Aella and company want to put GM bacteria in your mouth
Lantern
“ We have unusually strong marketing connections; Vitalik approves of us; Aella is a marketing advisor on this project; SlateStarCodex is well aware of us. We are quite networked in the Effective Altruism space. We could plausibly get an Elon tweet. ”
From the short investor spiel document. Also they want to just bypass the FDA?
Ok, read their actual pitch. Lmao they think that a one time introduction of a GMO bacteria strain is going to 'just work' because they've also GMO'd it to outcompete other bacteria?
There's a reason we aren't running our cars on yeast-produced gasoline. No matter how awesome your tuned microbe is, it's still subject to mutation and natural selection. If your beneficial changes aren't actually helping it survive, they will not be conserved. And those 'competitive' changes you jacked it up with to make sure it dominates the environment? Well, that might end up horizontally transferred into something you don't like.
About the right amount of 'we humans are smarter than dumb biology' metal-fetishism I'd expect from the folks concerned.
My brother in Dawkins, you literally are biology.
Broke: contemporary dentistry
Still broke: putting GM bacteria in your mouth to prevent cavities
Woke: examining your teeth for cavities before and after licking interesting objects found in nature and getting bonus nootropics out of it
They might have good connections in the EA space, but HN doesn't seem to be bowled over:
HN: Just rinse out your mouth with water after eating and no cavities. Dentists hate this one weird trick.
The periodontal stuff is very important to think about . The fact it says nothing about that is alarming.
Buried in the google drive is a note that this does not remove the need for brushing teeth, but it just notes that not doing that will give you bad breath.
In fact I believe that this is the true cause of this not being a product - people will still need to brush their teeth for other reasons than preventing cavities. If brushing teeth correctly currently lessens the risk of both caries and periodontal disease, having a shot that removes the risk of caries could conceivably mean less conscientious tooth care, which increases the risk of gum problems.
I’m not sure if this is serious or just another investment scam.
I've seen a similar idea presented by non-commercial/anarchist bio hackers, so this does sound plausible.
the person behind it appears to be a "Jeffrey D Hillman", and this appears to be the first round: https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-DE004529-10
probably worth someone digging into that to see what else may surround the person
from the "Safety Review and FAQ" document:
Will this spread to everyone I kiss? It’s very unlikely in non-immunocompromised adults. However, if you’re concerned, you should avoid kissing anyone taking oral antibiotics, or children.
"sure let's just casually become a walking science experiment and then thinking to first ask whether the other person is taking oral antibiotics. oh and children, because mouth-kissing children is perfectly normal to me, the author of this document"
this was from just like 2min of glancing at this mess so far and fucking what
a hit on Aaron Silverbook, and the details are enough to make me guess this is them: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17629744.Aaron_Silverbook
Microbes in my mouth that produce ethanol instead of acid? You are all wrong here, this is ideal. I'm sure it's 100% safe to have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-brewerysyndrome but only in your mouth. Make sure to wash your mouth out with everclear whenever you brush, just to be safe.
It makes for a funny yuri manga premise.
@alternativefactor @saucerwizard
'Tisn't safe for me. Incompatible with my prescription medication.
Furthermore, we don't have to worry about regulatory slapdown if we sell it as a medical tourism product in, say, Próspera. We could brand this as a secret medical treatment for the super-elite, like Peter Thiel's StemcenterX or Minicircle's regenerative medicine hub, and charge $20,000 a dose.
Why is this option A?
I mean, the clear answer is because it's not going to work. We all know that but I think it's worth spelling out.
If they thought they could actually make it work they wouldn't need to do any of this. They'd sell it to p&g and retire instantly.
$20,000 and a trip to Honduras seems pricey for some bacteria, but maybe they can package it with other ... services ...
lol, the Patient Funded Trial scam
A variant of this organism was first created in 1985, and volunteers deliberately inoculated themselves with the modified strain. This has, to our knowledge, caused no ill effects since.
Who needs the FDA when you have vague hunches?
Some nice sneer:
I can understand Aella wanting to fund a project so she never has to brush her teeth again
Probably also heavily interested in Never Take a Shower Again research
https://nitter.net/nunyabeeswaxfed/status/1705695595413790814
Effective Altruits are a good marketing demographic to target I suppose. Gullible and wealthy.
Now I want Shark Tank but it’s all treacles luminaries. Wait that’s just the VC scene in silicon valley. Never mind
Ok I figured out how to salvage it. People come on and pitch sensible business ideas that get shot down. We’d also get quotes like:
Aella: “If I take on an advisory role, will I be required to shower?”
Pinker: draws line up and to the right on graph “This problem is already as good as solved. I don’t see why any action on my part is necessary.”
EY: “You do not think in sufficient detail, and for that reason, I’m out.”
Watch me bring them something unnecessarily overcomplicated that boosts their ego to win all of the money.
A micropayment platform designed to integrate with long form textual content. The subscribers will be able to vote with their wallets on the topic they wish the CONTENT_CREATOR to cover.
But there's a game theoretic twist. The final price of each vote will be discounted based on the share of votes it received, so if you vote for the winning option, your votes will end up costing less. This encourages strategic voting based on what would be the most interesting topic to the largest share of subscribers, incentivizing subscribers to maximize for total utility instead of just their own interests.
Additionally, below a certain threshold of share the votes will be free of charge. This is to encourage heterodox views and foster engagement with unconventional interests that would otherwise be risky to vote for.
The cutoff for the free Complimentary Contrarian's Votes will be determined by a prediction market running in parallel with the vote.
The winning votes will become investments into the post, binding the CONTENT_EXCRECATOR to CREATE_THE_CONTENT and based on some configurable metric (post score, ad revenue etc.) the investment will accrue dividends, which the subscriber can cash out to a charitable organization. However, this can only be done once per publication per subscriber, meaning the subscriber should wait for the investment to accumulate before cashing in. A global high score will show the subscribers who have cashed in the largest amount in donations and their voting power will be increased in proportion to their score.
I want 15% equity and a public live stream session of the AI box game with Yud where I roleplay as the shittalking French knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
okay what's with the showering thing? second reference I see to that now
At least the people on Shark Tank sometimes bring in cool or entertaining prototypes. Your version would be just slide decks of fintech, vaporware and things that already exist but with a subscription model slapped on.
this doesn't sound terribly bad, and might be actually beneficial if it works, but i'll wait for FDA approval
it's definitely the kind of thing that probably needs a whole lot more eyes on it than the gung-ho rats would be willing to give it
Synthetic biology as a field is in its infancy. It's coming along fast and the possibilities are absurdly endless, but it's hard to overstate how complex of a problem this really is.
The idea that it'll magically outcompete the rest of your extremely diverse, hyper complex, and largely beneficial mouth biome alone with just one treatment and no maintenance immediately shows it as a scam. We aren't there yet.
When somebody wants to put bacteria in my mouth, hearing Aella is involved definitely makes me more likely to hop on board.