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- [00:00]
Nader Mehrabi
AI has the potential to transform the medical industry as we know it. Join NYU Langone Health at the break to hear from Nader Mehrabi, the organization's chief digital and information officer, about how the healthcare system is using this powerful technology to improve care.
- [00:16]
Victoria Craig
Hey, TNB listeners, before we get started, heads up. We're going to be asking you a question at the top of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now we want to know more about you and what you like about the show and what more you'd like to hear from us. So our question this week is what are some ways you'd like to hear us tell stories on the show? Casual chats, Listener Q&As, what about special series or deep dives? If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description or you can send us an email to tnbsj.com now onto the show. Welcome to Tech News briefing. It's Monday, May 19th. Hi, I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. The next front in cancer treatment, it's electric. Then the old adage, if it's too good to be true, it probably is is hitting close to home for some of Meta's social media users. We'll take a look at how criminals have flooded Instagram and Facebook and why some employees say the company has been reluctant. But first, electricity has been used for years in medicine in devices like pacemakers and through treatment options like electroconvulsive therapy, which has helped people with serious mental illnesses when other treatments have failed. Now scientists are finding new ways to harness the power of electricity to treat some forms of cancer and other illnesses. WSJ health reporter Briana Abbott joins me to talk more about this. Briana, what are some of the new ways electricity is being deployed in medicine?
- [01:57]
Briana Abbott
A lot of researchers are looking at this across different treatments and mortality types. There are some that are working on tiny pacemakers for newborn infants. They're also looking at expanding the tumor treating fields into various different cancer types. And so there are studies looking at it in different ways. There, there are folks trying to use it in mental health. So yeah, there's definitely lots of opportunities going forward to figure out how to redeploy electricity for medical uses.
- [02:22]
Victoria Craig
And you spoke with someone who was recently diagnosed with a kind of brain cancer who uses an FDA approved device that uses electricity to treat his glioblastoma alongside standard chemotherapy. So just walk us through how this kind of treatment actually works.
- [02:38]
Briana Abbott
Tim Nougat, who is the patient that I spoke to, he is currently on a treatment called a tumor treating field invented by this company called NovaCure. And basically what the tumor treating fields are is they're adhesive patches with sort of electrodes in them, puts them on his head, and those patches deliver alternating electric fields. And what those fields do is essentially they take advantage of the natural sort of electrical properties of cancer cells because all cells have electrical properties to them. And there's actually electrical forces that are involved in cellular division. And so the idea there is if you use the fields to interrupt the cellular division, specifically in those cancer cells, you can slow their kill them.
- [03:26]
Victoria Craig
So for people who are listening, you had an example about a medical device for rheumatoid arthritis. Can you describe what that feels like to wear it?
- [03:35]
Briana Abbott
This is also currently in clinical trials. And so the idea is that there is this nerve called the vagus nerve and it helps communicate electrical signals throughout your body. And some of the signals that it measures is also inflammatory. And so basically it regulates key proteins that can increase or decrease the level of inflammation in your body. And if you have too much inflammation, that can results in essentially some autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. And so the idea is if you can use electric pulses to slow down that process, you can hopefully reduce inflammation and treat some of these symptoms. And that device is implanted into your neck and basically it sends for a minute a day electrical stimulation down that nerve. And most of the time it happens when patients are sleeping, but you can also feel like a tingle in your throat or maybe a mild cough.
- [04:28]
Victoria Craig
That was WSJ health reporter Brianna Abbott. Coming up, an epidemic of scams. We'll talk to our tech reporter about Meta's battle with online criminals. That's after the break.
- [04:46]
Nader Mehrabi
Although AI has only recently emerged as a transformational technology, NYU Langone has been laying the foundation for its application for years. Chief Digital and Information Officer Nader Murabi explains.
- [04:59]
Nader Murabi
We've always been forward looking. We actually started back in 2017. We just wanted to learn and create deeper knowledge about AI. And of course, we fast forward when generative AI burst in the market, we are much more prepared to take advantage of our patient.
- [05:22]
Victoria Craig
Online fraud is not a new phenomenon, but it is growing increasingly common on social media, particularly on Meta platforms, Instagram and Facebook, where fake giveaways, faux puppies and phony ads have lured customers into money grabbing traps. WSJ tech reporter Jeff Horwitz has been digging into this. Jeff, for this story, you've spoken with regulators and banks and you've reviewed internal documents for Meta. But first tell us about Edgar Guzman, a business owner who's been fighting off scammers that have tried to steal from from his own would be customers.
- [05:54]
Jeff Horwitz
Eddie runs a company called Half Off Wholesale, and as the name implies, they are a budget, high volume kind of discount retailer. They have a massive warehouse full of stuff and you know, they're not looking to sell you one of them. Kind of like large scale wholesale retail operation.
- [06:13]
Victoria Craig
And so Eddie has been getting a lot of very angry customer calls recently. Why?
- [06:19]
Jeff Horwitz
It turns out that pallets of goods and pictures of pallets of goods that are for sale are really great for scam advertising. You know, we're talking like a pallet of power tools for like $29 or, you know, mystery boxes of Amazon returns for $1. So like a whole bunch of scam ads began popping up a year and a half ago back basically claiming to be Half Hop Wholesale or by other businesses that were claiming his physical address.
- [06:49]
Victoria Craig
And it's so interesting you've got some data in here about that. You say that a search of Meta's ad library showed more than 4,400 different ads listing his address, but only 15 of those ads were actually from him, ones that he actually put up.
- [07:05]
Jeff Horwitz
The irony is that Eddie does not sell any goods online himself. Like no online sales whatsoever. You come into the warehouse and you prank a purchase. The thing is, though, that other accounts that were pretending to be him or businesses like his were kind of stealing his company's credibility to offer deals that were in some cases a little too good to be true. I don't think it's heavily hindering his business, but I think he feels really bad for the people who call in, you know, wondering where their goods are that are obviously never going to show.
- [07:38]
Victoria Craig
And you've spoken to sources inside Meta, which is where a lot of these scams are happening for Eddie, and combed through data and research on this problem and you found that this is a scam that's become particularly prevalent on Meta platforms. Why is that?
- [07:52]
Jeff Horwitz
Well, a lot of scams have become prevalent on Meta platforms internally and externally. There is kind of a growing understanding that Meta's platform is kind of a cornerstone of online fraud. Now, that doesn't mean that the entire act of fraud occurs on that platform, but that this is basically where you can recruit victims and that the penalties for when scam advertisers do get caught are pretty minimal. And Meta has known about this and there have been some internal warnings urging that maybe they should take this more seriously in the age of crypto crime and generative AI scams.
- [08:32]
Victoria Craig
It's interesting, Jeff, because you mentioned in your story that current and former employees of Meta told you that the company is reluctant to add any roadblocks for ad buying clients who drove a 22% increase in the company's advertisement bid business last year to more than $160 billion. I'm curious what Meta says it's doing or wants to do or is thinking about doing to try to crack down on these scams. Is there like an internal policy to regulate this in some way?
- [09:00]
Jeff Horwitz
Let's start with what Meta is doing. Meta has started doing more facial recognition stuff to prevent, like celebrity scams in which a celebrity says, hey, come buy my new cryptocurrency or things like that. That said, there are some concerns about whether or not the platform is adequately resistant to scams. One internal document that I have seen indicates that Meta will give accounts that are known to have attempted to perpetrate financial fraud. It will give them between eight and up to 32 strikes for attempting to rip people off.
- [09:37]
Victoria Craig
Meta told the Wall Street Journal that last year it took down more than 2 million accounts linked to organized fraud. Oper and nearly 70% of advertiser accounts shut down were caught within a week of their creation. Has Meta said anything else to you about this story?
- [09:53]
Jeff Horwitz
Meta has pointed to the rise of transnational criminal syndicates as something that is a problem for everyone in the industry and that to some degree there is a point meaning, like, look, Meta, you know, can't just like refer to local police. And they also say that they have been putting more resources into this problem. One thing that caught my eye was that one document indicates a few years back they actually deprioritized scam enforcement quite significantly. They were focusing on human trafficking and on a few other problems, but the resources came out of the expense of their anti scam work. And they say that they are sort of making newer, greater efforts at this point.
- [10:34]
Victoria Craig
That was WSJ tech reporter Jeff Horwitz. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
- [10:51]
Nader Mehrabi
For hospitals, determining where to invest AI resources is critical. Here's NYU Langone's Nader Warabi.
- [10:58]
Nader Murabi
Again, the way we use AI here is really grounded. Can we improve the quality care with AI? Can we make care delivery safer and can we make care delivery efficient? And lastly, can we improve the patient experience using AI? Every project, I should think we should say, does it meet one or more of those criteria?
- [11:18]
Nader Mehrabi
To learn more about healthcare innovation at NYU Langone health, please visit nyulangone.org Custom content from WSJ is a unit of the Wall Street Journal Advertising Department. The Wall Street Journal News Organization was not involved in the creation of.