[pedalpete]

I work in health (neurotech/sleeptech) and am in the process of writing a post which hits on the health aspect.

The things that most people ignore when thinking about AI and health is that 2/3rds of Americans are suffer from chronic illness and there is a shortage of doctors. Could AI really do much worse than the status quo? Doctors won't be replaced, but if we could move them up the stack of health to actually doing the work of saving lives rather than just looking at rising cholesterol numbers and writing scripts?

[ceejayoz]

> Could AI really do much worse than the status quo?

Yes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

[Quarrelsome]

It's encouraged me towards getting diagnosed for my probable ADHD. Now I'm mentioning this to people I know and they're all giving me:

> you're undiagnosed? I thought it was obvious.

guess I was the last to clock it.

It was people that made me think of it first: a hookup that was adament I had it and then a therapist that mentioned in our first session. I started the diagnosis like over a year ago and completely forgot about it. Its only been asking gipity about some symptoms I have and seeing it throw up ADHD a lot as a possibility, that encouraged me to go back to sorting out the diagnosis.

[JohnFen]

There's a trust problem for that use case, though.

I don't have a primary care physician because in the area I live in, there are no doctors that I can find that are taking new patients.

Regardless, I wouldn't want any of my medical data exposed to an AI system even if that was the only way to get health care. I simply don't trust them enough for that (and HIPAA isn't strong enough to make me more comfortable).

[nephihaha]

The human element has already been lost in medicine in many cases, unless you are willing to pay a lot for it. Many people need that when they are sick. They want genuine support and something resembling sympathy.

My friend died last weekend from cancer. Human support/contact was very important to her. AI can't do that.

[pedalpete]

This is common where I live also (Sydney, Australia).

However, I'm not suggesting the existing AI systems. There are health specific platforms such as Superpower, or in Australia Everlab, which are doing the blood-work, early detection type stuff. Then if there is something to address that gets handed off to a doctor.

[nhinck2]

Yes because the act of "moving them up the stack" could have the opportunity cost of preventing real change that would actually improve health outcomes.

AI could allow the whole system to kick the can down the road.

[Zigurd]

It's almost never a good idea to go for a technology fix when there are other obvious defects that could be addressed.

[toomuchtodo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots

We should fix the shortage of healthcare practitioners, not hand folks a fancy search engine and say "problem solved." Would you put forth "Google your symptoms" as a solution to this same problem? The token output is fancy, the confidence in accuracy is similar.