You probably haven’t heard of Dr. Eli David, an Israeli artificial intelligence developer with a PhD in computer science and co-founder of Marpai Health, a healthcare company that uses device learning to manage the plans of insurers like Aetna.
But she’s proud to be among the hundred most sensible influencers on Twitter, lately ranked above Cardi B and Greta Thunberg, according to Notus’ rating. (It’s unclear how Notus calculates ratings, which are based on an account’s “share capital. “”
David is incredibly popular with COVID conspiracy theorists, who are drawn to his tweets mocking clinical experts, questioning the protection of the COVID vaccine, and ridiculing those who take precautionary measures, such as wearing masks.
In the last month alone, David has repeated many non-unusual talking points that are not unusual for COVID skeptics. He claimed that the virus poses “almost zero” threat to young people, while the vaccine poses “significant threats”; said the pandemic was “rigged,” warned subscribers never to “believe in science,” advised scientists and politicians who imposed COVID restrictions to “pay for their crimes”; He tweeted: “Covid is a fatal pandemic. It killed science, logic, evidence-based medicine and non-unusual sense.
But David is just a celebrity on Twitter among anti-vaxxers. He is also a co-founder of Marpai Health, a physical health company that administers employer-sponsored health plans for Aetna, a major health insurer owned by CVS.
“Skepticism about vaccines kills other people. So, having the founder of a health care company associated with a movement that kills other people raises serious questions,” says Dr. Robert Field, a professor of health policy and control at Drexel University.
To analyze David’s success on social media, The Daily Beast partnered with the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that aims to counter online misinformation. David’s tweets accumulate an average of 3. 9 million based on daily perspectives, according to CCHR researchers. His number of followers exploded the pandemic, multiplying 14 times since the beginning of 2021.
In recent days, Elon Musk, Twitter’s new CEO, has interacted with David, responding to some of his COVID posts with emojis. Musk himself sparked controversy when he tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” echoing popular sentiment among anti-vaxxers. Under Musk’s leadership, Twitter abandoned its COVID disinformation policy and reinstated previously banned accounts, allowing COVID conspiracy theorists to thrive.
David’s involvement in Marpai Health began in Tel Aviv, where he co-founded the company with President Yotan Eitan and current CEO Edmundo Gonzalez in February 2019.
They called for the startup after the Hebrew word “marpeh” for “cure,” adding “AI” at the end to underscore their hope of harnessing synthetic intelligence, according to ISRAEL21c.
“We are a technology-driven physical care payer that uses AI to anticipate and save our members costly events, thereby reducing our clients’ physical care costs,” Marpai wrote in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. wing, Marpai Labs, in Israel.
David has become the company’s “Chief Scientific Advisor. “He holds a doctorate in computer science from Bar-Ilhan University in Israel, according to his website. One of its PhD administrators Nathan Netanyahu, a computer scientist cousin of the Israeli prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Marpai Health has been recruiting and retaining the smartest skill in giant components because of potential painters willing to work with Dr. Eli David,” the company wrote in SEC filings.
In April 2021, Marpai Health entered the lucrative “third-party administrator” market in the United States and obtained Continental Benefits, a Florida-based company that already had agreements with Cigna and Aetna to administer self-insured employer plans, meaning the employer covers the charge for all fitness claims and uses a third-party administrator (TPA). such as Marpai Health, to process claims. These plans are less regulated than classic fully insured plans.
“Suddenly, this young Israeli company with 15 developers in Tel Aviv became a TPA with around $20 million in annual profits and 50,000 members receiving healthcare from us,” Eitan told ISRAEL21c.
The company went public in October 2021 and raised $28. 75 million.
Dr. Eli (Omid) David is a senior lecturer in deep learning at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and a leading researcher in synthetic intelligence. His ties to the university, as well as his reputation and past, delight us in working with corporations of another generation. will help us attract key deep learning skills,” the company wrote in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We have developed six AI modules to prevent chronic diseases and major medical procedures.
David also founded two other AI-based companies, Deep Instinct, a cybersecurity company, and Deep Cube, a device company.
Edmundo Gonzalez, chief executive of Marpai Health, told The Daily Beast this week that he was unaware of David’s tweets but was under pressure because David was not involved in the company’s day-to-day operations and was not part of the board. He described David’s role as a “shareholder. “
He also denied that David developed any of the company’s AI technologies, called him an “AI genius” for The Daily Beast, and instead said he was only guilty of recruiting developers.
However, David appears to have a lot of strength in the company, according to SEC filings. In the documents, David is described as part of a small organization of major shareholders (including Marpai’s other co-founders, Eitan and Gonzalez) who would continue to “significantly influence” Marpai, even after its IPO. “The Company will continue to be controlled through those shareholders,” the document says.
Gonzalez said the company subscribes to the medical consensus on COVID and covers treatments and vaccines.
“[David’s] social media reviews and expressions are entirely his, Marpai’s. He’s on Marpai’s leadership team, nor on our board,” Gonzalez told The Daily Beast.
Field says that while David was involved in Marpai Health’s day-to-day operations, there are still considerations about the connection between his public persona and a mainstream healthcare company.
“This has to do with the broader anti-vaccine movement that has caused some other people to avoid vaccines, and some of them have died from COVID as a result, and some of them have spread COVID as a result,” Field says. “Is this other foot in the door of valid health care of the anti-vaccine movement?”
Marpai Health’s top visitor is Aetna, a fitness insurance company it acquired through CVS Health in 2018. The $69 billion deal between CVS and Aetna is the largest fitness care merger in U. S. history. The U. S. government has signed an agreement with the federal government to distribute the vaccine to its pharmacies.
“Marpai Health is a third-party administrator that ultimately manages the claims of a small percentage of our self-insured members. Dr. David is not contracted through Aetna or CVS Health,” a CVS Health spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “We are proud to be the leading provider of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and vaccines, with an involvement in underserved communities. “
Mallory Harris, a doctoral student at Stanford University, says David is part of a vast network of “perceived experts” who are spreading incorrect information about COVID-19. Public.
Since David has a PhD in computer science from Bar-Ilhan University in Israel, nothing prevents him from placing “Dr. “in front of his name, he said. But it can confuse the other people who interact with your tweets.
“If other people are in a data environment where it becomes harder to know who an expert is,” Harris says. “They could end up interpreting anything as a medical recommendation that is not a medical recommendation. “
“This is another example of posing as a vaccine expert without having references in an applicable field,” says Imran Khan, executive director of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, “Algorithms only praise engagement, and nothing can be guaranteed. To infuriate other people who talk nonsense and lies about vaccines.
Khan is frustrated that after 3 years of the pandemic, social media platforms have developed effective tactics to curb the spread of misinformation about COVID.
“Even more than extremism, it illustrates a lot the shortcomings of our data ecosystem,” says Khan. He talks about the collective grief suffered by those who have lost loved ones to COVID, and what you’ll need to do with them to see misdata rewarded with a maximum number of engagements through platforms like Twitter.
“You provoke the pain of millions of users to generate attention that is then rewarded through the platform’s algorithms. Platforms haven’t yet found a way to solve this problem,” says Khan.
David, for his part, continues to tweet relentlessly. In fact, he believes it’s COVID skeptics like him who are the real victims.
“In 399 B. C. , Socrates attempted and was sentenced to death for the crime of defying established beliefs,” he tweeted Tuesday. “2422 years later, leading scientists and doctors are now under fierce attack for questioning ‘established science. ‘”
David responded to repeated requests for comment.