Apple is researching ways to identify signs of childhood autism through iPhones

https://startuptoenterprise.com/after-suspending-child-photo-abuse-feature-iphone-to-scan-autism/

by MihikaBasu • 5 years ago

31 12 5 years ago

startuptoenterprise.com

CivBase• 5 years ago

Here's the WSJ article mentioned in the first paragraph, although it is pay-walled:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-wants-iphones-to-help-det...

macintux• 5 years ago

A remarkably cynical and negative take, but at least the headline was sanitized here on HN. Tying this to the CSAM misfire is quite a stretch.

azinman2• 5 years ago

The skepticism is not well motivated when it’s clearly a health feature. There is far more valuable information already on phones without everyone stopping using them as is. It feels like sensationalism designed for clicks, which seems to be the Achilles heel in today’s society.

mistrial9• 5 years ago

enabling creativity, Apple's original value proposition, comes full circle to relentless categorization and surveillance, the end-game of markets

bastawhiz• 5 years ago

I don't see anything here about productizing the research they're doing. Nor is there any indication of how it actually works (on-device or other). There's also a lot of words about medical data and monitoring children, but it would seem wild to me that Apple somehow gets classified as a healthcare provider based on their current offering.

It would seem that the technology mentioned looks at videos and makes a determination based on that. Does analyzing a video make it medical data? What about the other "medical data" that Apple has? Besides complying with COPPA, what data do they have that's not explicitly opted into?

I simply can't see past the alarmist rhetoric of this post. Especially when the cookie banner doesn't give an option to opt-out, with the option "Ahh, that's alright". Only a little ironic.

sumthinprofound2• 5 years ago

From the article: > Apple has partnered with Duke University to research the third brain using advanced medical technology powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning based on people and documents.

What?

From the WSJ article > Apple has a third brain-related research partnership with Duke University that it hasn’t disclosed.

That makes more sense.

gliptic• 5 years ago

Did they misread "third (brain-related research partnership)" as "(third brain)-related research partnership". That's funny.

sumthinprofound2• 5 years ago

I believe so.

MBCook• 5 years ago

Honestly this is a pretty poor article that keeps trying to push click-bait links with the phone scanning dust up.

jaredsohn• 5 years ago

Amusingly after a Google search, I see that 'third brain' is a thing (a paper gave that name to the epidermis, another gave it to the placenta, is a Spy Kids thing, is a consulting company, is in the name of a book.)

g42gregory• 5 years ago

For me, Apple lost the trust. So yes, I don’t not give Apple a benefit of the doubt on this one. The most generous explanation I could come up with is that this is an effort to introduce “good benefits” that could come from the surveillance. That’s of course my take on Apple corporate. I am sure the team within Apple, who is working on this, means well and kudos to them.

breakfastduck• 5 years ago

Apple is researching ways their health features and machine learning implementations can detect health conditions. Who would have thought.

Apple is researching ways to identify signs of childhood autism through iPhones

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