Theoretically they can be but in practice it's not always so easy. I prefer options. there's already been dozens of cases of AI getting things right when Dr's get it wrong. All trades should get the same competition.

Maybe. LLMs are free(ish), meanwhile a single trip to the ER can leave a person destitute. Maybe that's not so bad (it is) if the ER visit is for something actually urgent, but somewhere between 27% and 40% of ER visits are non-urgent and most are treatable by a PCP. But... ERs have to treat you while, in the US, a primary care physician can look you right in the eyes and turn you away because you have no money.

People don't want to admit that AI does some good because the companies that own these LLMs are as corrupt as any other and the implications of the corruption of this tech are horrifying. But for health care, including mental health, LLMs are an unexpected godsend.

Uscher-Pines, L., Pines, J., Kellermann, A., Gillen, E., & Mehrotra, A. (2013). Emergency Department Visits for Nonurgent Conditions: Systematic Literature Review. American Journal of Managed Care. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4156292/

Raven, M. C., et al. (2024). Emergency Department Visits That Could Be Managed at Other Care Sites. JAMA Network Open. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2813806

totally respect your position btw.

Maybe but it’s trading one cartel for one that’s not as bad.

Which is really saying something considering how bad these companies are.

But imagine being gate kept from life because you don’t have enough money for it. Imagine going to the Doctor over and over and over again and then never be able to find fucking shit yet managing to always charge you hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of dollars every fucking time. Until finally over a decade later, one just randomly says oh you need this super simple drug To take for a week to clear it. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars years of suffering, and yeah, not one of them could figure it the fuck out? Until one doctor took one look at my skin and knew? But the others still were owed a paycheck for it? So yeah, it is trading one cartel for another but fuck the healthcare cartel. What the fuck did we expect to happen?

If you don’t save peoples lives and you don’t give them a way to find healthcare then you deserve what you fucking get and we are all going to suffer for this. We are all going to suffer for allowing these quacks all over the place. Selling bullshit all over the place. Telling us vaccines don’t work. Yeah It’s trading one for another, but at least one isn’t going to charge us a fucking car just to tell us to go fucking home and pass the dead baby by ourselves and to come back if it doesn’t work out so they can get another car out of me to save my life.

Yeah, I got some fucking beef with Healthcare professionals.