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That’s why we’re training an AI, AUGGI, to analyze poop. And why we need a photo of yours.
Wait, you want my poop?
No, you can keep that. We just want images of your poop. For science.
See, poop is a direct output of the gut. The shape, size, texture, consistency, and frequency can reveal important insights about our overall health—from how well we digest food to whether we’re experiencing symptoms like pain or constipation that could indicate more serious problems.
Why?
Everybody poops. In fact, 79 million people around the world are pooping, right now. But, upwards of three quarters of us aren’t pooping well and live with digestive conditions (sometimes chronic) like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, or irregularity. It’s pretty shitty.
Patients with gut conditions are often asked by their physicians to track how their poop consistency and color change over time. But, this can be burdensome. But, with a large enough database of poop photos, we’ll be able to train an AI, auggi, to learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy poop, automate symptom tracking and analysis, and help change the future of gut health and patient care.
When auggi is smart enough, we’ll be able to make its algorithms accessible to those who need it most, as well as researchers who are developing novel therapies. This could mean new digital biomarkers for health and even earlier detection and diagnosis for diseases like colon cancer.
What exactly is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging branch of computer science that is focused on simulating human intelligence using machines. In the case of auggi, we are automating the process of looking at a stool sample, comparing it against the Bristol Stool Scale, and classifying it (from Type 1 to Type 7).
For a doctor or researcher, this task is slow and tedious (and not particularly enjoyable). Thanks to AI techniques like computer vision and machine learning, auggi will be able to take it off their plate, and complete it in a fraction of the time. That will allow doctors and researchers to focus on more meaningful work.
The benefits don’t end there, either. Artificial Intelligence is also capable of recognizing patterns that humans cannot. In the future, this will allow auggi to predict patients’ gut symptoms and make intelligent recommendations that will improve their stool quality—and their overall health.
How will you train auggi?
auggi has already started training with 30,000 clay models of poop. Now it’s time to put its algorithms to the test, and refine them—with real photos of real poop from real humans. That’s where you come in. We need to collect as many poop photos from as many diverse humans as possible, so auggi can learn faster, smarter, and better.
Who will see my photo? Is my data safe?
We take privacy very seriously and your data will not be shared. When you submit your photo, it will be stripped of all identifying information and passed on anonymously to auggi. While we hope you’ll be proud to tell the world that you contributed to science, no one needs to know if you don’t want them to.
You can learn more about privacy here.
But, ew, poop!
Resist the conditioning! Strip away the stigma and recognize poop for what it is—water, undigested food, bacteria, and one of the most visible biomarkers of your gastrointestinal and overall health. Poo shouldn’t be taboo—so help us normalize these important conversations around our health.
Can I do this more than once?
Yes, of course! The more poop photos, the better. : )
I don’t poop well. How can I learn more about this?
First things first, you’re not alone. Far from it, in fact. An estimated 74% of Americans deal with digestive issues, and some 68 million live with chronic constipation. Finding a “one size fits all” remedy is difficult, in large part because we’re all unique in how our gut interacts with our lifestyle choices.
Fortunately, personalized solutions are on the way. In addition to building a first-of-its-kind AI, auggi is building a digital companion to reinvent patient care for those struggling with gut issues. They’re currently piloting this with a select group of patients—to do everything from poop and symptom tracking to structured self-experiments from your home that seek to answer questions like ‘do apples make me bloated?’ Learn more.
Seed develops applications of bacteria to improve human and planetary health. Learn about our first product for humans (hint: it helps you poop). | auggi is a digital companion that uses the power of data and artificial intelligence to help you manage gut health. Learn more about how auggi could help you. |
C:\>_
PROCESSING TOILET BOWL
SCANNING FOR BIOLOGICAL SAMPLE
BOOTING SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS
LAUNCHING AUGGI.AI
+------------------------------------WARNING!-------------------------------------+
┆ ┆
┆ The initialization of auggi.ai prepares MS-DOS 6.22 to run poop diagnostics on ┆
┆ the contents of your toilet bowl. Complete setup of auggi.ai requires the ┆
┆ installation of citizenscience.exe... ┆
┆ ┆
┆ Would you like to install citizenscience.exe? Y / N ┆
┆ ┆
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
citizenscience.exe successfully installed.
Reading auggi.ai initialization file...
Searching for poop driver...
Poop driver missing. Diagnostics Module Loaded: C:\auggi\diagnostics\poopdriver.dll
Poop driver installed.
auggi.ai installation complete. To run auggi.ai, press ENTER.


In 2019, we launched #GiveAShit, a community science initiative that created the world’s largest database of stool images and destigmatized conversations around poop and gut health.
People from around the world submitted tens of thousands of stool photos, which are being used to train auggi, an AI-algorithm for real-time stool characterization.