[supertimor]

I mean, yeah it is sort of bad. There’s a huge shortage of medical staff in the US (and many other developed countries). I’m not sure raising educational requirements (yet again), is really going to be all the helpful for the general population. Everyone shouldn’t need a masters degree just to make a basic living. Increasing educational requirements will increase people’s already inflated school debt and decrease the amount of time they can be in the workforce. This would give them even less time and opportunities in the workforce to make money (and repay their enormous school debt). And if the minimum requirements to participate in white collar work is now a masters degree, but AI has eaten a large portion of available work, then having more education really isn’t going to do much, since most everyone else will also have to increase their education to be competitive.

I mean, even some of the most basic jobs today require a university/college degree, when in the past a high school diploma would have been sufficient. It’s just moving the goal posts all over again.

[asadotzler]

Is your argument that medicine today is worse off than medicine 100 years ago because of increased barriers to entry? That's what it seems like you're saying but that's so bat shit silly that it can't possibly be the case.

[supertimor]

No, that’s obviously not what I’m saying. In fact 100 years ago, doctors were actually receiving about the same amount of education as doctors today. Residency programs became a requirement in the mid 1920’s. But I get the point you’re trying to make.

It was the adoption of the Hopkins model and standardization of medical education— which focused on a mission of education, research and clinical practice— that led to a lot of medical advances that we have today.

My point, is that too much education (and its associated costs) can become a barrier to people joining industries/paying off their loans. Do you suggest doctors increase their education for longer than a decade? Maybe 2 decades of education would make better doctors, but is that really a net benefit to society? Not too mention, a good portion of a doctors education already is actually just learning on the job (while being paid a pittance).

Education (in the US), is not free (or even reasonably priced) and wages have stagnated for quite some time. All you’re doing is burdening people with more debt in order to still have to fight in a job market against their fellow humans as well as now AI.

If companies (or the government) took on training costs (like they often used to) and people were paid enough to make a comfortable living, then I wouldn’t even be discussing this. By all means, bring on the AI revolution.

But until we have some sort of safety nets in place to prevent all these people falling into poverty, requiring more educational investment and debt burden is not really a great solution for a large portion of the population. I mean, even a person’s healthcare is tied to being employed, and one of the political parties is still talking about repealing the ACA to this day, one of the only bills to actually try and tackle the absurd healthcare costs and coverage issues. More time in school would also just increase healthcare costs an individual would have to pay.

Judging from the present state of things, we’re nowhere near solving ANY of these issues that we are currently experiencing. Without proper guard rails, a rapid and wide adoption of AI is only likely to exacerbate these issues that our society is presently struggling with.