It's true, but corporate policies and insurance are already like "slow AI"
They remove most of what's real in interactions
I remember going for a routine checkup at Kaiser, and the doctor was literally checking boxes on her computer terminal, rather than looking, talking, listening.
I dropped them after that -- it was pointless for me to go
It seems like there are tons of procedures that already have to be followed, with little agency for doctors
I've talked to doctors who say "well the insurance company say I should prescribe this before that, even if the other thing would be simpler". Even super highly paid doctors are sometimes just "following the rules"
And more importantly they do NOT always understand the reasons for the rules. They just have to follow them
---
To the people wondering about the "AI alignment problem" -- we're probably not going to solve that, because we failed to solve the easier "corporate alignment problem"
It's a necessary prerequisite, but not sufficient, because AIs take corporate resources to create
> I remember going for a routine checkup at Kaiser, and the doctor was literally checking boxes on her computer terminal, rather than looking, talking, listening.
This is also a doctor issue, to be clear. My primary care physician has a program he uses on his laptop; I'm not sure what program it is, but he's been using it since I started going to him around 2009 so it's definitely not something new. He goes through and checks off boxes, as you described your doctor doing, but he also listens and makes suggestions.
When I have an issue, he asks all the questions and checks off the boxes, but he's also listening to the answers. When I over-explain something, he goes into detail about why that is or is not (or may or may not) be relevant to the issue. He makes suggestions based on the medicine but also on his experiences. Seasonal affective disorder? You can get a lamp, you can take vitamin D, or you can go snowboarding up above the clouds. Exercise and sunlight both.
For my psych checkups (ADHD meds and antidepressants) he goes through the standard score questionnaire (which every doctor I've seen uses), then fills in the scores I got into his app. Because of that he can easily see what my scores were the last time we spoke (about once every three months), so it's easy to see if something has changed dramatically or if things are relatively consistent.
It seems as though it saves a lot of time compared to, say, paper charting, and while I have seen people complain on review sites that he's just checking stuff off on a form, I don't don't feel that it's actually impacting the quality of care I get, and it's good to know that he's going through the same process each time, making notes each time, and having all that information easily accessible for my next appointment.
I should probably have prefaced all this by saying I'm in Canada, and so he's not being mandated by a private insurance company to follow a list just because the bureaucracy won't pay for your treatment if he doesn't. Maybe that makes it different.
Yes definitely, the terminal doesn't necessarily imply doing a bad job... and I'm sure it can improve it. But I guess I'm saying I could see this unfortunate person being worn down by bureaucracy, not really engaged. Also I saw similar issues with the nurses.
They remove most of what's real in interactions
I remember going for a routine checkup at Kaiser, and the doctor was literally checking boxes on her computer terminal, rather than looking, talking, listening.
I dropped them after that -- it was pointless for me to go
It seems like there are tons of procedures that already have to be followed, with little agency for doctors
I've talked to doctors who say "well the insurance company say I should prescribe this before that, even if the other thing would be simpler". Even super highly paid doctors are sometimes just "following the rules"
And more importantly they do NOT always understand the reasons for the rules. They just have to follow them
---
To the people wondering about the "AI alignment problem" -- we're probably not going to solve that, because we failed to solve the easier "corporate alignment problem"
It's a necessary prerequisite, but not sufficient, because AIs take corporate resources to create