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{"id":736,"date":"2024-04-05T05:20:58","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T05:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aitesonics.com\/friends-dont-let-friends-use-an-ai-sti-test-162354796\/"},"modified":"2024-04-05T05:20:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T05:20:58","slug":"friends-dont-let-friends-use-an-ai-sti-test-162354796","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aitesonics.com\/friends-dont-let-friends-use-an-ai-sti-test-162354796\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends don’t let friends use an AI STI test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Its press release suggests users take a picture of their partner\u2019s penis so it can be run through a deep learning model for visual signs of sexually-transmitted infections. And while the website suggests users should wear protection, a banner atop the HeHealth sites describes the app as \u201cYour intimate bestie for unprotected sex.\u201d Mixed messages aside, you may notice some major issues with the pitch: That this only covers infections that present visually, and that it\u2019s only designed to work with penises.<\/p>\n

But even if that use case applies, you might not feel you can trust its conclusions once you\u2019ve looked at the data. The Calmara website claims its scans are up to 90 percent accurate, saying its AI has been \u201cbattle-tested by over 40,000 users.\u201d That figure doesn\u2019t match up to its press release, which says accuracy reaches 94.4 percent (a figure cited in this NSFW preprint paper<\/a> submitted a week ago), but its FAQ says the accuracy ranges \u201cfrom 65 percent to 96 percent across various conditions.\u201d We've reached out to the company and want to learn more about the apparent discrepancy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not impossible for models to categorize visual information \u2014 I reported on how systems like these look at images of cells to aid drug discovery<\/a>. But there are plenty of reasons as to why visual information isn\u2019t going to be as reliable for an STI test. After all, plenty of conditions don\u2019t have visual symptoms and carriers can often be asymptomatic long after infection<\/a>. The company admits to this in its FAQ, saying that the app is a \u201cfirst line of defense, not a full-on fortress.\u201d Not to mention that other factors, like the \u201clighting, the particular health quirks you\u2019re scouting for and a rainbow of skin tones might tweak those [accuracy] numbers a bit.\u201d Even more alarming, the unpublished paper<\/a> (which is riddled with typos) admits that a full 40 percent of its training dataset is comprised of "augmented" images, for instance "extracting specific visually recognizable disease patterns from the existing clinical image dataset and layering those patterns on top of images of health (sic) penises."<\/p>\n

The Calmara website\u2019s disclaimer says that its tools are for the purpose of \u201cpromoting and supporting general wellness and a healthy lifestyle and are not to be used to diagnose, cure, treat, manage or prevent any disease or condition." Of course, if it really was intended as a general wellness tool, it probably wouldn\u2019t describe itself as \u201cYour intimate bestie for unprotected sex,\u201d would it.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t help that this is a system asking users to send pictures of their, or their partner's genitalia. Issues around consent and \u2014 as writer Ella Dawson raised on Bluesky \u2014 age verification<\/a>, don\u2019t seem to have been considered. The company's promises that the data is locked in a "digital stronghold" lacks specifics about its security approach or how the data it obtains may be shared. But that hasn\u2019t stopped the company from suggesting that it could, in future, be integrated \u201cdirectly into dating apps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fundamentally, there are so many red flags and potential vectors for abuse and giving users a false sense of confidence that nobody should try using it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"