Well, yes and no. There's a difference between asking a model to build an entire logic chain and provide external references, and asking one to record and summarize a provided list of symptoms and an atomic discussion. An AI as scribe and cataloger is pretty safe usage. They aren't going to diagnose or prescribe. What they will do is make a complete, searchable record of a visit trivial to accomplish. A doctor using tools like that will be a better doctor for it.

You seem to think that doctors are guessing - which they are - which means you should go guess for yourself. Which would imply that your opinion is as valid as theirs, and that you can patch the gap between your knowledge and theirs with some googling. Which is nonsense.

I get your point. And I agree about insurers and such. That's the downstream abuse I wholeheartedly despise.

I just think that note taking is the easiest win for AI usage. If you have a regular doctor, a trail of complete, relatively unbiased notes can be invaluable. , especially for catching unusual issues. But the logistics of modern medicine don't leave time for that benefit to be realized.

Ever try feeding a meeting transcript into an LLM, and asking for "meeting notes and a summary of three major themes"? They're pretty amazing.

So do you wave the "spooky" flag in front of the patient for the yes/no? Or do you sit down and do a real pro/con with them? I don't mean to belittle your point, but what exactly do you want to have happen here? The escape of medical information is truly well under way already, independent of AI.

There's strong evidence these models already achieve equivalent or better diagnostic accuracy rates than GPs. That is objectively a good thing. And they will get better, given enough statistical data. Stopping the process by denying the technology to prevent downstream data misuse is a misapplication of resources. Baby, bath water. Target the misuse.

Well, that's why I used the term "mostly get it right". The bell curve applies here like it does almost everywhere. That vast majority of encounters are unremarkable, some few are stellar, some few are atrocious. This goes especially true for ER encounters, where time is limited and precious, and snap decisions are the only way the system can function at all.

Extended further out, over the collected experiences of single lifetimes, some few will encounter unreasonable numbers of shitty ones. Sucks to be in that last bucket, but probability is a beast.

I think there are good reasons for litigation, but they mostly involve actual intentional malfeasance. Surgery while drunk or high... pushing opioids while taking kickbacks... but things like not ordering expensive tests to catch a 5% outlier root cause should not be among them. Medicine is a statistics game.

Look, I'm a big believer in the value of doctors. Doctors make mistakes. I accept that, and believe that it's a price that must be paid. I had a shoddy diagnosis in my past, the price of which I pay to this day, but I forgave and forgot. And I still trust that doctors mostly get it right.

But when it comes to those mundane, clerical tasks, I say yes, let the AI do it. They're perfectly capable. Doctor's handwritten summaries are an incomplete hodgepodge of scraps, mostly selected during a Q&A based on what they think might be relevant because it supports a half formed diagnosis they already have in mind. I know they try to mitigate that bias, but as we cram more people into shorter slots, something has to give.

As for diagnosis, I think the emerging model in radiology is awesome. Let the AI do a lot of it, but put a radiologist at the crux.

As the population ages, and the ratio to doctors widens, we'll have to do some things to increase throughput. This is one of those things.

But we have to get it through our thick fucking skulls that a 90% chance of success isn't a sure thing, and being in the 10% that fails isn't a reason for litigation, even if AI takes the notes.

I see the point now, it "took" (pretty much past tense) about 30 years.

I do remember when it came out, and when a work friend got one in the early 2000s. It seemed so freaky. Everybody was like, 'Toyota loses money on every one!' 'You're going to be crying when the battery wears out!' 'It'll break down twice as much as a normal car because it has 2 drivetrains!'

My 2019 Toyota Camry gas hybrid gets about 47 mpg (5L/100km) at over 200 hp. Got it new, and I haven't had a single issue.

Granted, it's not a cheap car... but these days it's definitely below average.

I don't think it's fuel economy that's keeping cars pricey, and I doubt relaxing standards will make the cars cheaper. It's in the manufacturers interests to keep those prices up. If it isn't the engine it'll be something else.

one of Toyota's executives said that every model would be offered as a hybrid in about a decade. That might happen after three decades.

Really? The only ones available without a hybrid option that I can see are the GR 86 rwd coupe and the GR Supra.

We could include the GR Corolla and Hatchback Corolla if you don't consider them "Corollas."

But I was told the opposite:

"We were ahead of them by a mile, by 10 miles, on the internal combustion engine. They went into EVs, and then they convinced the Western world to go into EVs and play their game," the freshman Republican lawmaker from Ohio said during an auto industry conference. "That was just irrational, dumb policy."...

"I pushed back on the premise that EV somehow is about innovation," he said. "Electric vehicles were around in 1910. It's not like this is new technology."

Here's a guy working hard to ensure the US not only loses the global competition for auto production, but becomes the last bastion of tailpipe emissions.

That's actually a good question. Inks have changed somewhat over the past 5,000 years, and there's no particular reason to think that tattoo inks have been equally mobile across this timeframe.

But now we come to a deeper point. Basically, tattoos (as I've always understand it) are surgically-engineered scars, with the scar tissue supposedly locking the ink in place. It's quite probable that my understanding is wrong - this isn't exactly an area I've really looked into in any depth, so the probability of me being right is rather slim. Nonetheless, if I had been correct, then you might well expect the stuff to stay there. Skin is highly permeable, but scar tissue less so. As long as the molecules exceed the size that can migrate, then you'd think it would be fine.

That it isn't fine shows that one or more of these ideas must be wrong.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo but I am very annoyed at them for trying to take away the option of local-only accounts. Why do I need to let them be a third party to everything I do starting with logging in? Nobody asked for this.

Or even just good old fashioned human-driven competition. A 60x price increase will draw new competitors. I'm not saying this is easy and I could do it in a weekend or a year, but still, this is not rocket science.

According to my closest cousin and her husband, who spend half the year in the UK, yes. The biggest mental reset they have to make is around access to, quality of, and prices for vegetables. I hear about it every time they cycle through.

OpenAI got out ahead but really, how do you beat google at this?

Technology-wise, they've had top researchers all along. Want more? Just hire them, not hard when you have infinite money.

And google has access to everything. They serve about 1/3 of the population on earth every day. Not just search but webmail, texts, maps, word processor, TV (youtube), transportation (Waymo) everything.

Google is on almost everybody else's webpages too, through Google Ads.

There isn't much about your digital life google doesn't know about, and almost every potentially productive use of AI can be deployed to billions through their own services.