Mate. You called hospital staff janitors and factory workers that donāt use their brain. I think you need to tone it down a bit here.
Iām saying thatās all that will be left soon. Paying staff that actually needs to use their brains is expensive and inefficient. The routine bits will remain, those are harder to automate and you can pay staff less for doing boring things.
But also I said that because of my severe ADHD, I canāt do boring stuff like that. There need to be problems and I need to come up with solutions, and things need to be done. Like if thereās no visible progress happening towards the end of something, I canāt stay motivated. Since patients need help every single day, something like feeding them is completely mind-numbing to me since I canāt āwinā or ābeatā it. Itās not meaningless, but itās not something Iām mentally capable of staying motivated on. Get me? Like I said, my current line of work is basically the only thing I can do that keeps me motivated by being challenging enough, without requiring a degree.
If you want to know, Iām an MD if it wasnāt obvious
Explains the god complex lol.
I could MAYBE stay motivated as an MD, hopefully that wouldnāt get too boring for me. However, I could never finish the education Iād have to go through. I canāt spend 7 years memorizing stuff, Iāll last maybe one semester.
You said in an earlier comment something about people like me existing in olden times before we had computers. Yes, thatās true. Back in the caveman days, someone like me would probably have been a hunter. Later on, a soldier on the front lines. Something where thereās a chance of dying at any moment, to add at least some excitement. But I donāt really want to be a soldier.
I know the work they do with patients and their families. So while no, I donāt know exactly what you do I still think whatever they are doing is much more meaningful than developing software. Even if it has something to do with special needs.
Itās just a couple of patients and their families at a time though. Like I said, my projects affect thousands at a time usually, at a minimum. But that one was just an example, many of my other projects have been in much less meaningful areas of course. Iām just pointing out that the people writing software that you doctors use, usually touch thousands if not millions of lives, but you seem to think their work is meaningless. Iām also personally responsible for saving a few thousand therapists (PT, OT, SLP) and therapy assistants across the US about 10-30 minutes a day on filling out notes by improving their existing EMR system significantly (it was not great, I can tell you that). Try calculating the impact of that on human lives improved in the long term if every one of those providers can see one more patient per day for an example. How many people might get an initial eval appointment a few days earlier to get started managing their pain since the clinic was able to fit in 5 more patients per day? Could be hundreds, maybe thousands of people a year. Not a single life saved by me, but possibly thousands improved marginally.
Iām just saying itās pretty presumptuous to assume you know how meaningful someoneās work is based on their job title. There are doctors out there helping victims of genocide in Gaza, and there are doctors doing Mar-A-Lago surgeries for rich Trump sycophants. There are software engineers writing medical software and software engineers creating online casinos, surveillance systems, etc.
I also literally never said that those peopleās (that youāre talking about) jobs arenāt meaningful to them, or to the people they interact with. Iām saying I personally canāt find meaning in a job that 1) someone else could also easily do, 2) doesnāt challenge me every single day, 3) is a monotonous grind.
Where am I praising AI? I literally said AI sucks.
You were literally saying itās great that people are losing well-paid jobs:
Good, let āem ruin themselves. We need the people in healthcare and education anyway.
Another thing to consider: When there are 500 applicants for 10 positions at your hospital, theyāre going to fire some of the existing staff because theyāre paid too much and the new people can be paid minimum wage.
After talking to you, Iāve realized why people say doctors develop a god complex. One day when youāre signing off on 300 treatments a day that AI conjured up while barely having time to skim patientsā histories because of horrible KPIs, youāll realize what I mean when I say knowledge work is being destroyed.
LOL god complex? Youāre the one calling people factory workers and janitors and telling me how much better you are than them because your software ātouches peopleā whatever that may be.
Iāve been telling you from the start to stop being so arrogant and that youāre not as special as you think. Might as well just say āno uā and be done with it. Even AI could have thought of that.
Also, where have I ever boasted about myself or my job? Please quote me.
Itās just a couple of patients and their families at a time though. Like I said, my projects affect thousands at a time usually, at a minimum.
Hmm, you were saying god complex?
You were literally saying itās great that people are losing well-paid jobs.
How is that praising AI in any way, shape or form?
You need to challenge yourself cognitively a little more.
Another thing to consider: When there are 500 applicants for 10 positions at your hospital, theyāre going to fire some of the existing staff because theyāre paid too much and the new people can be paid minimum wage.
In the US that might happen. I work in a normal country where health care isnāt run by for-profit hedge funds.
LOL god complex? Youāre the one calling people factory workers and janitors
And you were calling me a fleshy AI lol.
Mate Iām just saying that the jobs you seem to think are so interesting, are pretty fucking boring. Why did you choose to be a doctor? I can guarantee that the nurses do more work than you do. The janitors that have to wash immobile patients, have even harder jobs. And yet for some reason, you didnāt consider that to be an interesting job, despite the fact that itās certainly more personal and meaningful to the patient than yours.
Hmm, you were saying god complex?
Iām just trying to illustrate the point that just because someone isnāt directly interacting with patients, doesnāt mean their work doesnāt affect people. This is that medical worker god complex again. There are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of people whose labor you indirectly depend on to do your job without thinking about it, but since theyāre elsewhere in the supply chain, you and your coworkers who are visible to the patient, have the only really meaningful jobs. Itās this sheer arrogance from you that made me want to point out that other peopleās jobs can also affect patientsā well-being, even if itās indirectly.
How is that praising AI in any way, shape or form? You need to challenge yourself cognitively a little more.
If you canāt put two and two together here, Iām not sure itās my intelligence that should be under question.
In the US that might happen. I work in a normal country where health care isnāt run by for-profit hedge funds.
Idk if youāve heard about these things called taxpayers, but they tend to not like it when their funds are being misused. Governmentās always looking out to cut costs. For an example, my country raised the visit fee from 5ā¬ to 20ā¬ on non-PCP visits so fewer people would visit doctors and they could cut down on healthcare costs. Now imagine if they could pay the employees half as much because there are so many candidates available.
Much of the western world is running into more and more government debt. Finlandās finance ministry released a statement saying their debtās going to be bigger than their GDP soon. Thatās considered a pretty bad sign generally. Here in Estonia weāre cutting costs instead. Some are even talking about privatizing the healthcare system. Itās pretty fucked up. And the biggest cost in healthcare is always salaries, so for healthcare to remain a government affair, those need to be cut soon, for most countries.
Yes. In response to your derogatory remarks. How does that make me have a god complex?
Of course being a doctor is more interesting. And within medicine I also chose a specialty that interested me. I didnāt get the one I initially chose, but I did into the one I am doing now, and in the end Iām happy with it.
Point is: you canāt tell if certain jobs are boring because youāve never tried them. Youāve never even seen what their day is like. So youāre making shitty assumptions based on your shitty prejudice.
If you canāt put two and two together here, Iām not sure itās my intelligence that should be under question.
That sounds a lot like something that someone who doesnāt actually have a point would say. So, please humour me.
Idk if youāve heard about these things called taxpayers
You start a sentence with that and expect me to read the rest of the gibberish a fleshy AI has written down? Again, showing youāre dumber than the AI thatās about to replace you.
Yes. In response to your derogatory remarks. How does that make me have a god complex?
Which remarks exactly seemed derogatory to you?
Of course being a doctor is more interesting
Then why didnāt you choose a more meaningful job instead of the interesting one? You could be doing something to patients in person. Itās the nurses and orderlies* who do most of the actual work in a hospital, from what Iāve seen the few times Iāve been in one.
Could it be that you found those jobs boring? Not challenging you in the right way? Orā¦ Why else did you not take one of those roles, given that theyāre, by some standards, more meaningful than that of a doctor? An orderly in particular requires much less education too, you couldāve jumped straight to helping people if that was the metric by which you chose your job at all.
That sounds a lot like something that someone who doesnāt actually have a point would say. So, please humour me.
You: āGood, let 'em ruin themselves, we need the people in healthcare and education anyway.ā
Millions of people are losing their jobs worldwide, many more have studied for 3 years to get a degree they wonāt ever be able to use. Youāre saying thatās a good thing. Why? Because in 5-10 years time, some companies will go under for laying people off today? Those people need jobs now, and the healthcare system isnāt going to need that many, especially since much of the western world canāt afford its current healthcare systems right now.
Somehow a bunch of people losing their jobs is good because 2% of them can get jobs in your industry.
And yet Iām the one āpraising AIā. Iām the one saying that capitalists will fight to replace every worker they can with AI, youāre the one saying itās a good thing.
You start a sentence with that and expect me to read the rest of the gibberish
Pardon me, you just seemed ignorant of the whole issue of government efficiency being a thing taxpayers are usually looking for. Especially since, you know, taxes are actively being raised in some countries to be able to even afford the current spending.
E.g here in Estonia, in the last 5 years weāve had the income tax raised, VAT raised twice, and the price of medical visits (ER visits and first visit per case of a specialty doctor, but not GP visits) went from 5 euros to 20 euros. Oh and we got a nice new vehicle tax (not a bad thing in of itself) that comes with a new registration tax that also applies retroactively to old cars if ownership is transferred (can be a couple hundred to a few thousand euros to transfer ownership of a car worth 500 for an example). And weāre STILL running a deficit, something Estonia didnāt really do in the past.
As a result, different government departments are always trying to save money whereever possible. That includes things like having more students per teacher so that fewer teachers need to be paid. And this is Estonia, our government debt is just under 25% of GDP. If you take for an example Belgium, a nation with much higher taxes, that also brings in tons of income from all the visiting MEPs who spend money there but get paid by their own governmentsā¦ Their debt is over 100% of GDP. Finland is going to be over 100% too. Thereās no set debt to GDP ratio thatās bad, but the higher the debt, the higher the interest payments.
Doctors being replaced with AI doesnāt mean theyāre going to be all replaced at once, nor are they going to be explicitly āreplacedā by AI like software engineers. Rather, individual doctors are going to be expected to do more because āyou now have AI helping youā. Fewer young doctors will be hired because data will show that having X% fewer doctors of specialty Y per capita would result in only Z% fewer positive patient outcomes. Then in a few years, as AI tools get better, even fewer doctors will be needed. Etc. 2 years ago already we had an article here saying the national health insurance system found ways to save 21 million a year using ādigital technologies and workforce reformā. Theyāre looking to either save another 100 million a year, or raise it via more taxation. Easiest way to do the former is to lay people off.
If it seems to you that I ever implied that AI is going to replace doctors and teachers WITHOUT affecting quality of care and educationā¦ Sorry, no, thatās not what I meant. I meant the savings are going to be so significant that government will do it despite the reduction in quality. Itāll be deemed as āgood enoughā.
Call me a pessimist or whatever, but one thing governments and corporations have in common is that they like cutting costs at the expense of the common folk.
Iām saying thatās all that will be left soon. Paying staff that actually needs to use their brains is expensive and inefficient. The routine bits will remain, those are harder to automate and you can pay staff less for doing boring things.
But also I said that because of my severe ADHD, I canāt do boring stuff like that. There need to be problems and I need to come up with solutions, and things need to be done. Like if thereās no visible progress happening towards the end of something, I canāt stay motivated. Since patients need help every single day, something like feeding them is completely mind-numbing to me since I canāt āwinā or ābeatā it. Itās not meaningless, but itās not something Iām mentally capable of staying motivated on. Get me? Like I said, my current line of work is basically the only thing I can do that keeps me motivated by being challenging enough, without requiring a degree.
Explains the god complex lol.
I could MAYBE stay motivated as an MD, hopefully that wouldnāt get too boring for me. However, I could never finish the education Iād have to go through. I canāt spend 7 years memorizing stuff, Iāll last maybe one semester.
You said in an earlier comment something about people like me existing in olden times before we had computers. Yes, thatās true. Back in the caveman days, someone like me would probably have been a hunter. Later on, a soldier on the front lines. Something where thereās a chance of dying at any moment, to add at least some excitement. But I donāt really want to be a soldier.
Itās just a couple of patients and their families at a time though. Like I said, my projects affect thousands at a time usually, at a minimum. But that one was just an example, many of my other projects have been in much less meaningful areas of course. Iām just pointing out that the people writing software that you doctors use, usually touch thousands if not millions of lives, but you seem to think their work is meaningless. Iām also personally responsible for saving a few thousand therapists (PT, OT, SLP) and therapy assistants across the US about 10-30 minutes a day on filling out notes by improving their existing EMR system significantly (it was not great, I can tell you that). Try calculating the impact of that on human lives improved in the long term if every one of those providers can see one more patient per day for an example. How many people might get an initial eval appointment a few days earlier to get started managing their pain since the clinic was able to fit in 5 more patients per day? Could be hundreds, maybe thousands of people a year. Not a single life saved by me, but possibly thousands improved marginally.
Iām just saying itās pretty presumptuous to assume you know how meaningful someoneās work is based on their job title. There are doctors out there helping victims of genocide in Gaza, and there are doctors doing Mar-A-Lago surgeries for rich Trump sycophants. There are software engineers writing medical software and software engineers creating online casinos, surveillance systems, etc.
I also literally never said that those peopleās (that youāre talking about) jobs arenāt meaningful to them, or to the people they interact with. Iām saying I personally canāt find meaning in a job that 1) someone else could also easily do, 2) doesnāt challenge me every single day, 3) is a monotonous grind.
You were literally saying itās great that people are losing well-paid jobs:
Another thing to consider: When there are 500 applicants for 10 positions at your hospital, theyāre going to fire some of the existing staff because theyāre paid too much and the new people can be paid minimum wage.
After talking to you, Iāve realized why people say doctors develop a god complex. One day when youāre signing off on 300 treatments a day that AI conjured up while barely having time to skim patientsā histories because of horrible KPIs, youāll realize what I mean when I say knowledge work is being destroyed.
LOL god complex? Youāre the one calling people factory workers and janitors and telling me how much better you are than them because your software ātouches peopleā whatever that may be. Iāve been telling you from the start to stop being so arrogant and that youāre not as special as you think. Might as well just say āno uā and be done with it. Even AI could have thought of that.
Also, where have I ever boasted about myself or my job? Please quote me.
Hmm, you were saying god complex?
How is that praising AI in any way, shape or form? You need to challenge yourself cognitively a little more.
In the US that might happen. I work in a normal country where health care isnāt run by for-profit hedge funds.
And you were calling me a fleshy AI lol.
Mate Iām just saying that the jobs you seem to think are so interesting, are pretty fucking boring. Why did you choose to be a doctor? I can guarantee that the nurses do more work than you do. The janitors that have to wash immobile patients, have even harder jobs. And yet for some reason, you didnāt consider that to be an interesting job, despite the fact that itās certainly more personal and meaningful to the patient than yours.
Iām just trying to illustrate the point that just because someone isnāt directly interacting with patients, doesnāt mean their work doesnāt affect people. This is that medical worker god complex again. There are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of people whose labor you indirectly depend on to do your job without thinking about it, but since theyāre elsewhere in the supply chain, you and your coworkers who are visible to the patient, have the only really meaningful jobs. Itās this sheer arrogance from you that made me want to point out that other peopleās jobs can also affect patientsā well-being, even if itās indirectly.
If you canāt put two and two together here, Iām not sure itās my intelligence that should be under question.
Idk if youāve heard about these things called taxpayers, but they tend to not like it when their funds are being misused. Governmentās always looking out to cut costs. For an example, my country raised the visit fee from 5ā¬ to 20ā¬ on non-PCP visits so fewer people would visit doctors and they could cut down on healthcare costs. Now imagine if they could pay the employees half as much because there are so many candidates available.
Much of the western world is running into more and more government debt. Finlandās finance ministry released a statement saying their debtās going to be bigger than their GDP soon. Thatās considered a pretty bad sign generally. Here in Estonia weāre cutting costs instead. Some are even talking about privatizing the healthcare system. Itās pretty fucked up. And the biggest cost in healthcare is always salaries, so for healthcare to remain a government affair, those need to be cut soon, for most countries.
Yes. In response to your derogatory remarks. How does that make me have a god complex?
Of course being a doctor is more interesting. And within medicine I also chose a specialty that interested me. I didnāt get the one I initially chose, but I did into the one I am doing now, and in the end Iām happy with it.
Point is: you canāt tell if certain jobs are boring because youāve never tried them. Youāve never even seen what their day is like. So youāre making shitty assumptions based on your shitty prejudice.
That sounds a lot like something that someone who doesnāt actually have a point would say. So, please humour me.
You start a sentence with that and expect me to read the rest of the gibberish a fleshy AI has written down? Again, showing youāre dumber than the AI thatās about to replace you.
Which remarks exactly seemed derogatory to you?
Then why didnāt you choose a more meaningful job instead of the interesting one? You could be doing something to patients in person. Itās the nurses and orderlies* who do most of the actual work in a hospital, from what Iāve seen the few times Iāve been in one.
Could it be that you found those jobs boring? Not challenging you in the right way? Orā¦ Why else did you not take one of those roles, given that theyāre, by some standards, more meaningful than that of a doctor? An orderly in particular requires much less education too, you couldāve jumped straight to helping people if that was the metric by which you chose your job at all.
You: āGood, let 'em ruin themselves, we need the people in healthcare and education anyway.ā
Millions of people are losing their jobs worldwide, many more have studied for 3 years to get a degree they wonāt ever be able to use. Youāre saying thatās a good thing. Why? Because in 5-10 years time, some companies will go under for laying people off today? Those people need jobs now, and the healthcare system isnāt going to need that many, especially since much of the western world canāt afford its current healthcare systems right now.
Somehow a bunch of people losing their jobs is good because 2% of them can get jobs in your industry.
And yet Iām the one āpraising AIā. Iām the one saying that capitalists will fight to replace every worker they can with AI, youāre the one saying itās a good thing.
Pardon me, you just seemed ignorant of the whole issue of government efficiency being a thing taxpayers are usually looking for. Especially since, you know, taxes are actively being raised in some countries to be able to even afford the current spending.
E.g here in Estonia, in the last 5 years weāve had the income tax raised, VAT raised twice, and the price of medical visits (ER visits and first visit per case of a specialty doctor, but not GP visits) went from 5 euros to 20 euros. Oh and we got a nice new vehicle tax (not a bad thing in of itself) that comes with a new registration tax that also applies retroactively to old cars if ownership is transferred (can be a couple hundred to a few thousand euros to transfer ownership of a car worth 500 for an example). And weāre STILL running a deficit, something Estonia didnāt really do in the past.
As a result, different government departments are always trying to save money whereever possible. That includes things like having more students per teacher so that fewer teachers need to be paid. And this is Estonia, our government debt is just under 25% of GDP. If you take for an example Belgium, a nation with much higher taxes, that also brings in tons of income from all the visiting MEPs who spend money there but get paid by their own governmentsā¦ Their debt is over 100% of GDP. Finland is going to be over 100% too. Thereās no set debt to GDP ratio thatās bad, but the higher the debt, the higher the interest payments.
Doctors being replaced with AI doesnāt mean theyāre going to be all replaced at once, nor are they going to be explicitly āreplacedā by AI like software engineers. Rather, individual doctors are going to be expected to do more because āyou now have AI helping youā. Fewer young doctors will be hired because data will show that having X% fewer doctors of specialty Y per capita would result in only Z% fewer positive patient outcomes. Then in a few years, as AI tools get better, even fewer doctors will be needed. Etc. 2 years ago already we had an article here saying the national health insurance system found ways to save 21 million a year using ādigital technologies and workforce reformā. Theyāre looking to either save another 100 million a year, or raise it via more taxation. Easiest way to do the former is to lay people off.
If it seems to you that I ever implied that AI is going to replace doctors and teachers WITHOUT affecting quality of care and educationā¦ Sorry, no, thatās not what I meant. I meant the savings are going to be so significant that government will do it despite the reduction in quality. Itāll be deemed as āgood enoughā.
Call me a pessimist or whatever, but one thing governments and corporations have in common is that they like cutting costs at the expense of the common folk.