This is not at all self-evident to me. How, for example, would you demonstrate product safety (for a diverse variety of products) via a standard template?
Templates not template. I think if you know roughly which bodily systems a product is likely to effect, the questions are not so diverse.
My background is not in question selection (it's ML and webapp programming), but here goes some general question ideas for edible products:
The mandatory questions are intended to give LessWrong / everyone a say in what startups will test their products for -- NOT to provide a 100% guarantee of general safety (the FDA already handles that). We should use these questions to learn about unanticipated side effects.
Research costs money and requires competent people. If it were possible to do meaningful research on the cheap just by reusing the same template, don't you think it would be a very popular opinion already?
I'm hope it will do something akin to what Google Translate did for translation: lower the cost for modest use cases. If you want a high quality translation (poetry) you still need to hire a good translator. However, if you are willing to accept a reasonably good level of translation quality, it's now free.
I agree it's weird that somebody else hasn't noticed. testifiable.com is the closest I've found. I've already spoken with Testifiable founder's and invited them to this thread.
I'm hope it will do something akin to what Google Translate did for translation
There is a critical difference: Google Translate does not guarantee the quality of results and, in fact, often generates something close to garbage. It may produce a "reasonably good level of translation quality" or it may not and that's fine because it made zero promises about its capabilities.
You are planning to set yourself up as a standard of research which means you must generate better than adequate results every single time.
P.S. Oh, and a random thought. What do you think 4Chan will do with your "webapp"? X-)
I'm a LW reader, two time CFAR alumnus, and rationalist entrepreneur.
Today I want to talk about something insidious: marketing studies.
Until recently I considered studies of this nature merely unfortunate, funny even. However, my recent experiences have caused me to realize the situation is much more serious than this. Product studies are the public's most frequent interaction with science. By tolerating (or worse, expecting) shitty science in commerce, we are undermining the public's perception of science as a whole.
The good news is this appears fixable. I think we can change how startups perform their studies immediately, and use that success to progressively expand.
Product studies have three features that break the assumptions of traditional science: (1) few if any follow up studies will be performed, (2) the scientists are in a position of moral hazard, and (3) the corporation seeking the study is in a position of moral hazard (for example, the filing cabinet bias becomes more of a "filing cabinet exploit" if you have low morals and the budget to perform 20 studies).
I believe we can address points 1 and 2 directly, and overcome point 3 by appealing to greed.
Here's what I'm proposing: we create a webapp that acts as a high quality (though less flexible) alternative to a Contract Research Organization. Since it's a webapp, the cost of doing these less flexible studies will approach the cost of the raw product to be tested. For most web companies, that's $0.
If we spend the time to design the standard protocols well, it's quite plausible any studies done using this webapp will be in the top 1% in terms of scientific rigor.
With the cost low, and the quality high, such a system might become the startup equivalent of citation needed. Once we have a significant number of startups using the system, and as we add support for more experiment types, we will hopefully attract progressively larger corporations.
Is anyone interested in helping? I will personally write the webapp and pay for the security audit if we can reach quorum on the initial protocols.
Companies who have expressed interested in using such a system if we build it:
(I sent out my inquiries at 10pm yesterday, and every one of these companies got back to me by 3am. I don't believe "startups love this idea" is an overstatement.)
So the question is: how do we do this right?
Here are some initial features we should consider:
Any placebos used in the studies must be available for purchase as long as the results are used in advertising, allowing for trivial study replication.
Significant contributors will receive:
I'm hoping that if a system like this catches on, we can get an "effective startups" movement going :)
So how do we do this right?