logoalt Hacker News

arcticbulltoday at 3:03 AM2 repliesview on HN

Bayes theorem mostly. False positives rates are extremely important. I mean so are false negatives. So just, like, accuracy.


Replies

dualvariabletoday at 3:12 AM

Timing is also important. I can predict cancer with 100% success, because everyone will get cancer, unless they die of something else first.

show 1 reply
SpicyLemonZesttoday at 3:40 AM

False positive rates are extremely important in the medical system as it exists today, where most scans will come without a known baseline and doctors cannot prescribe "biweekly scans for the next 6 weeks to see what changes". If we can achieve the kind of imaging abundance they're imagining (which I don't know how to evaluate based on their short post), I think false positives become much less of an issue, at least in the context of cancer where malignancy is the only problem.

show 1 reply