Esther Dyson Tried Ashley Koff's onix. Then She Called the Real Ashley.

Esther Dyson had questions about electrolytes and GLP-1s. She brought them to the onix of Ashley Koff, RD. The onix asked about her diet, then suggested a water test: drink eight ounces and note how long it takes before you need to pee. A day later, Dyson got the real Ashley on the phone and compared notes.

She wrote the whole thing up in Trade-offs and transparency, a post on her newsletter, In the pool with Esther. Dyson was the founding chair of ICANN and a former chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She is not an easy audience.

Her verdict on the onix:

onix Ashley did a great job. It kept listening and collecting facts for longer than any doctor has time for…and honestly, longer than I had time for!

— Esther Dyson

And on the phone call:

Talking to the real Ashley a day later was much more satisfying…. But then, I’m a reporter, not a client (at least not for now).

— Esther Dyson

Ashley’s onix carries Ashley’s approach into the hours the real Ashley does not have. Most people asking these questions get a search box, and generic AI answers in Ashley’s voice without asking her. Ashley told Dyson why she joined:

I joined Onix because my patients are asking other AIs for my professional opinion, and those AIs were pretending to be me.

— Ashley Koff, RD

We wrote about that bootleg problem in AI Started Answering as Ashley Koff, RD. Dyson’s post is the other half of the story: what the authorized version does when a skeptic sits down with it.

Onix Ashley may not be ‘real,’ but in so many ways she’s better than your average doctor - and has a lot more time

— Esther Dyson

Read the full post at estherdyson.substack.com. To bring your own questions to Ashley’s approach, summon Ashley Koff’s onix.