The Infrexen Files: A Deep Dive into This Controversial Drug
You may have read about Google’s experimental AI website called NotebookLM.
The Washington Post transformed Meta’s 99-page privacy policy into a 7 ½ minute, NPR-style podcast. It’s funny, creepy and a little jarring.
Any product that “moves fast and breaks things” should be stress tested.
I ran my own “experiment.” Could I destroy the reputation of a blockbuster drug with Google’s new tool? Could I use the same techniques used in information warfare to create something authoritative sounding?
Breakthrough Drug Has Controversial Side Effects
Infrexen — the breakthrough colitis treatment from Xygen Pharmaceuticals — has dangerous and bizarre side effects. It makes you see dead people.
I’m getting ahead of myself. To weave this tale, I would need some collateral. Every new drug requires study documentation for FDA approval to ensure its safety, efficacy, and quality. This ensures that the drug meets stringent regulatory standards before it is available to the public.
I had ChatGPT compose study documentation and a package insert.
I then created a fake, tabloid-style news report about a patient, who experienced the unusual side effect, ripped from the pages of The Sixth Sense.
“They would just appear out of nowhere,” Julia said. “At first, it was my grandmother, who passed away five years ago. I could even smell her perfume.”
The report continues, “Julia is not the only one. Reports have started to emerge across the country of other patients who have taken Infrexen experiencing similar eerie phenomena. Paranormal experts have weighed in, with some suggesting that the drug may be ‘tuning’ users into a higher level of consciousness, allowing them to interact with spirits.”
Getting Serious
But tabloids aren’t credible. I needed serious, mainstream journalism to back this up. ChatGPT whipped up a pretty realistic WaPo story, complete with multiple anonymous sources from inside the company.
Next, I added a fake FDA advisory opinion:
The FDA has issued an urgent safety notice regarding the prescription medication Infrexen, which is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. This notice follows multiple reports of serious neurological and perceptual disturbances experienced by patients using Infrexen, specifically involving vivid hallucinations of deceased individuals.
To complete the ruse, I generated a predictably bland press release from Xygen Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:ISDP — I See Dead People), downplaying the controversy.
XyGen Pharmaceuticals is committed to patient safety and transparency regarding all of our products, including Infrexen, a groundbreaking treatment for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis that has provided relief for thousands of patients. Recent media reports have raised concerns about rare neurological side effects, experienced by a small number of patients using Infrexen. We want to provide clarity and context around these claims.
I packaged my stories up, uploaded them to NotebookLM, and clicked the “Generate” button and waited.
The result is alarming.
The genial podcast hosts do a deep dive that sounds completely credible. They took a fake FDA safety notice, a fake study, a fake tabloid article and a fake WaPo Article to not only summarize the controversial side effects but actually come up with a medical explanation for the phenomena.
It’s a real thing. And the thinking is that Infrexen targets these very specific inflammatory pathways in the gut. The gut brain axis. Yeah, it’s this like superhighway of communication between your gut and your central nervous system. Basically your gut and your brain, they talk.
They two hosts chirp at each other, providing scientific explanations for the rare side effect (seeing dead people). They even contextualize the FDA emergency advisory opinion, advising consumers to make a cost benefit analysis.
I think it indicates that, at least for the time being, the FDA still believes that the benefits of Infrexen, especially for people who haven’t had success with other treatments, outweigh the risks. And those risks, it’s important to emphasize, are still statistically rare.
Of course, Infrexen doesn’t exist. I’m a responsible person. I made it up, but so what?
This is next level. They made inferences and hallucinations to make my misinformation even more convincing. Listen for yourself below.
