The Future Of Health Care Could Be Humans, Robots — Or Both

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At the well-funded startup Omada Health, its coaches teach patients to prevent diabetes by eating better and exercising. They don’t meet face to face, but communicate over the internet — and the coaches are increasingly aided by a machine learning-powered software that provides cues for interacting with the patients.

Since the San Francisco company was founded in 2011, these coaches were a mix of full- and part-time staffers. But in November, it let go of all the part-timers and it instructed the remaining coaches to rely more on the software, the company told BuzzFeed News.

CEO Sean Duffy insists that his long-term goal isn’t to replace people with software. “The thesis is that we don’t think we’ll ever be at a point in Omada’s trajectory where we’ll ever take people or coaches out of the equation,” he told BuzzFeed News. “But they’ve got really smart systems to help them.”

Like many other tech-enabled health care services that connect patients with experts — coaches, therapists, nurses, doctors — over video chat, email, and text, Omada is trying to navigate a fundamental shift in labor. People are expensive, at least compared to automated, data-driven chatbots that could give advice and diagnose diseases without needing a salary or a college degree. But bots aren’t nearly as good at holding conversations, perceiving emotions and subtext, and delivering sensitive information like, say, a cancer diagnosis. If they want to grow, startups will have to figure out whether their patients and businesses alike will be best served by man, machine, or some blend of the two.

“There’s a spectrum of totally autonomous machine learning and the other side is totally human-driven,” said Mike McCormick, principal at Comet Labs, a venture capital firm that invests in artificial intelligence startups. “And then there’s every shade of gray in the middle of that.”

The previously unreported cuts at Omada last fall were small, and affected 10 to 12 part-time coaches, according to a spokesperson. It has about 60 to 70 full-time coaches and 250 employees overall. In another set of layoffs that Duffy said were unrelated, the startup also laid off roughly 20 workers last week, saying it “had to focus on Omada’s core business and expertise, while orienting the company for long-term success.” Omada has raised $125 million in venture capital, including $50 million this month in a round led by the health insurer Cigna.

“There’s a spectrum of totally autonomous machine learning and the other side is totally human-driven.”

Duffy said that as Omada has treated more patients and collected more of their data, it’s trained an algorithm to detect important behavioral changes. For example, if a person weighed in on a digital scale every day consistently, then stopped weighing in for three days, the system would flag the coach. It’d then “suggest messages they might send to a participant that might result in an outcome” — in this case, to find out how a person is doing and why they’re skipping weigh-ins, Duffy said.

The CEO was quick to note that the machine isn’t prewriting messages down to the word, but suggesting a gist to convey. He also said that users could tell when a nominally human-written message is computer-generated, and that this makes them lose trust in the system, Duffy said.

Coaches can also say no. “If we get enough coaches declining these suggestions and saying, ‘That violated my intuition as a human being,’ it trains the system to get better and better and give better and better suggestions,” he said.

The part-timers had access to this technology, but Duffy said that the company benefited more from having full-timers be constantly involved and invested in improving it.

Omada isn’t the only company exploring how to use artificial intelligence to improve health care. Startups like Babylon Health, HealthTap, and Remedy are developing chatbots to assess patients’ symptoms. Big Health has an entirely automated program called Sleepio, which stars a cartoon professor and is designed to help people with severe insomnia. But these nascent technologies are too new to definitively prove that machines can improve health more than humans can.

To survive, any kind of virtual health service will have to prove that it can get people to sign up, stay involved, and actually improve their health, said Liz Rockett, director of Kaiser Permanente Ventures, which has invested in both Omada and Big Health. “Doing the work of proving efficacy and reach is the best way to define that line of what works and what doesn’t – including on the question of using coaches in the delivery or having an all-virtual offering,” she wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News.

For now, there are way more people-to-people telemedicine services. Ginger.io initially tried to infer behavioral patterns and mental health problems from passively tracked smartphone data, but switched to a text and video-chat model with human therapists.

So in five to 10 years, will patients be more likely to interact with a human or a chatbot when they open up a health app? It’ll largely depend on how high-stakes the situation is, McCormick said. You’d want to hear that you have cancer from a trained expert with an extremely high degree of accuracy and emotional sensitivity. But for, say, nutrition coaching, he said, “maybe people are ready now. ...It has to be nuanced.”

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These 11 Augmented Reality Experiences On iPhones Already Look Like The Future

Apple developers are already building experimental AR experiences for iOS 11 and some of them look lit AF.

The next version of iOS, the software that powers your iPhone and iPad, is jam-packed with cool new features, but none of them are as 🔥🔥🔥 as AR.

AR, which stands for Augmented Reality, superimposes digital objects on the real world around you. Apple is building the tech into iOS 11, which will be available as a free download for most iPhones and iPads this fall.

BuzzFeed News

If you've ever played Pokémon Go, you'll be familiar with the concept.

See how both the Pokémon and the ball look like they're bouncing on that stretch of real-world ground? That's essentially what AR looks like.

Apple

At WWDC, Apple's annual conference for app developers held earlier this month, the company showed off just how sophisticated its AR technology is. Here's what it demoed on stage.

Apple

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View Entire List ›

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Uber Claims Former Self-Driving-Car Head Promised Not To Use Google Files

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Uber says the the engineer who until recently oversaw the company’s self-driving car project promised the company he would not bring proprietary information over from his former employer, new court documents filed Wednesday show.

The filings lay out a timeline as to which Uber employees knew about the actions of the company's former self-driving leader, Anthony Levandowski, who joined Uber after it acquired his autonomous truck startup Otto. Levandowski previously worked at Google's self-driving car program, which spun off into a new company under Alphabet, called Waymo. Waymo sued Uber in February, alleging that Levandowski stole its trade secrets, now benefitting Uber.

"No one at Uber ever asked Levandowski to download or take Google information or endorsed him doing so," Uber's attorneys wrote in a court filing. "In his employment agreement with Uber, Levandowski also agreed to “represent and
warrant to the Company that you have returned or destroyed all property and confidential information belonging to any prior employer.”

On Wednesday, Uber's lawyers said the lawsuit filing in February was the "first time that anyone at Uber learned that Levandowski may have engaged in improper downloading and theft of Google information as alleged by Waymo." Last week, a court filing revealed that Uber said Levandowski told Uber employees – including former chief executive Travis Kalanick, who resigned earlier this month – that he had found five discs containing Google information in his home. But Kalanick told him that Uber didn't want the Google information, and advised against bringing the discs to Uber, according to court documents. Levandowski later told Uber he had destroyed the discs.

Uber fired Levandowski in May. The company said that he had for months refused to comply with the its investigation into Waymo's claims. Levandowski has pleaded the Fifth Amendment in an effort to avoid incriminating himself should the case become a criminal matter. US District Judge William Alsup, the judge presiding over the case, referred it to federal prosecutors on May 11. Alsup said in a court order in May that Waymo's self-driving car secrets may have "seeped" into Uber's designs. Waymo has gone so far as to allege in court that Otto was founded as a ruse to help Uber steal its technology.

Throughout court proceedings, Uber has maintained that Waymo's information has not crossed into its systems. The ride-hail giant has called its own LiDAR systems – the self-driving technology at hand in the case – "fundamentally different" from Waymo's.

"Uber never used any Google trade secrets or patented technology in the development of
the technology at issue in this case," the ride-hail giant's lawyers wrote in a court document fled Wednesday. "No Uber employee is aware of Levandowski ever using any Google proprietary
information in the performance of his duties at Ottomotto or Uber."

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A Judge Allows The Gawker-Hulk Hogan Saga To Roll On

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The years-long legal saga involving a New York media company, a former professional wrestler, a sex tape and a Silicon Valley billionaire appears to be moving forward based on a U.S. bankruptcy court ruling on Wednesday.

New York-based bankruptcy judge Stuart Bernstein submitted an opinion that potentially allows for the estate of Gawker Media to explore — with limited scope — how venture capitalist Peter Thiel secretly funded lawsuits on behalf of wrestler Hulk Hogan. Wednesday’s ruling was seen as one of the last puzzle pieces in a bizarre case that some experts believe will have lasting implications on the rights of the free press in the United States.

Hulk Hogan began his legal battle against Gawker Media in 2012, after the organization's flagship site published a sex tape between the wrestler and his friend's wife. In May 2016, Forbes revealed that Thiel, who despised Gawker for writing about his sexual orientation, had been secretly footing Hogan's legal bills.

In his opinion, Judge Bernstein partially sided with the administrator of the Gawker estate, arguing that he had “shown good cause for the Thiel-related discovery.” However, previous settlement agreements between the Gawker estate, Thiel and Charles Harder — the lawyer who Thiel paid to represent Hogan in his invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker — ”impose substantial limitations” on what can be investigated, the judge said.

Last fall, Gawker — which declared bankruptcy and sold its assets to Univision after losing a lawsuit to Hogan — settled with the former professional wrestler for $31 million. In the wake of that settlement, Gawker's lead bankruptcy lawyer, Gregg Galardi asked the judge for permission to investigate Thiel for financing litigation for the sole purpose of putting Gawker out of business.

In an interview with The New York Times in May 2016, Thiel said of his financing of Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker: “I would underscore that I don’t expect to make any money from this. This is not a business venture.”

A spokesperson for Thiel declined to comment on Wednesday. Galardi was not immediately available.

While Judge Bernstein allows of legal discovery in theory, his opinion notes that much of that potential investigation will be limited based on the scope of the settlement agreements between the Gawker estate, Hogan — whose real name is Terry Bollea, and his legal team. Part of the estate’s request was an investigation of any potential relationships between two other plaintiffs who sued Gawker and were represented by Harder: Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur who claims to have invented email despite evidence to the contrary, and writer Ashley Terrill who alleges the site “published a false and highly defamatory hit-piece" about her.

The Gawker estate has suggested that Thiel may have been involved in the financing of Ayyadurai’s and Terrill’s legal proceedings.

“It appears that the Plan Administrator cannot obtain any discovery from Thiel, Harder or anyone else regarding Bollea, Ayyadurai or Terrill except for discovery from Ayyadurai and Terrill limited to ‘litigation financing agreement(s) relating to the Lawsuit or claims in the lawsuit, and any non-privileged retainer agreements with Charles J. Harder, Esq. or the law firm of Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP relating to the Lawsuit or claims in the Lawsuit,’” wrote Bernstein.

Without a definitive ruling on the matter, Bernstein ultimately left the decision-making in the hands of the concerned parties, noting that they should meet to discuss matters on how to proceed. It’s unclear how the estate will continue from here.

William Holden, the bankruptcy plan administrator for Gawker, did not immediately return a request for comment.

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Here’s Just Who Got Hit By The Latest Massive Cyberattack

The ransomware virus — which infects a computer and then encrypts its files, promising to decrypt them if a ransom is paid — crippled state-run infrastructure and major companies.

Cybersecurity researchers have said that the virus uses an exploit developed by the NSA known as EternalBlue.

Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters

The exploit, dubbed ExPetr, takes advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Windows XP through 2008, and was also used for the WannaCry attack that happened in May. (North Korea has been identified as the likely source of WannaCry.)

EternalBlue was developed by the NSA over five years ago and remained secret until April, when a trove of NSA secrets were disclosed by a group known as the Shadow Brokers. NSA alerted Microsoft to the vulnerability in March and Microsoft has released a patch, however the patch depends on end-users making software updates, leaving those who are slow to update vulnerable to attack.

Ukraine was the hardest hit, but companies in Russia, the United States, UK, Denmark, France, and others were also hit. Initially Symantec and Kaspersky Labs had identified the attack as a strain of Petya, a virus available for distribution on the dark web, but Kaspersky Labs released a statement later in the day saying that this is “new ransomware that has not been seen before," and that they were renaming it NotPetya.

To give a sense of scale of the attack, here’s a list of just some of its targets by country:

Ukraine:

1. The Cabinet of Minister’s Secretariat

2. Boryspil Airport

Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters

3. National Bank of Ukraine + ATMs

4. Oschadbank

5.Kiev Metro

6. Ukrenergo

7. Kyivenergo

8. Radiation monitoring system at Chernobyl

9. Ministry of Infrastructure

10. Supermarkets

Russia:

11. Rosneft

12. Evraz

13. Home Credit

Denmark:

14. Maersk

Phil Noble / Reuters

France:

15. Saint-Gobain

UK:

16. WPP

Benjamin Fathers / AFP / Getty Images

US:

17. Merck

18. DLA Piper

19. Mondelez

20. Heritage Valley Beaver and Heritage Valley Swickley hospitals

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A Teacher Is Suing Breitbart And Project Veritas For Defamation

Steve Wentz, the president of a Kansas teacher’s union, filed a defamation lawsuit in Orlando, Florida last week against Breitbart News and Project Veritas, the self-described investigative video site run by conservative activist James O'Keefe.

The 66-page lawsuit concerns a video Project Veritas posted and an accompanying article in Breitbart News from June 2016. In the video, Wentz, who was attending a conference in Orlando, is shown suggesting he's threatened students with physical violence. “Son, go for it and I’ll give you the first shot…I will kick your f***ing ass,” Wentz says in the opening of the Veritas video. The Breitbart article ran with the headline, "O’Keefe Sting — Teachers Union President Brags About Threatening Student: ‘I Will Kick Your F***ing Ass.’"

In the suit, Wentz's attorney alleges that the video — shot by a Veritas reporter — was "creatively edited...to make him appear violent and dangerous." The lawsuit argues that the recording was made using a "concealed recording device...without Wentz's authorization." Florida, where Veritas recorded the video, has a two-party consent law that makes it illegal to record a conversation if both parties involved haven't agreed to be recorded. The suit continues to say that Veritas' video and Breitbart's summary omitted "most of the reasoning and all explanatory detail from O'Keefe's story," which then twisted the purpose of Wentz's words.

Wentz' attorney argues that the actual story he told to the Veritas reporter was part of a "particularly memorable anecdote of an incident when he had feigned force, or used 'tough love,' to connect with and eventually help a troubled student." The suit suggests that Wentz had since reconnected with the student and that both "agreed to put this incident behind them." Years later, the suit reads, "Wentz ran into that former student, who gave Wentz a hug."

The timing of the suit, filed late last week, is perhaps inopportune for Project Veritas, which is in the middle of another big story. On Tuesday morning, O'Keefe and Veritas released a highly edited video of a man purporting to be a CNN producer, disparaging CNN's coverage of the investigation into Trump's Russia ties. Project Veritas has not responded to a request for comment.

As far as Breitbart's involvement, the suit alleges that the Breitbart article is defamatory as it "falsely explains that Wentz met with 'journalists,' when in reality, an individual who faked her identity and recorded Wentz covertly, without his permission, had tricked him." Furthermore, the suit focuses on Breitbart's decision to append the story with the search tags for "child abuse" and "union corruption." The suit alleges that when a visitor clicks through the "child abuse" tag, Wentz' photo and name is "sandwiched between a story about female genital mutilation and a mother who starved her children."

From the Wentz/Breitbart suit.

In a slack message today obtained by BuzzFeed News, Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow notified employees of the suit. "Breitbart just got sued for a story connected to Project Veritas -- not today's CNN video -- I believe this one was from 2015," he wrote. "It should go without saying that you should not comment on or tweet about the suit. Forward any media requests to me, Larry, and John Kahn please."

Currently Wentz and his attorney are suing for unspecified damages to Wentz's reputation and name. Wentz is also suing for any money made by the video, which has 20,000 views as of this writing.

Breitbart has not responded to a request for comment.

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This Website Stopped Labeling Some Nonprofits As Hate Groups After A Public Backlash

After the nonprofit accountability website GuideStar flagged 46 different nonprofits earlier this year as hate groups, trolls started harassing and threatening the company and its staffers. Now, citing concerns for employee safety, as well as unresolved questions over objectivity, GuideStar has removed the hate group labels.

When labeling the 46 nonprofits, Guidestar relied on reports from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a third party research and advocacy organization based in Alabama.

Guidestar initially introduced the labels to warn potential donors that they might be donating to known hate groups. The 46 organizations are a small fraction of GuideStar’s total 1.7 million listings and include the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, two Christian groups that oppose abortion and same-sex marriage; the Center for Immigration Studies, which wants to reduce immigration to the United States; and alt-right leader Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute.

At least one of the flagged groups, Liberty Counsel, retaliated by asking its Twitter followers to attack GuideStar’s rating on Facebook.

Following months of such harassment, as well as meetings with representatives of those groups and a review of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s methodology, GuideStar CEO Jacob Harold announced Friday that GuideStar would be removing the hate group labels from the site.

The move met with what Harold called some “constructive” criticism online when it was initially rolled out in February, but in recent weeks “the tone shifted towards threatening,” Harold told BuzzFeed News. “There were specific incidents that really scared us as an organization.” For example, at a recent conference, an employee working at a GuideStar booth was harassed over the hate group issue in person, Harold said.

Harold told BuzzFeed News that most GuideStar employees are supportive of his decision, though he acknowledged that some oppose it. One current employee who spoke with BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity described feeling frustrated with the situation.

"Given the extremely rapid turnaround of GuideStar's position after media attention, I believe that GuideStar changed their stance because of intimidation,” this person said. “I am disappointed that threats are now an effective means of changing the stance of a nonprofit leader like GuideStar."

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, SPLC spokesperson Wendy Via said the SPLC “appreciate[s] that GuideStar will continue to provide information as to whether the organizations they rank are designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At a time when hate groups increasingly present a mainstream veneer, the public deserves such information.”

GuideStar will still tell users upon request which nonprofits have SPLC hate group designations. Assisting in that effort is independent coder Tom MacWright, who built a Chrome extension that reinstates the SPLC hate group warning on all 46 flagged organizations.

Concerns over objectivity were also a factor in Guidestar’s call to remove the labels. After meeting with some of the flagged groups’ leaders, Harold said he’s not sure that all 46 of the nonprofits in question should be considered hate groups. “We didn't find all of their arguments convincing, but you meet people and you understand nuances you hadn't caught at first,” he said.

For example, he said an organization’s designation as a hate group could be based on language or statements from the past that have since been softened. Or, in another instance, an organization that reprinted a hateful statement from an individual not employed by them might argue that the hate group designation is unfair.

“It’s an indication that they keep unsavory company, but does it make them a hate group?” Harold said. “I didn’t come away thinking hate groups were angels by any sense, but the question of whether 100% of the 46 deserve the title ‘hate group’ — that’s a really hard question.”

One example Harold gave is the Center for Immigration Studies, the founder of which recently defended his organization from the label in a Washington Post op-ed. The group circulates an email newsletter which has included links to articles by white nationalists and Holocaust deniers, but does not itself support those agendas, Politifact found. Ultimately, Harold felt the designation was more subjective than he’d initially realized. “We’re all going to draw the line as to what’s a hate group in different ways,” he said.

Another factor in Harold’s decision to pull the labels was GuideStar’s desire to remain neutral. GuideStar has over 8 million individual users, and it could alienate many of them if they perceived it to be partisan. “We had the benefit of being seen as not engaged in the political polarization that I would argue is haunting our country right now,” said Harold. “We were proud of the fact that organizations across the political spectrum were engaged with GuideStar.”

Harold said the removal of the hate group labels is a temporary decision. GuideStar may reinstate the labels on some groups, especially if the SPLC is able to share more information with the public about why certain organizations are labeled as hate groups, and provide guidelines for how those organizations can expunge their records. The two groups are continuing to work together on the issue. “Removing the flags isn’t a final decision,” he said.

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