Welcome to Real Talk on AI and I care with your host, Dr. Scott Morris. And I'm co host, Dr. Rehan Ahmed.
In each episode, we discuss current news, adding a little AI education, and debate innovative AI tools and topics that will change the industry. All right, so welcome to the show again. We're talking about news of the day or really news of the week's gotten. This one is a super interesting piece because it's at the intersection of AI smart glasses and regulation or the law.
And I'm sure many of you have must have heard it now. We just went into what sort of the news came up broke just a day or so ago. And the news is that effective July 20th, so just in a couple of days, there is a total ban of smart glasses in all the courtrooms in New York. And when I say told, I mean total there's no exception for prescription lenses, no exceptions.
If you're a lawyer or if you really needed it has a camera or a mic and it's a part of smart glasses. It doesn't get past the middle of that there. I have to understand what's what's behind this massive shift because we actually sort of have been here before Scott. So if you went back to early 2000s, third of all courts are locked down hard and when smart phones became really ubiquitous, they sort of move that there was initially a ban there too.
It's interesting to look at the history and not just rack so so suddenly, but we have since moved the pendulum back and now we have sort of a silent and stowed policy and you could bring. You could bring your phone into the courtroom. But if instant you start pulling it out and recording video. And someone sees you, you're definitely in trouble and so that enforcement sort of relies on visibility.
And so this is an issue with smart phones. So smart phones that were the ones we're talking about like the Ray Van Meadows. And they're numbered from brands, but definitely the Ray Van Meadows will definitely most popular ones. And they they can record and of course there's a light on there, but they they can be, you know, they can be.
Yeah, but some of the manufactured not manufactured was some of the secondaries are unlooking the lights. That's right. And the point that I think the court may be making is that the light may be too small for the judge or anyone else to see from the best. So that I guess the thought is that the smartphone compromise, which is kind of like, you know, you store it away and we trust people to follow the rules.
I guess New York and I don't know where I actually come down on this, but New York has decided that smart glasses themselves are inherently untrustworthy. And so they're kind of reverting back to this initial smart phone thing that we talked about earlier that if it's all there if it exists, it's not allowed. But here, this is not a clean comparison right banning a smartphone is maybe inconvenience. And this is where I push back because banning prescription smart glasses could be a physical barrier.
I mean, if you if you're depending on live translation or captioning or hard of hearing, which is, which is really kind of like the really great use cases of smart glasses. It's was creating a lot of it's maybe not fair that they're banning, you know, that they're banning what you have. And so it's got love to get your thoughts on this because this is definitely very. I kind of go back and forth on this.
I mean, I can understand, but I mean, have they banned recording devices over the last decade or so? No, you can go in. I mean, you know, there's just microphones are everywhere right so they have they've been. Have they been banning those?
No, but all of a sudden smart glasses on your phone very easily on in your pocket and it could be recording and no one would be the wise. You know, trust element and of course you if you published it and you definitely get probably it's pretty easy to track. Smart phones is different right in the sense that people can see you doing it and this is kind of in the environment where these glasses as it's mean to all over the internet are called perver glasses right because like there's all these videos of this sort of stuff people using them and appropriately. And so I think and I think we're going through and we definitely talk about this sort of anti AI sentiment, I think right now.
So we're going to talk about a couple months ago, right? I mean, are we in the downward slide, right? I mean, there's that the the trough of enlightenment where we're like, yeah, maybe this isn't as great as we thought it was. But we know that's going to come out of it right I mean we know that we're going to see other side, but you know, I think of this and I go, okay, that's the legal situation right I mean that's what's happening court, but does this serve as a precedence for those bands being extended to other places.
So Wisconsin and. Hospital. Oh, yeah, and the clip in your clinic medical clinics. Yeah, banks.
You know, and certainly other states like I mentioned Wisconsin, Pennsylvania are looking to this so. And definitely other environments, other highly regulated environments. I did. I wonder, I mean, in a world where we're supposed to have transparency.
Didn't this just eliminate the transparency. I would love to come here what our audience thinks about this. So please reach out to us. I think this is.
As you said, I think earlier when we talked today, now we're seeing the guard rails come on. And how this actually works in practice and this is the worst society is going to have to sort of figure we're all sort of figuring this out together. So I'd love to hear whatever one thinks that definitely there is no easy and clear and right answer here. I think.
This is a kind of a negotiation. See how the technology and society both. Well, I think guard rails are being established, whether we choose to make them or not. Then the next question is, will we choose to abide by them and what will be the legal structure to make us abide by them.
Yeah, but definitely something for all our eye care providers to know about this. I'm very grateful to walk in and asking about this. It's good for you to be aware of what's happening. In the court system and hospitals and beyond on sort of the regulated aspect of these medical devices now.
Scott, I know you have a lot of stuff to talk about our knowledge by. I'm really excited to hear about what you have to share with us. Yeah, you know, I've been thinking and we'll talk about this a little bit as we get into more of our podcast. I think we're going to have a lot of people who listen to last week's real talk where we had Carl spear from us or exotic on our show.
I think I'm going to take it one step further in for today's knowledge by we're going to do kind of an update on what machine vision is and I fall into this trap just much anybody else is I think about machine vision as well. I'm helping me see into a retina better, but I think after I watched what was happening at some of the manufacturing plants in Italy, I have a different perspective of a machine vision. So let me kind of explain like this. I mean, ever really wondered how that box of frames shows up at your clinic door every single day.
How it actually gets there flawlessly now maybe in the past, this was, you know, some old school conveyor belt monitored by human eyes and frames and lens were picked out by human hands and then reinserted to do a different box. That that's just that's just doesn't work anymore and in today's manufacturing manufacturing world, you know, we as humans aren't the ones keeping score anymore. It's machine vision and let's explain that was some machine vision uses very high speed cameras and very advanced AI algorithms. There's where a tie in is with the AI to not just inspect, but you know, as we saw in Italy guide verify at I mean, you're talking a bit level in milliseconds.
I mean, modern frame lens frame and lens manufacturing, you know, if the machines alignments even off by a fraction of a millimeter, the system goes, nope, that's wrong and rejects it before ever leaves the factory floor. Are we moving towards a period of greater standardization as we have automation machine vision answers, I think yes, well, why should we all care about that? Well, I mean, if you think about from a clinical perspective, every single friction point your day from, you know, a patient being upset about a delayed back order to, you know, the headaches of returning a warped frame to, you know, I mean, consider the chair costs lost by fixings fixing some manufacturing. Manufacturing flaw.
What if all those didn't happen anymore, or what have they been reduced by 50 60 80% I mean, what how would that affect me you. As peace of mind and profitability. Well, I think as we saw when industrial operations start to run a machine vision, it means that products driving your door are very consistent, very standardized and it protects your clinical reputation. Manufacturers are doing in their manufacturing.
You know shops across the world, it all of this is also affecting or protecting our personal reputation in the clinic, as we now can ensure a patient's getting what they paid for the first time with no real flaws. And that's also not that we think it out affects our operational costs of keeping our staff from wasting hours troubleshooting somebody else's manufacturing mistakes. And so, you know, I think that we saw this is you're talking sub millimeter inspections, I mean, whether acetates caught our titanium's forged machine visions checking this for microscopic structural cracks checks abnormalities, whatever. You know, and then you have the digital fingerprint as frames are sorted, you know, we, I think that was the most mind blowing thing we saw them sorting mean hundreds of frames a second it was insane.
You know, as these frames are sorted automatic optical sorting arms or robotics or reading these laser etch bar codes and structural markers on each individual frame and certain the crack color and size lane in the right box. The right distribution being it been going in the right right box to go to your account, maybe a country away. And in the process, also as what's in a term that we're the other day called zero arrow packaging, you know, so right before the shipping box is even sealed a vision systems cross referencing exactly what that spatial volume is against whatever your digital invoices. And it doesn't match it gets kicked out to a human to go, is this right.
Did we miss something? I think about how that changes industrial production, you know, the takeaway simple, I mean, if we have to embrace the data standard, you know, we're back to that same term, we always use around data, data, data, data, data, you know, I mean, when you open that box tomorrow. Don't look at his inventory, but look it as a let's call it a byproduct of really modernized operational design and flow. I mean, to keep our own team from slipping back into manual high friction routines, you know, our check in our workflows are going to have to soon match that digital precision.
And I think we go into a lot of different things like bar quiz along and stuff, but I think that machine vision isn't just about our clinical ability to perceive something happened in a retina lens or a cornea. It is what's happening on the operational side in terms of frames lenses contacts that just show up at our door and we think, oh, well, that's just the way business is, but the automation, the AI algorithms behind that. Are really quite impressive. And that kind of brings us to our point right now, you know, you know, we're going to talk, I know we had Carl on last week and we talked a lot about what we were experiencing when we were.
Uh, kind of visiting the SL or exotic plants in Italy, but I, I want to hear from you. I mean, and I think you and I've had a lot of feedback on this the last two last weeks since we got back, you know, what, what impressed you most about that trip in terms of. Seeing what AI is doing from a clinical perspective from an operational perspective from a business logistics perspective. What did you get out of that?
I mean, what did you see that was like, wow. So, I think we've talked about this on the value of data. And before the large companies that the representatives of the large companies that listen to us, I think the incumbents have have a structural advantage in terms of the amount of data that they have and the data that they can use. And it's not always clear on how it can be used or you're going to use it and where it's valuable or not and how can help inform your decisions, be they offer, you know, operational decisions and kind of kind of run your business.
Or clinical decisions and how you can sort of help your customers that be they opt out and shop, knowledge is training other types of people along that service line. So what impressed me most was the sheer volume of data that that companies like it, you know, it's just, it's really. Almost like the wilderness on what can be potentially done with that. And so I was really impressed by their analytics, how they sort of think about that.
And I think it's the and the the vertical integration, I think they're clearly that's something that's a lot of interest to sort of large I care provides and just capturing that full journey of. And I'm really looking at the patient from from myopia progression, glasses, contacts, you know, that understanding that entire workflow and the I care provider to. Retinal imaging. And so that is really kind of everything from.
You know, when we got into their away from their labs and we got into their experience center. I think that was one of the big takeaways that everybody was on that trip, you know, I think there was, there was three or four groups there and each group was probably 12 or 14 people from the Americas. And I think the overwhelming feeling was there is so much involved in the experience and we will we we learned a lot about smart glasses kind of we talked to him and our thing but we learned about audio and what the impact of audio is going to be I mean most people who need to have audio enhancement are probably of the age that they also need to wear glasses. And are we is that a model we need to be pursuing we look we want bone conduction we want projection audio we watched you know and and that's taking that are we now going past just the senses of vision into other senses I thought that was impressive right and then you looked at.
You know, from the respective of all the data is going to be captured about a practice like I mean I think about every frame. You know, we can capture data and not just yell, but I mean, you know, other the other big industrial groups like. Or Sean or Safel over whatever I mean they have access into a tremendous amount of data about what frames do we order. When is the peak of the season that they order you know what is distribution like what type of lens is going what types of frames there's so much data out there to tell what consumerism is to show what consumer preferences excuse me are.
I think it was mind boggle I mean as I sat and I thought about this over the last week i'm like you know i'm back in the clinic and I'm seeing patients and i'm like oh my gosh the data trail. That we soon will have access to because we digitized everything is really quite impressive and I think there's lots of things for us to learn good and bad. About what those are I mean I kind of like we did not spike today I mean I think about all the ways that AI algorithms were done to to. I mean they were pretty some tens of thousands of frames a day.
I mean the ability to track every single one of those frames and where they're going and what they're doing and if they're perfect nids they're not. I mean that's AI in the form of what's called old school AI machine vision we talked about but taking that data one step further and go can we see patterns right we see patterns well hey in a geographic area of. Venice are certain frames high and then you go to Milan which is you know the fashion center of the world. And what's happening there and how does that compare to Atlanta Georgia or Dallas Texas or Denver Colorado and what are the timelines of when people say oh these frames are hot these frames are not i mean i think from.
We're going to have access the insights of what should be on our frame board. Are we three months behind Milan are we six months behind Milan i mean i remember when i used to live in Miami and then i moved from Miami to Kansas city and what was hot Miami took three years to get the Kansas city for. Will those consumer habits be more accessible and change the way we look at our frameworks. Maybe so.
Will we see that people who are now using kids who were getting in the stela slens. You know did we know that they were myopic or hyperopic or earlier by what glasses they had. That were the existing before stela slens. I just I think that's it's mind boggling the data trail it's out there on.
We would love to hear from everyone on on these topics please check us out at AI and I care dot AI. And feel free to reach out to us at Scott at COT at AI and I care dot AI and Rihanna are you HN at AI and I care dot AI Scott really interesting fast week. I'm going to talk to you guys again next week. Thank you.
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