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Answers about PerSci, the personal-science service at persci.app, and the PerSci bot.
PerSci, short for personal scientist, answers questions about you from your own data. Your wearables, workouts, sleep, glucose and health logs already hold thousands of clues. PerSci analyses them to find out what actually affects you: one person, treated as an experiment of one.
PerSci is run by William Jarrold, PhD (aka Bill), a data scientist. Most recently he was a Senior Staff Data Scientist at The Trade Desk. Before that he worked at Samsung's AI lab, at Nuance (now part of Microsoft) and at SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute).
He holds a BS in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He has published at major AI conferences and in journals. Bill on LinkedIn.
Bill waited years for someone else to build it, and nobody did. So he built it himself. He wanted one picture of all his data, not one app per tracker. He wanted an easy, conversational way to log what his wearables can't measure. And he wanted help building the right habits, and a way to measure whether they stuck. That last part is the PerSci bot. He is also one of PerSci's clients: the "Bill" in the investigations on this site.
Any time you have to decide what to do, and your own data could help you decide. For example:
A medical decision is still yours and your doctor's: PerSci tells you what your data shows, so you can take it to them.
A dashboard shows you one device's numbers. PerSci answers the question you asked, across all your sources at once, such as your glucose monitor with your work hours, or your Oura ring with your visits to the steam room. Then it tries to prove its own answer wrong before it reports it.
And much of what matters is never measured by a device. Is a mood a number? No way. A mood is often an off-the-cuff rant about what you are feeling, and maybe what set it off, not a carefully chosen word from a list of emotions. With the PerSci bot you just say it.
Before PerSci reports a pattern, it tries to break it. Does it show up in both halves of your data, or only in one stretch? Does a single unusual month carry the whole effect? Could the arrow point the other way? Is the supposed cause really a sign of an off day, like skipping coffee because you were ill? The tests themselves are exact or permutation tests, which suit small, messy, day-by-day data, and they are corrected for how many things were tried. A result that fails is reported with what killed it, and "nothing there" is reported too, not hidden.
No. PerSci is not a medical provider, and nothing on this site or from the PerSci bot diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents any condition. An analysis describes patterns in one person's own data, and a pattern is not proof of cause. Talk to your doctor before changing a medication, a treatment, your diet or your training. See the full disclaimer.
The PerSci bot is a chat bot on Telegram. You send it a plain message in English and get on with your day. It keeps what you tell it, and it comes to you rather than waiting to be asked.
It is not for long conversations about anything under the sun; that is what Claude or ChatGPT are for. Today the bot and the analyses are separate: an analysis works from the data files you send.
You need the Telegram app. The bot is by invitation, for people accepted into the beta: join the waitlist, and once you are in, we send you a link. Setting up takes about five minutes.
Yes. Tracking is a pain. Sometimes you need a nudge. Sometimes you don't want to find an app and fiddle with buttons. Sometimes you just want to say what's happening and be done with it. The PerSci bot is for exactly that: tell it in a message, and it keeps it, and it can remind you so the habit sticks. Once you have some data, PerSci can analyse it.
Exports from the devices and apps you already use, and anything you have logged by hand. PerSci has analysed data from Oura, Apple Health and the Apple Watch, Garmin, Withings, the Strong app, Dexcom and FreeStyle Libre glucose monitors, DEXA scans, MyNetDiary and the Reflections app, as well as hand-kept logs, such as a daily knee diary, and events mentioned in a chat. The data sources page lists each one with what has been built from it. If yours is not on the list, ask.
Your question, and the data that can answer it. For now you send both by email, or, for files too big for email, a shared link (Dropbox or Google Drive, for example). We agree on the question and the data it needs before the analysis starts.
Your data is stored on a server we rent from Amazon Web Services. To produce analyses and the bot's replies, it passes through AI model providers, and messages with the bot travel through Telegram. We do not sell it, and we do not use it for advertising. PerSci is not covered by HIPAA, so please send only your own data. Ask, and we will delete it within 30 days. The details are in the privacy policy.
In the free beta, yes: publishing your analysis is the condition of it being free. It goes up under a codename or a first name you choose, never your surname. You see your page and approve it before it goes public. If you change your mind later, ask, and we take it down, at no charge.
We read your entry and reply by email. If we both want to, we start with a free 30-minute call to define your question and talk through what data to collect. Then we agree on the question and the data it needs, and you send it. Within 3 business days of receiving that data you get your analysis, often sooner. If we both want to, a 30-minute call goes through the results with you. Then you approve your page before it is published.
First we agree on your question and the data it needs. Once you have sent that data, you get your analysis within 3 business days, often sooner.
Your first analysis is free during the beta. The PerSci bot is free for everyone accepted into the beta.
Not decided yet, and we would love your thoughts on how it should be priced: email bill@persci.app.
Email bill@persci.app, or join the waitlist.
PerSci · personal science, one person at a time