Summary
Highlights
Astro Teller welcomes listeners to a new season of 'The Moonshot Podcast,' focusing on turning 'what-if' questions into real-world impact. Healthcare is highlighted as a $5 trillion industry in the US facing rising costs, provider shortages, and data explosion. X (the Moonshot Factory) has been exploring solutions to these problems.
Kathryn Zealand and Anna Roumiantseva from the Skip team introduce MO/GO, a product designed to provide a physical boost for walking, described as an 'e-bike for walking.' Kathryn explains her personal motivation, inspired by her grandmother's declining mobility and the impact on her social and mental well-being, aiming to create a solution for navigating daily life and community.
Kathryn initially sought non-robotic solutions but user feedback led to powered, hands-free, wearable devices that don't feel like medical devices, integrating into daily life. Anna details the active assistance provided by MO/GO, where a motor at the knee helps with movements like going uphill or standing up, feeling like a gentle push. Initial prototypes were clunky and the goal was to avoid making people feel like 'slow robots.'
Kathryn explains the importance of intuitive controls using on-body sensors and AI to differentiate between various movements. She describes a challenging goal set for the team: racing up the Salesforce Tower, the tallest tower on the US West Coast. This goal, proposed to overcome metrics that were not easily understandable, required the team to optimize hardware for fast movement and integrate all components, pushing for a world-record time.
Anna discusses the crucial partnership with Arc'teryx, a clothing brand known for building weight-bearing apparel, to improve the comfort and aesthetics of the device. Kathryn reflects on X's 'kill criteria' process, acknowledging that while initial assumptions (like needing soft actuators as fabric) proved challenging, the core problem (enabling comfortable mobility) was worth pursuing by re-evaluating the solution.
Kathryn explains Skip's approach to tackling two different markets—mildly mobility-challenged individuals and Parkinson's patients. Despite different hardware (hip device for Parkinson's), they leverage shared actuator designs, chips, and a common software-data collection layer, customizing controls through AI for varied needs, effectively de-risking the vision.
Astro Teller tries an early Skip prototype on a steep incline. He describes feeling a tug from the device, assisting his legs. When Kathryn turns off the assistance, Astro immediately feels the difference, likening it to being pulled backward. This hands-on experience highlights the product's effectiveness.
Will Biederman discusses Project Iris, aimed at non-invasively monitoring glucose using smart contact lenses. The mission was to provide greater access to glucose information for millions suffering from or at risk of Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, which are reversible through lifestyle changes. The project explored whether glucose in tears correlated with blood glucose levels.
Will explains the components integrated into the contact lens: an antenna for wireless power and communication, a system-on-chip for computation, and an electrochemical sensor with glucose oxidase. The initial challenge involved needing to wear glasses for wireless power, which presented user experience and reliability issues, especially as eye movement would interfere with the antenna's power reception.
To overcome the limitations of external power, Iris developed incredibly tiny batteries (1x1mm, 100 microns thick, 1 microamp hour capacity) to be integrated directly into the contact lens. Astro is shown an actual prototype contact lens, highlighting the minuscule components including the battery, sensor, and compute chip, barely visible without magnification.
Will reveals a significant pivot: the technology developed for the contact lens was repurposed for Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs). At the time, CGMs were invasive, expensive, and carried stigma. Iris's technology platform, initially developed for the eye, proved equally effective when integrated with commercial glucose sensors on the upper arm, leading to the development of devices like the Dexcom 7, now widely used.
Will envisions future CGMs enabling insights into metabolic health for a broader population, not just diabetics, promoting proactive, preventative healthcare. He sees wearable sensing platforms expanding beyond glucose to other biomarkers, and technology facilitating more at-home care, citing Liftware (a spoon for tremor patients) as another example of humanizing robotics.
Stephen Gillett, CEO of Verily, discusses their mission to bring 'precision healthcare to everybody every day.' He highlights the problem of healthcare data being siloed behind institutional firewalls (hospitals, clinics) and inaccessible to individuals. Verily Me, an app, addresses this by acting as a medical provider to legally request and consolidate a user's entire medical history with their consent.
Stephen explains how Verily Me allows users to access their fragmented medical data, leveraging AI (named Violet) to have private conversations about their health query. For example, asking about blood sugar, medication interactions, or preparing questions for a doctor's visit. Verily emphasizes careful guardrails for its AI, ensuring it provides information based on personal data and defers to emergency services for critical symptoms.
Stephen believes the industry will eventually reach 'full autonomous care,' though medical data privacy remains a hurdle for general AI. The underlying platform, Verily Pre, is a 'purpose-built hyperscaler for healthcare data,' designed to process and understand vast amounts of medical information securely and at scale, making it available to individuals and the broader healthcare industry. He suggests public-private partnerships will be key to achieving this vision, particularly in bringing advanced care to underserved populations.
Astro concludes by reflecting on the many pivots and challenges faced by these moonshots. He draws an analogy to anti-lock brakes, where complex technology works seamlessly in the background. Skip, Iris, and Verily all aim for this 'seamless integration' into daily life, allowing individuals to benefit from advanced technology without needing to understand its complexities. He previews the next episode on using biology (plants) for humanity's future.