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by haldujai 4 days ago
> technically I don't need the doctor

That’s the goal for doctors too. It would be great to get simple things off the system.

But I think the more realistic intermediate step is a trained person cheaper than a doctor - nurse, PA, etc - aided by AI. The current generation of agentic AI doesn’t seem to be there yet and is too agreeable from RL.

“you’re probably fine sleep it off combined with: drink more water, eat healthier, exercise more, sleep better, consume less alcohol and quit smoking/vaping” +/- “we’ll check some labs to make sure” is the correct answer for probably 95%+ of encounters so it’s not hard for an automated system to handle most simple things, even without AI.

1 comments

Is it really the goal for doctors? I don't believe it. They run an exclusive protectionist racket.

See https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/this-state-is-testing...

Title: This state is testing out AI doctors—and actual doctors aren’t happy about it (Wall Street Journal)

New York state residents get the worst of it with the state bending over backwards to take away the people's rights.

Also, let's not confuse independence with AI. Independence is where I can do some extra bloodwork and diagnostics to satisfy my well-being. I don't need an AI limiting what I investigate either.

1. Having concerns over unvetted AI is not the same thing as running an exclusive protectionist racket.

2. Doctors who depend on revenue from forced visits to renew prescriptions are grifters and not close to a majority. The profession obviously isn’t perfect but the vast majority of physicians I know would be happy to lighten their rosters.

With that said it can’t be a system that creates problems and dumps them back on physicians to fix, hence #1

Point #1 is nonsense because the ratio of problems eliminated to those created will be easily be 99:1. I estimate this ratio is closer to 50:50 for human doctors.

Ultimately, it should be about personal freedom. This is not a contagious disease we're dealing with here.

It’s called evidence based medicine for a reason. Medicine has long since moved away from making decisions based on whether a person thinks it will be better.

> Ultimately, it should be about personal freedom. This is not a contagious disease we're dealing with here.

The state regulates health and medical devices for a reason. Look at what’s happening with all of these prescription mill apps these days which are still theoretically overseen by a licensed healthcare professional - plenty of medical errors and harm in the name of increasing access (a good thing, when done well). We’ll see criminal investigations within a year.