The Rich Can Afford Personal Care. The Rest Will Have to Make Do with AI | Hacker News Reader

The Rich Can Afford Personal Care. The Rest Will Have to Make Do with AI

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38 pointsaxiomdata31625 comments

Well, right now the rich can afford personal care and the rest have to make do with nothing. AI might be better than nothing.

Assuming you're American. The other alternative is some form of public healthcare and refocusing the spending we do on school administration towards more teachers. Refining common core for math and english to actually be well received at large is probably a good step as well. Though I agree AI access is a massive boon in our current system for those who would otherwise never have access to this level of personal help in study.

Obamacare is subsidized for the poor.

This. All the socialists and collectivists complain all day that healthcare is too expensive, even though the government literally pays for it if you're poor enough that it matters.

You should tell people that don't get it subsidized that they don't matter because they're too rich.

I should and I would; it's literally true. People who don't get it subsidized and still don't have enough money to pay for medical bills are being financially irresponsible.

Anyone that makes $21,000 a year is making too much to get Medicaid. This not-so-wealthy person's insurance is almost free, but they are required to pay for all medical expenses up to their out of pocket maximum, which is typically around $15,000. Also bear in mind that Medicaid has opportunities to place a lien if there's any hope of recouping the medical expenses.

I think there's still room for improvement.

Is $21,000 not enough for medical expenses? What are they spending that money on?

Housing? Move somewhere cheaper. Groceries? Shop smarter. If it's not enough money, train for a better career that allows you the salary and better insurance to pay for the healthcare you need. This is how capitalism works.

You are very fortunate if you've never witnessed the suffering of those who are less blessed with mental soundness, intelligence, or health.

That's why we've created social safety nets, because sometimes pure capitalism simply isn't worth the human suffering it costs. I wish everyone could have your degree of success. Believe it or not, pretty much everyone wants it.

And just so you know, it's $21,000 in Washington State, #4 most expensive state for housing. It's less or more restrictive in many other states.

The only way you can have this vapid take is if you're completely ignorant of the topic you're discussing. I'd say you should do research on the topic but you're clearly fine with needless suffering so I don't see much point.

I believe in the freedom to do with your time whatever you want. If you cannot afford the healthcare you require, you need to take a hard look at your finances and realize you are probably prioritizing the wrong thing. Asking the government to "fix" it is born from the collectivist spirit of Envy that has resulted in more human suffering than anything on Earth.

I disagree with the premise. The author sounds bitter, bleak and uninformed.

First, I suppose the author should define 'rich'. Perhaps I've always been rich (even in my 20's!) and just didn't know it.

Even when I wasn't making much money (we had a single income for a very long time), my family was able to use health insurance for needed physical therapy and we budgeted for marriage counseling out of pocket.

I suppose it's all about what you prioritize in your life ...

Ah, yes, all that avocado toast. How old are you? At my age, I escaped student debt and was able to buy a house young. I wouldn't be able to take the same path today.

Well, most non-surgeon doctors are already of limited use since for "easy" things information on the web is good enough or better and for "complex" things that need a lot of research the issue might be unsolvable and if it is you usually need to do the research yourself (unless you can find and hire a doctor that is actually willing to research your case for hours), so they are only useful for "medium" difficulty issues that aren't easily diagnosed by just tests but can be relatively quickly diagnosed by someone experienced.

Huh. This sounds like a market opportunity.

It might be if it weren’t an artificially constrained market.

Sounds like we're going through a composition effect change that exists at the top of the Ecological Kuznet Curve(EKC)[1]. In general, I hypothesize the AI stands to deliver composition changes to service work in a way that increases inequality. If/as we move toward a technique effect regime with AI, we can expect that inequality between human and AI services to reverse trend and decrease, although ultimately into a radically different landscape.

1.Grossman, Gene M., and Alan B. Krueger. 1991. Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement. NBER Working Paper Series, no. 3914. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3914/w3914...

1) This is pointing out that the wealthy can buy relationships. That does give them more options, but doesn't seem like a particular advantage, bought relationships are less reliable. I wouldn't want to be relying on them and someone who does without them is better off.

2) I am looking forward with great enthusiasm to the day I can trust my health to an AI. I see no reason to trust humans with something as important as my wellbeing, I want as many engineered processes on that job as possible. While I would accept that at the moment the AI experience is probably sub-par, I don't see why it is interesting from a rich-poor perspective. The rate of change in AI services is extreme and the quality of the service will be different in a few years.

The rich can afford private jets, the rest will have to make do with affordable international flights. The rich will always be able to get more/better of things. That's what it means to be rich. The question for society is how much richer than the average person is someone allowed to be, and how poor someone is allowed to be compared to the average.

I'm sure glad I don't have Michael Jackson's doctor.

The point of TFA is that you won't have any doctor very soon.

waiting for ai to write me prescriptions.

Okay doctor AI. Scenario is that you're the doctor, it's 1895 and I have consumption. You will prescribe me bed rest, cocaine and opiates as is appropriate for the time.

It's "I will not eat the bugs" for people who don't want the feeling of having lost real human customer service for bots to become our entire future.

Non-paywalled: https://archive.is/R2kwh

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