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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

The more time I spend with the US medical system, the more I realize that nobody cares about your health as much as you do, and you really do need to learn how to engage with it, understand what's happening, and then decode how the system works and actively advocate for your own care.

It doesn't matter how great your doctors are, you're still only going to get an hour or so of their time per month if you are REALLY lucky.

Navigating this is really hard. The more AI assistance I can get the better.

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Most people don’t understand this fact. Some of us are lucky enough to have friends or family that can help us as a health advocate. There are even people who work as health advocates as a profession.

You are the only person you can truly depend on when it comes to advocating for yourself and your health. But if you know that you are not properly equipped to do that job, then you need to get yourself a good health advocate. It’s like hiring a lawyer, but for your health.

Sadly, yes — that is what our healthcare system has devolved into.

> the more I realize that nobody cares about your health as much as you do

This is going to be true in all medical systems, and really in all systems for all fields.

No one else (other than maybe your immediate family) is going to care as much about your situation as you are. Any doctor, in any system, is going to have multiple patients, and they will care about all of them. You, an individual, is going to care about your own life because it is the most important thing to you, and you aren’t splitting that amongst many different patients.

Yeah, when running a startup I learned this was true about accountants and lawyers as well. They may be the experts, but they don't care as much about your own business as you do. You still have to pay very close attention to what they're handling for you.

> nobody cares about your health as much as you do

This is true about not just health, but literally everything. That's one reason AI is a big deal even when it's subhuman in performance. It empowers the individual to take care of themself (with as much "effort" as they'd like) rather than relying on another human.

Some examples:

- your health.

- your home.

- your children's education.

- your car.

- your finances.

- your (and your family's) safety.

- your elderly parents' welfare.

> That's one reason AI is a big deal

Remember when the new "personal computer" was the big-deal that was going to express your goals and act for your welfare? Yet today they're mainly spying on you and trying to dictate what you see and think.

The same corrupting forces will come for "personal AI", which is a political problem one can't passively delegate.

Mainly? If your computer is the net negative you claim, why are you using it?

So now my own one computer represents "most" consumer-computer interactions across the globe? What a surprise, I'd better not turn it off or else it'd cause an outage!

Rather than inventing a strawman to nitpick its word-choice and priorities [0], how about you engage with the substance instead? Here, I'll help:

"It is likely that personal 'AI'/LLM systems will end up arranged to favor other humans over their supposed owners/users." — Agree or disagree?

[0] https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Totally disagree, just like I think it’s completely ridiculous in the extreme to suggest that personal computers have failed to live up to the hype, represent a net negative, are mostly used for ill-intent, etc.

> Totally disagree ["that personal 'AI'/LLM systems will end up arranged to favor other humans over their supposed owners/users"]

We've already seen that misalignment happen with consumer OSes, web-browser and ads, telemetry in cars, and a raft of copyright/DMCA stuff, all of which you've probably seen on HN before.

What makes you believe personal "AI" will escape the same influences?

> just like I think it’s completely ridiculous in the extreme to suggest that personal computers [...] represent a net negative

Usually when someone says a phrase like "your computer is mostly for spying on you" or "inkjet printers are demonic tools to harvest human suffering", most readers will understand those statements to be hyperbole, a rehtorical exaggeration to make a point... Not something literal to become angry about.

Or you could just not blow everything out of proportion?

also, pretty funny that you think I'm angry about some rando's hysteria on HN lol

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