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mike_dyesterday at 9:04 PM1 replyview on HN

That is exactly how clinical research works. My mother worked running clinical trials for two decades.

When she was diagnosed with leukemia she was able to get into a research study herself that gave us 10 more years together.

One of the horrible but necessary parts of trials is the control group, who receives placebo. This is only done in a few of the trial phases but is essential in measuring efficacy. If someone wants to throw their brainpower and a little bit of AI/tech at the problem, you could end up eliminating a lot of suffering.


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whatshisfacetoday at 2:19 AM

AI and tech won't help, but if the threshold to try a drug were adjusted to exactly the right threshold, where enrolling in a study would be expected-value neutral (this is by marginal reasoning), taking a placebo would not be worse than not.

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