The article feels very much like a union rep fighting automation. If AI is provably worse, we should see that come up in the AI making 'bad calls' vs the human team. You would even see affects on health outcomes.
One place I'd really like an all seeing eye AI overlord is in nursing home care. I have seen family members lie in filth with clear signs of an infection. I am confident, if we hadn't visited, seen this, and got her out of there she would have died there, years before her time.
Sadly, the one thing I took from my time as an EMT and paramedic was which nursing homes to consider and which to avoid. I filed more than one complaint with the DOH.
It's a standing joke that whenever 911 crews respond to a nursing home, the report you'll get from staff will be a bingo game of:
- "I just got on shift; I don't know why you were called."
- "This is not my usual floor; I'm just covering while someone is on lunch. I don't know why you were called."
- [utterly unrealistic set of vitals, in either direction, healthy, lively vitals for someone who is not thriving, or "should be unconscious" vitals for someone lively and spry]
- [extended time waiting for patient notes, history, an outdated med list with everything they've taken in their ten years at the facility]
And so on.
I (generally) don't blame the floor staff (though some things, as you describe, are inexcusable) but management/ownership. The same management/ownership that has the policy to call 911 for anything more involved than a bandaid for some weird idea of managing liability, nurses that "aren't allowed" to do several interventions that they can, for the same reason, all the while the facility has a massive billboard out the front advertising "24/7 nursing care" (and fees/costs commensurate with that).
Too many to name and shame. However, most states do publicize SNF (skilled nursing facility) inspections, complaints and investigations. Washington does, and with a good amount of detail, including outcomes and findings.
A lot easier when you're not on a tour and just have the ability to visit (fun fact, some facilities have socialization events around holidays, although that might sound callous). Staff mood. How many staff? If hallways are empty, just residents? Not good. Scents/odors. Yes, incontinence is a thing, not to be shamed. How you handle the cleaning, laundry of it, so it's not a pervasive scent? That's another.
Most states will publish some reports. Washington's DOH will publish fairly detailed information on complaints against facilities, investigation details, and findings and outcomes.
> If AI is provably worse, we should see that come up in the AI making 'bad calls' vs the human team. You would even see affects on health outcomes.
That would require medicine not be a shitshow in general. Most things where cause-effect is not immediately obvious medicine has no idea even what is a good or bad call. So any study like this would be easy to cook in both directions
I agree that using it for things like alerts though can be good
The reality is that our economy and entire understanding of human society relies on labor. If we free humans from labor, they just die. Like you're depriving them of oxygen.
Automation is great and all, and it's worked because we've been able to push humans higher and higher up the job ladder. But if, in the future, only highly specialized experts are valuable and better than AI, then a large majority of humanity will just be excluded from the economy all together.
I'm not confident the average Joe could become a surgeon, even given perfect access to education. And I'm not even confident surgery won't be automated. Where does that leave us?
Humans used to work manual labor to produce barely enough food to survive, with occasional famines, and watch helplessly as half of their children died before adulthood.
We automated farm labor, mining, manufacturing, etc so that one worker can now produce the output of 10, 100 or 100,000 laborers from a generation or two ago. Now those people work in new jobs and new industries that didn't previously exist.
Today we're seeing the transition from automating physical labor to automating mental labor. Just as before, we'll see those workers move into new jobs and new industries that didn't exist before.
Our society already spends 1000x more resources on children, elderly, disabled, unemployed, refugee, etc than would have been possible in the 1800s. The additional societal wealth creation from AI will mean that we can dedicate just a tiny portion of the surplus to provide universal basic income to everyone. (Or call it disability payments or housing assistance or welfare or whatever term if UBI doesn't resonate politically)
Practically I think this is the only way forward. The previous solutions of pushing people "up" only works for so long. People are hard limited by what they're capable of - for example, I couldn't be a surgeon even if I wanted to. I'm just not smart enough and driven enough.
One place I'd really like an all seeing eye AI overlord is in nursing home care. I have seen family members lie in filth with clear signs of an infection. I am confident, if we hadn't visited, seen this, and got her out of there she would have died there, years before her time.