorant or anything like that. There's nowhere you would be exposed to anything different other than if you had a specific reason/interest to be. But it stubbornly persists. It would actually be BETTER if that visualization disappeared entirely and we just taught the rules for the quantum numbers because that's actually really simple.Maybe for unexcited hydrogen it's very approximately accurate. Otherwise, it's really very wildly off and the visualization is actually harmful to getting a feel for it.But it makes pretty pictures in text books. In the same way, "AI" is sort of a catch all term for a broad range of things. I think we're kind of stuck with it, and to really have an intelligent conversation we just have to start using more technical terms that are more meaningful. That's my only point. The term "AI" has kind of become meaningless. Sort of like the term "computer." Saying that I have a computer at home doesn't really mean anything anymore. 40 years ago, it wasn't precise, but it meant something.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 11:47:13 pm
content: QuoteWithout considering the audience, it wouldn't be a converstion, but an intelligent monologue.If we were only able to communicate using precise language, every post would look like a non-discolsure or licensing agreement.The challenge is to extract meaninful information from the use of imprecise language ( yes, sometimes it's more mind reading than listening). Not everyone can do that; that's their limitation.Uga-Uga

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2025, 11:58:01 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 04, 2025, 11:04:31 pmWell, can we look at it this way?The first approximation (the electrons whizzing around the nucleus like some 1950s "gee whiz" atomic-energy illustration) is good enough for some audiences. Like, say, those taking introductory classes in physics at a layperson's level, not engineering or physics students but just average Joes and Jills taking college electives. Because for them, that's a good enough illustration.As @tggzzz pointed out above, "All models are wrong, but some are useful". So couldn't we just let that inaccuracy slide in certain cases where it really won't make any difference?To anyone where the actual model matters (at least what wethinkis the "actual model" at this point) , they're going to learn the more-correct version anyhow. So why burden the merely curious person with an overly-complex and less-understandable model if it's not going to have any impact on their knowledge? Those who want to dig deeper will be exposed to the gorier details.In other words, this is really a pedagogical question of how to present a concept to a student, not a scientific one.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:16:09 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 04, 2025, 11:58:01 pmOnly because people are asking question, making statements, etc about AI in ways that it actually is important to understand what we're actually talking about. Just like if we're trying to use a model of electrons in atoms to make technical deductions and statements. The high-level fluff concept just isn't useful for that and it's just more confusing. As always, just my opinion.

author: johnboxall
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:16:38 am
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 08:41:56 pm

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:25:49 am
content: If we look at the electron density in a single hydrogen atom, even in the ground state, the one with the least energy, the electron orbital is more like a spherical shell than anything you can imagine when thinking of an orbit. Some of the excited states do have a similar shape, but most of them are funky "lobes" with an occasional "ring" in there. In more complex atoms (with more than one electron), the lowest energy states get filled with electrons, and they of course "push" each other so the shapes become even funkier as they nest together.I'm using "electron density" instead of "electron probability distribution", because when we model atomic and molecular interactions, we model each electron as such a probability distribution, and not as points.How good/accurate/useful is this kind of model?If we use only thePauli exclusion principleandCoulomb's law— meaning that two electrons with identical properties cannot occupy the same space, and that oppositely charged bodies attract each other inversely proportionately to their squared distance —, and even describe the nucleus and all the inner electrons as a single point charge, this reproduces the ground state (the non-excited, minimum energy state) of even complex proteins; basically all molecules we have tried and know the physical ground state configuration of. The math and physics behind this method stems fromdensity functional theory, or DFT for short, with newer variants and simulators using just better/more accurate descriptions of the electron-electron interactions.Just like with "AI", the underlying problem is that even if it is in some domain an useful simplest possible approximation and a popular term, it papers over the actual facts and model, especially the strengths and weaknesses. When you get outside the region where the approximation is useful, they becomehorribly counterproductive: not just useless, but your previous understanding of that approximation makes itharderto understand what is really going on.For "AI", that is the "intelligence" part: there is none, because training enforces appearance only; thus "perfect pretender".For electrons, it is the "orbit" part: there is kinda-sorta a number that roughly corresponds to the distance from the nucleus, but everything else is completely different; and that "completely different" part is what is behind all of chemistry.I do consider it lying, like telling small kids that there are monsters in the river to keep them from going there without supervision. It's theeasysolution, not agoodone.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:38:30 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 04, 2025, 11:58:01 pmBecause information in human minds are not separate nuggets, but form a network of associations, which affect whether and how additional nuggets are incorporated to the network of "understanding".It is exactly because of the extreme simplifications to make stuff easier to understand that leads to Flat Earth believers, Free Energy enthusiasts, people who reject all of modern medicine just because some drug companies push questionable stuff, and so on. They see the world beingsimple, and thus believe the ones who say it iscomplexis lying to them and trying to manipulate them for control and power.It is better to make stupid people learn the limits of their understanding, instead of lying to them so they believe they understand when they don't. In the heads of the masses, such stupidity is a weapon of mass destruction.For those who want to learn, the oversimplified models just make their life harder. They first have to learn and be tested on one thing in comprehensive school, then forget all about that because it was a lie and then learn the correct one. It is wasted effort. Nobody wins, except that teaching and science popularization is somewhateasier.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:53:39 am
content: I think your approach here is totally elitist, and not useful, and I'm simply going to ignore it.If you consider that "ignorance", that's your call, your problem, not mine (nor many millions of other folks as well).

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 01:14:44 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 05, 2025, 12:53:39 amIt is the opposite of elitist! I think it is utterly condescending to tell people with a straight face that "electrons orbit a nucleus", simply because you think they're not intelligent enough to handle the truth!Anyone, even a little kid, can understand when you tell them this:Electrons do not orbit a nucleus like planets orbit the sun; that instead, theydelocalizelike water into fog, having very specific kinds of shapes we call "orbitals". These shapes do end up forming roughly shell shapes, nesting like Russian babushka dolls, and we can do quite a lot of chemistry just by considering the "shell" the electron is on, and ignoring the exact shapes of those "orbitals". (Unless you study chemistry or atomic physics in the university to learn more, those shapes and their descriptions aren't that useful.) We number the "shell" from the inside out, innermost being 1, often denoted withn.The reason many people like to treat electrons as if they orbited the nucleus like planets orbit the sun (or rather, the center of mass of the entire planetary system!), is because orbits, too, can be numbered that way withn. They think it is an useful model. As each electron is also associated with a quantum property we call "spin", and has properties called "angular momentum" and so on, which also kinda-sorta match the electron-orbits-the-nucleus model, people often prefer that model over the reality: it is just easier to think about. But all it is is a model that represents the true reality at the atomic scale, in more familiar terms for us humans; a model, not reality.How fucking hard or elitist is that?To circle back to the actual thread topic, something very similar can be constructed to describe large language models and how they are trained, leading to the basic understanding of "really, really good pretenders" instead of "artificial intelligence", with any logic or content enforcing added on top as an extra system on top prodding the pretender whenever it starts going too far off the tracks.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 01:58:39 am
content: Off topic, but FWIW he does the best job of explaining this is a reasonable way than anyone else I've ever seen.He has a real talent for visualization. Richard Behiel too. It's not so hard and mysterious if you can visualize what the math is doing, but if you can't there are visualizations here that are so much more closer to reality. I'm good with this.

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 04:04:34 am
content: Quote from: Simon on August 30, 2025, 06:36:20 pmi saw an article that vaguely describes using a normal phone camera to measure heart bpm and blood pressurei dont think i can trust any of the reports it could possibly generateif the report is right/wrong and medical expense claims are needed. who will pay for the % of errors ? it is still the consumer paying.it will simply drive up costs, and the excuse given will be " it needs more *insert vague reason here* "then minister of health will give the usual BS speech and everything will be swept under the carpetbusiness as usual

author: SteveThackery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:43:30 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 05, 2025, 12:38:30 amActually I disagree with all of that. Interesting - I think it's the first time.I don't think Flat Earthers and Free Energy advocates come into being as a result of us using simplified models of the atom. I don't believe simplified models make life harder. Provided, of course, that the student is told that it is actually a model.But the number one kicker for me is thatthe orbitals model is still a model. It is probably closer to reality than the 'orbits' model, and that in turn is closer to reality than the 'current bun' model.Here is one of the most profound insights in the world of science: "All models are wrong, but some are useful."I studied Chemistry 'A' Level here in the UK about 10 years ago. We got an overview of all the common models for atoms, and then used the 'orbits' model to study atomic bonds, basic chemical reactions, ions, acids and bases. That model took us quite a long way, and we were able to make predictions on what should happen when different chemical compounds reacted.It was when we moved on into organic chemistry that we explored and adopted the 'orbitals' model. That allowed us a more complete understanding of what goes on at the atomic level. But I wouldn't say everything we learned using the 'orbits' model was useless. It worked - we made predictions which came true. 'Orbitals' gave us a more complex model of the atom, one probably closer to reality, which let us make even better predictions.Even ten years later, 'orbits' and 'orbitals' sit happily side by side in my brain.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:58:27 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 05, 2025, 12:38:30 amMake things as simple as possible, but no simpler.I had an epiphany at university when I was lodging with a family where the father was the skipper of a boat (took sewage out to sea to dump it!) and the mother was a housewife. The mother seriously believed that fish came up to the surface to breathe. I kept my mouth shut, but her husband couldn't convince her otherwise. It was the first time I had come across such gross ignorance; unsurprisingly I've come across it since then all too often.What kind of explanation do you think she could have comprehended?Such people can be easily manipulated, but it isn't because the models are too simple

author: SteveThackery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 10:07:08 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 05, 2025, 01:14:44 am"They delocalise like water into fog". What a brilliant example of how @Nominal Animal's "reality" is actually just another mental model. A fog of what, exactly? A substance? A field? What type of field? Or is it more like a "probability field", where the "density" of the field is a non-physical representation of theprobabilityof the electron particle being at any particular point in the field?Even the 'orbitals' model is just a model, and it still needs metaphors and hand-waving when we try to understand it and use it for predictions.Lots and lots andlotsof science is models. The whole of physics is mathematical models. Newtonian mechanics is a great model that makes loads of useful predictions (a bit like 'orbits'); Special and General Relativity are even better models that make even better predictions (a bit like 'orbitals'). But no physicist worth the name claims General Relativity is "reality", just as I would hope that no chemist would claim that orbitals is "reality".The whole of science is just our best shot right now at understanding and predicting. The whole of science (including 'orbitals') is subject to review, and might be replaced at any moment.Who knows what reality really is? Perhaps it is a meaningless concept.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 10:13:03 am
content: Quote from: SteveThackery on September 05, 2025, 09:43:30 amI think Nominal's point, at least as I understood it, was that it'snot a simplification. It's just... different.I agree with the "lie to the children" simplifications as a concept, but I also applaud questioning long-lived specific "simplifications". Not all are very good. For a simplification to be useful, most importantly it should be significantly simpler than any alternative, and simultaneously be useful.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 11:16:10 am
content: Speaking of models their concurrent use, even while incompatible, we have... gravity.Is it even a force or just geodesic destiny?

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 11:18:12 am
content: Quote from: SteveThackery on September 05, 2025, 09:43:30 amMy claim is ".. as a result of us usingoversimplified modelsin general". This one is just an example. "AI" for LLMs is another.An electron orbiting a nucleus like a planet orbits a sun is not a simplification/approximation. It is an abstract model that can be applied in some domain, but is not analogous or related to the underlying physics. When you step outside the domain where it works, you cannot just adjust it a bit to fix it, you have to replace it completely with an utterly different model (one that also covers the domain you used the oversimplification in).Quote from: SteveThackery on September 05, 2025, 09:43:30 amThis is arguable. I mean, a valid argument can be made either way. In my own experience, oversimplifications do make life harder for everyone.Perhaps I put the line between "useful or valid simplification" and "oversimplification" in the wrong place, but I'd need a good rational argument to change my opinion.Quote from: SteveThackery on September 05, 2025, 09:43:30 amI disagree. I would agree with "Provided that the studentunderstandsthat it is a model".It really isn't about what information is available or what people are told; it is about what they understand and how.I brought this up because saying that electron orbits arean approximationis similar to saying LLM is anartificial intelligence.Electron orbits are a model that is useful in chemistry, but does not reflect reality at all. LLMs are "artificial intelligences" only in the sense that passing a Turing test, being able to fool a human into thinking it is interacting with an another human, proves "intelligence". Neither is a general approximation.Compare to e.g. diode voltage-current curve. In some small interval, a linear relationship can be a very useful model (and is actually used in some RF stuff, I believe), but it isn't an approximation outside that small interval; and you cannot truthfully say that diodes are approximately linear components. Saying that a diode is a linear component is not a simplification.Even here, we have many members who do not realize that Kirchhoff's circuit laws are a model, limited to a specific domain, and not generally applicable. When examining lightning strikes, which are electrostatic discharge events, they get lost trying to invent a "return current path" for the few tens to few hundreds of kiloamperes of current. There is none. Such events are outside what Kirchhoff's circuit laws model.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 11:40:19 am
content: Quote from: paulca on September 05, 2025, 11:16:10 amWho cares? No, I mean as a genuine question.A much more interesting variant of the question is,do peopleunderstandgravity?One way to find out is to ask them how high one has to go to halve the gravitational attraction of our planet. At the surface it is around 9.8m/s², or one standard gravity.The correct answer is about 2639 km, or \$\sqrt{2} - 1 \approx 0.4142\$ times the mean radius of Earth.In comparison, the mean altitude of the International Space Station is about 420 km, where the gravitational attraction is about 89% of that on the surface, or about 8.7m/s². This is why it should be called "free fall", not "zero gravity".

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 11:50:07 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 05, 2025, 11:40:19 amI think the answer is very simple. No. Nobody "understands" gravity. The models are incomplete and we have multiple models in physics and cosmology which "work" but are incompatible. Relativity and Quantum as one example.I believe the term they use is "micro-gravity", because the earth's gravitational field is not spherical, far from it.Anyway, it is micro-g or zero-g if you must because of the equivalence theory from Einstein. The elevator thought experiment. Because the astronauts are in an inertial frame of reference which is in free fall, it is equivalent to being in zero g.The models however work for purposes. Basic classical, Newtonian for the vast majority of things and for the more specialist cases (particularly where the there are large gradients in gravity) Einstien relativity or even special relativity have to be employed. (Pertibation of planets etc.)The current models do not explain a lot of things we observe though, so we keep bolting on "postulations" like "Dark matter", "Dark Energy", "Inflation theory" and so on and so forth.On tricky questions for the layman on gravity, is to ask how much more force does gravity put on an object if you double it's mass. A lot of people will say "No more, because all things fall at the same speed.", they fail to understand momentum and how it cancels out.As an aside, you can measure and observe the effect of the Himalaya ridge on your LOE parameters. If you look at historical orbital records of the ISS you will see it's orbit is disturbed every time round. Less gravity over oceans basins, more over prominent ridge lines. There are also different densities of earth itself. There is a diagram showing the gravity as measure from orbit, just like the magnetic field, it's lumpy and has spikes and troughs.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 12:01:49 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on September 05, 2025, 11:50:07 amTrue, but I was thinking of the everyday use of the world, as in whether they understand how the downwards pull they usually fell actually behaves.As in, "how much would you weigh if you were 420 km above this spot?", or some such.Quote from: paulca on September 05, 2025, 11:50:07 amI think that is tricky because people focus on the "gravity" part, when they should focus on the "force" part.

author: SteveThackery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 03:18:57 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 05, 2025, 11:18:12 amAnd yet you claim that the orbitals modeldoesreflect reality. To which the immediate and obvious questions are: what does "reflect" mean? (hand-waving at its finest); and what is "reality"?This is the mistake many people who don't truly understand science make, which is why I don't understand why you are asserting it. For 250 years scientists thought that Newtonian mechanics was reality. And then, in 1905, it wasn't reality after all. We cannot know what is reality; we cannot know what might be overturned tomorrow. Right now, orbitals is just our best shot, much like General Relativity is our best shot.Orbitals are not a special case,they are not "actual reality" as opposed to all the other "probably reality" and "a bit like reality" aspects of science. We are confident that General Relativity gives better results than Newtonian mechanics, but to declare General Relativity to be reality, or "reflect" reality (whatever that means), is a step no physicist would take.For all you know, tomorrow we might discover that the orbitals model is completely wrong, and while it makes better predictions than any of the earlier models, it doesn't "reflect reality" at all. And before you point me to the experimental evidence to support your claim, I would point you to the experimental model that supported the 'orbits' model, back in the day.Fundamentally you cannot know what reality is, because tomorrow it might change. And then you will be telling people that the orbitals model has no relation to actual reality, just as you have been doing about the 'orbits' model.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 03:37:27 pm
content: We don't need to be this pedantic. When people say "reality" I think we can see from context that we likely mean "a good visualization of the best known theory that describes our experimental knowledge".Do we really need to say that?

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 08:22:29 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 05, 2025, 03:37:27 pmSo tell us, please: what would your objection be (if any) to teaching children and other neophytes that, to a first approximation, electrons orbit atoms like in those 1950s illustrations? (Andnotteaching this model to serious science students.)I'm serious here, and not just poking you; genuinely interested in what your response would be.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:21:48 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 05, 2025, 08:22:29 pmI don't think you're poking me, and I'll give you a thoughtful response.Well, it's extremely inaccurate and at the same time is not useful. Like, it doesn't give any useful insights. I'd much rather if they just represent it as fuzzy cloud, and it's not so important that the cloud represents a probability, not the actual electron. To me, that would be like a 6th grade appropriate simplification.When you get to high school, the little solar system is absolutely worthless, because then you have to juggle all these other quantum numbers and you have no visualization for it. You can imagine a bunch of electrons whizzing around, and you can even imagine them spinning one way or the other, but what about the other 2? They're just magic numbers and the situation is hopeless.Oh hey, remember that fuzzy cloud we told you about in the 6th grade? Well, that was a simplification. It's still a fuzzy cloud, but it kind of looks more like this, and if you want to know why you can look up things like spherical harmonics, etc. and start to understand a little better. Oh, and btw, these funny shapes affects things like the chemical properties of atoms and molecules, and you don't need to understand how/why at this point, but at least you demystify that a bit.Maybe after all of that, there might be cases where the solar system model is useful, and you all know that it's not real. Like, if you want to talk about maybe how some electrons are free to move about in a metal. Now everyone knows that the picture isn't at all accurate, and that it's simple schematic/notational kind of thing, and there's no confusion.See, so like we all know that Newton's gravitational law is "wrong", but it's actually useful.But saying that the Higgs mechanism is like "space is filled with molasses" is not just wrong...it's actually completely useless and gives the wrong intuition.And to bring it back to the original topic, the only point I made was that AI has become such a broad term that it's not really helpful to say that something is "AI" anymore. What kind? They're all so different from each other. The model that all AI is similar and can be talked about all lumped together is actually the wrong intuition.So I guess the tipping point for me is, "does the visualization/model serve any useful purpose and/or does it lead to bad intuitions?" If you're not doing high school chemistry, worrying about where electrons end up, etc then the answer is that the solar system model is completely irrelevant. Just say it's something like a fuzzy cloud and leave it there. If you ARE doing high school chemistry, the solar system model is actually detrimental and just confuses the hell out of everyone. P...L....what the heck do these numbers and letters mean? It's just magic at that point.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:25:29 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 05, 2025, 09:21:48 pmSince when are we (US) teachingquantum mechanicsinhigh school?Sheesh. I'd say we'd be lucky if 3 students out of 10 could even do basic arithmetic, let along algebra, trig, calculus, etc.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:33:06 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 05, 2025, 09:25:29 pmWe do, but we don't call it that. And we leave chemistry students confused as hell. We use words like shells, and orbitals and sub-orbitals. You don't remember this from high school chemistry? All the funny numbers with arbitrary rules? If you're in this shell, you can fit this many electrons by fiddling around with these numbers, and this is how you calculate how many numbers you have to choose from, and just make sure that every electron has different numbers and you're good. You don't remember that?What did you think you were doing? It's almost my point exactly. Why not just make the picture useful from day one, and refine it as you go along.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 09:56:32 pm
content: OK, riddle me this if you would:If you don't mind watching a short section of a video:https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY?t=238tell us, how would you have them explain the carbon-fluorine bonding shown here using your well, um, it's kinda-sorta a ... cloud ... a fog? ... a bunch of particles moving in probabilistic ways explanation?Isn't this a far better way to present this concept? even if it's not quite up to snuff so far as theactualatomic model goes?

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 10:05:06 pm
content: Did you notice how he switched back to the fuzzy cloud picture to show why the bond is stronger than you might first think?If you're not going to read my response when you ask for one, why do you ask? I even gave an example where the other model might be useful, understanding that it's just schematic, and there are other cases too. So whatever, I guess.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 10:31:16 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 05, 2025, 09:33:06 pmNope.I took high school chemistry in, lessee ... ca. 1966. In a very good school district. So far as I remember, none of these things were discussed. Or they may have been introduced to us, but certainly not explained in any depth.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 11:02:52 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 05, 2025, 10:31:16 pmEven if they did, you may have blanked it out. I know I've certainly tried hard to blank it out.Chemistry is one of my least favorite things in the world.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2025, 11:23:43 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 05, 2025, 11:02:52 pmI hear you, but no, didn't blank outthatclass; I actually found it somewhat interesting. (I do remember waking up at the end of French class in the last period with a small puddle of drool on the desk. I sleptwalked through most of high school. Ended up dropping out junior year.)I remember one experiment we did: something involving paradichlorobenzene (mothballs). Think it was determining the melting point.But no quantum stuff, orbitals, etc.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 12:12:38 am
content: Quote from: SteveThackery on September 05, 2025, 10:07:08 amThe math that matches everything we've been thus far able to measure says it is not a probability density as humans generally use the term: electrons always interact according to this "density", never as if they were point-like objects at some random location with statistically this probability distribution.The fatal flaw in the orbit model,the Bohr model, is the fact that an accelerating charge — for example, an electron curving around a nucleus — will always radiate. For low electron velocities (and thus kinetic energies), the amount of radiation is described by theLarmor formula, describing e.g. antennas and how and why they happen in even PCBs. For relativistic velocities, this is described by Maxwell–Heaviside equations as usual (and leads to what is calledLiénard–Wiechert potentials).That is why the Bohr model of the atom failed. They had two models, one where electrons orbit the atom nucleus like planets orbit a star — theBohr modelof a hydrogen atom —, and another where accelerating electrons always radiate, and there was no way to combine the two: one falsifies the other. The first one worked in chemistry, the second one in electromagnetic experiments. The solution was the quantum mechanical model of the atom andquantum chemistry. The key concept isdelocalizationforelectron densityor electron probability distribution.The risk in the term "electron density" or "probability density" is that to most humans it implies that when an electron interacts with another particle at a relatively large distance, it should interacts like it was point-like, and just has that probability distribution across similar events. That is how one usually deals with probability distributions, after all. Well, according to the measurements we can make, especially electron crystallography, nanodots, doped semiconductors, and so on, that is not how electrons interact. Our measurements do match when we drop the point-like-ness, and instead smear the electron out, according to the "probability density", in every single interaction.The solution to this, I believe, is to use the term "delocalization". It is the same thing as "electron probability distribution" and "electron density", but with the strict requirement that all interactions behave as if the electron is smeared according to this distribution, not a point with statistically this distribution. If you use e.g. Monte Carlo methods, picking random positions in this probability distribution, and treat the interaction as if the electron was a point-like particle at that location, ignore impossible interactions like a photon interacting with the electron on the other side of the atom, calculate the results, and treat the statistical distribution of the results as your answer, you get the wrong answer. (If you don't ignore impossible interactions, then you're just doing Monte Carlo integration, which is a proven mathematical approximation of the exact integral over the distribution using random sampling.)Thus, the distinction is actually mathematical in nature, describing how the mathematical models work, rather than an explanation or description in human terms.It does not matter what an electron really is at the atomic scale; what matters is whether we can correctly describe and predict the interactions using math.The human stuff is philosophy, not physics or science or engineering.Combined together, it means that if you believe for a moment that the Bohr model is correct, you stick to a model that has been proven to be incorrect and incompatible with reality, even though it is useful in chemistry, andrejectthe actual models that do describe everything we have been able to measure reliably/repeatedly thus far.Is it wrong tousethe Bohr model? No, of course not! In its domain, it works fine. It just does not describe reality, just like saying a diode is a linear component does not describe it even though in a specific small forward voltage range it does behave linearly and is exploited thus in some RF circuits, and can be modeled as if it was a linear component.The problem happens when humans believe they understand reality when they know about the Bohr model of an hydrogen atom; when they think of the Bohr model as asimplified model of realityor anapproximation. It is not, because outside chemistry, it is in direct conflict with the best physical models we have. Similarly with Kirchhoff's voltage and current laws. They are useful models, not "approximations" or "simplified descriptions of reality", just models useful in a limited domain. The models that do cover everything we can thus far measure, describe reality very differently. The concept ofdelocalizationis absolutely central to all of quantum mechanics, but because people are so stuck in their intuitive understanding of human-scale world, they refuse to accept the idea that at the atomic scale and smaller, an elementary particle like an electron isn't located at specific coordinates, but smeared around those coordinates. To compensate, we have to use human analogs like wave-particle duality instead.I believe that most humans are capable of understanding all this, if taught this from early on. Terms like "electron orbit" and "AI" are used in media and everyday communications as if they were an accurate description of reality, when they only match our measurements in a very restricted, limited sense, and in very limited conditions; not at all in general. This leads to people approaching physics — the models that we've tested to best describe what we can measure — using incompatible and fundamentally conflicting concepts, and drawing incorrect conclusions, just to make their previous understanding and the new gel, somehow. Never underestimate how hard it is to un-learn something: it is much harder than learning it in the first place.By "stupid people", I do not mean people who do not have the intelligence to understand the complexity here. I mean people who are capable of understanding, but choose not to, for whatever reason. Most of science and especially physics is written in jargon, but just like Feynman and others have shown, this stuffcanbe explained properly, without requiring a PhD to understand. It all just starts at the base concepts.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 01:19:02 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on September 05, 2025, 11:23:43 pmIt's never introduced as quantum anything in chemistry. That said, it might be that they just didn't do that in '66. They were certainly doing it in the late 80's when I went to high school. But it was just numbers and rules. Nothing meaningful.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 01:53:40 am
content: Well, Nominal, this really is the tension between scattering types of experiments, that "collapse" the wavefunction and show it to be an actual point as best as it can be measured, and wavefunctions, QFT, whatever that very want it to not be when you're not measuring it, per say (measurement in the very technical sense, which I assume you know what I mean).I tend to side with 't Hooft and others that feel like quantum physics is probably just fundamentally wrong, much like Newton was just fundamentally wrong about gravity. Not at all useless...extremely useful. Just not something that you can tweak a bit here and there. Newton's gravitation was so simple and straightforward. You can't "tweak" it to make it right. You had to replace it completely to get to the next level. I imagine the same will happen with the standard model and perhaps GR. It's hard to imagine tweaking them. Separately, it all fits together too perfectly. Neither can be tweaked. If they're in anyway wrong, it's going to be very wrong.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 03:40:28 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 06, 2025, 01:53:40 amI do not think so. When you excite an electron enough to eject it from the atom, the interaction that caused it is described according to the bound electron distribution/density; it isnotan interaction between two points where the other one is a sample of that distribution and only possible point-to-point interactions considered.Even when you have heavier atoms with many inner electrons, the excited electron (almost always at the outermost orbitals) can ping off in directions that indicate the interaction happenedthroughthe inner electrons.The ejected electron behaves like a free electron does. When you interact with a free electron, for example using a bubble chamber or a set of CCD sensors, you can determine its trajectory as if it was a point-like object. Statistically, the trajectories correspond to the overlap in the two probability distributions. (It is what leads to thewave functionas a model to describe these probability distributions, specifically to the distribution matching the squared norm of the corresponding wave function. And not in just location, but in all other properties as well.)For elastic and inelastic scattering, where you have the trajectory of a free electron affected by electrons bound to atoms, molecules, or lattices, the interaction can be described as that of between a point (free electron) and a smeared point (bound electron). The result is a probability distribution in changes to the trajectory of the point. Calculated thus, the statistics over many measurements agree.(Exactly what being "bound" means is up to discussion. In the simplest approximation, it is about having one or more positive charges within the electron density distribution, and how high the electron density is around those charges. The higher, the stronger the bond.)If you instead assume you have two point-like electrons interacting, with the other electron having just the same probability distribution as the aforementioned smeared point,and you exclude impossible caseslike those where the two have the rest of the atom or molecule in between, the distribution of your results does not match the measurements.If you do not exclude impossible cases, what you do is mathematically exactly equivalent to approximating the integral via random sampling (Monte Carlo integration), i.e. instead of calculating the integral between the point-like electron and the smeared electron, you approximate it by random sampling.Do you think the model of electrons (or leptons in general) as always point-like elementary particles valid, if you need to ignore things like other electrons or particles located between the two interacting point-like particles, to get correct results?Some say it is valid, to a first approximation at least, because it is useful and easy to visualize/understand.I say it is not valid, for the exact same reason we had to drop the Bohr model: the contradiction is too significant to ignore.I've seen a lot of papers and experiments on scattering and particle physics on ions (but it is not my own field), but none that would contradict the above.If you have, do point me to the paper via e.g. a PM. I freely admit I'm often wrong, but in this case, I'm fairly sure of my understanding.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 04:24:44 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 06, 2025, 03:40:28 amNot what I think. Experiments ALWAYS show, at least currently, that they behave as point particles when you take an actual measurement (i.e. when you force the electron to choose...collapse the wavefunction...however you want to think of it, but I'm talking about the technical term of measurement). I think we're down to they can be no bigger than something like 10^-20m experimentally, and mathematically they're considered points in this case, and everything matches up splendidly. That's a different case then when you're considering what happens when you're not measuring the electron, per say, and you're looking at other things.But ultimately, everyone knows there's something wrong somewhere because of GR and renormalization. Obviously everything still has to work inside a black hole, because they exist, so SOMETHING sensible happens there. And no one seriously believes that renormalization is physical. So there's either something very seriously wrong somewhere, OR the physics is somehow fundamentally not understandable and this is as good as it gets. I tend to think it's understandable so I assume there's something very seriously wrong, and I hope to live long enough to catch a glimpse.And it's all still an amazing accomplishment and, as far as I know, there is no real experimental discrepancy anywhere. Like you really WANT there to be a major experimental problem somewhere, and maybe hint at something, but there just aren't any.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 06:15:50 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 06, 2025, 04:24:44 amNo, that is just not true. Just consider the two approaches to measuring the "size" of an electron: x-ray scattering from a free electron, and electron-electron scattering (between free electrons). X-ray scattering yields a value of about 2.8 fm, whereas electron-electron scattering between free electrons gives essentially zero.I think we've argued this before, and I don't think any argument of mine will change your mind.All I ask is for anyone wondering about this, to look at e.g.electron diffraction, and how the "smeared out" quantum mechanical description is needed for the mathematical model to describe the observed results, and how any model treating electrons as classical point-like objects will fail. And to look up the double-slit experiment on single electrons — it has been done many times in practice, it is not just agedankenexperiment —, showing exactly the same kind of behaviour we get with photons. You can find many articles on this, at different levels of detail and complexity.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2025, 06:34:40 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on September 06, 2025, 04:24:44 amI think Heisenberg had something to say about that.