[sroussey]

If the whole population had a full body scan every quarter, the “weird” things would feel more like the noise they are.

But we would have great data over time, both individually (weird tends to only matter if they are changing) and as a population.

[jibal]

The fundamental problem is that you generally can't diagnose simply from shapes. Scans show shapes, shapes cause concern, concern leads to invasive procedures, results are negative.

[user43928]

Are people really going to perform invasive procedures over mere concern if there are no symptoms and the doctor recommends against it?

[jibal]

There are numerous comments here from experienced people addressing this. Yes, that happens and a doctor who dismisses the concern can be sued for malpractice if something actually does show up, so they are put in a difficult position. For some reason you just assume that doctors will recommend against an invasive procedure when there is a positive tomography result.

Review the numerous comments that address this as a statistical issue -- which it very much is when talking about the scale that Midjourney is claiming.

[icantevenhold]

People take horse dewormer against COVID so yes they will do all kinds of irrational things

[rlt]

Oh we're still doing the "horse dewormer" thing despite 250 million humans taking it each year?

[multjoy]

Yes, because it's nonsense and those 250m humans need to get off Twitter.

[rlt]

250M people take it as an anti-parasitic, as they should.

[stalfie]

It's worse then that unfortunately. Even when invasive tests are positive, and we think we caught a cancer early, we know from population statistics that the reality is that often nothing would have happened. So we don't even truly know how to tell a cancer that will kill you from one won't. And we don't really know what it is that we don't know.

This is more true for some cancers then other though. Prostate, breast, and maybe melanoma are the worst in this regard. This is why prostate and breast cancer screening programmes are controversial, although the needle is swinging towards them being more useful as surgeries and treatments get better. Some other cancers like pancreatic cancer will always kill you eventually, so it's always good to catch them. It's a nuanced problem.

This whole issue is called "overdiagnosis", and personally I used to be obsessed with it. Being aware of it mostly caused a lot of hand wringing and grief, it's just easier to believe that every cancer you catch is a good thing. However, one of the broader issues is that we will never know what we don't know if we don't look. So there exists another perspective that all the suffering caused by overdiagnosis will eventually pay off in the long term. This is the "collect all the data for science/AI" perspective, and I've personally tentatively adopted it myself, although perhaps that's just because it's nicer to believe that you do some good even when you do harm. I think it's more likely that [novel cancer therapies](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10738-7) will solve the "harm" part of treatment before we solve overdiagnosis.

The reality is that important breakthroughs are often entirely unrelated to the data for you are collecting, and even worse that possibly helpful data is locked away due to regulation and never used. This is kinda why I've come to make some kind of peace with private clinics scamming people with whole body MRIs, as I'm sure they're secretly selling the data which might lead to some good. However, they would probably do even more good if they didn't exist so they didn't jack up the prices for MRI machines by inflating demand. The marketing they do is the most morally reprehensible part of the whole deal, as it's usually just lying and creating health anxiety for profit. The fact that midjourney here is marketing themselves in this direction is giving me some serious Theranos vibes. Quick and cheap MRI equivalents would be really useful in the clinic, and it would have to spend a few decades there to prove it is useful before moving on to the "spa" stage. That they are trying to market a render of an idea directly to the wellness crowd firmly puts this in the "scam" folder for me. The fact that midjourney is mostly irrelevant now also fits well with this, making it likely that this is either a marketing stunt or a desperate pivot to get funded. Hopefully there are not that many suckers who will put their VC money down on this loosing bet.

[stymaar]

Maybe it would end up fine “in the long run” but you cannot ignore the significant issues arising at the beginning (and at each release of a more performant tool): what do you do if you find something that “shouldn't be there".

[sroussey]

With enough data, it might change our idea of what shouldn’t be there. Like an appendix. But personalized!

[stymaar]

That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say “in the long run” the problem comes in the meantime (and no, I don't think people in the present should endure bad things because it's going to make the future better).

[aswegs8]

Without clear hypotheses you will have a lot of false positives. Which are quite costly in healthcare.

[unholiness]

Overdiagnosis will be a major problem long after we have the data.

It's just hard convince people with a general feeling something's wrong and a specific picture of something wrong that the two are almost certainly unconnected.

[blensor]

How do you measure the body regularly without potentially introducing problems just by measuring it?

[bialpio]

My understanding is that both MRIs and ultrasounds do not introduce problems.

[ahtihn]

MRIs by themselves no, but depending on what you want to actually see you need to inject a contrast agent which is probably not something you want to do too frequently.

[bialpio]

Good point, I was not thinking about MRIs with contrast.

[Levitz]

Nobody is proposing this though

[friendzis]

> If the whole population had a full body scan every quarter, the “weird” things would feel more like the noise they are.

That's a tautology. We already have quite robust methods for detecting developed anomalies, treating every anomaly below standard human-to-human variation effectively raises the noise floor to already developed anomalies, defeating the purpose of population wide routine scans.

[ramblerman]

If you think the premise and conclusion of Op's statement form a tautology then you agree with him strongly.