What’s Left for Me? - Raw Transcript
What's left for me? I'm generally positive about artificial intelligence. But thinking ahead, I just wanted to think through some of the possible consequences. Because I really like my job. You know, I get to see people all day long. That's fun. Sort of tell me about their life. That's fun. I get to come up with solutions. That's also fun. So generally speaking, it's all fun. Oh, and I get to make a pretty good living. I wouldn't consider myself rich, but definitely not poor either. So, you know, sometimes I'm talking about problems, sometimes just talking about life, coming up with just ensuring that the patient is healthy, ensuring that we're doing our best to get them out of the hospital. But, like, I guess thinking about it, well, there are just two things. One is that, and this is probably true forever, I'm not really the best at anything. I mean, I don't think I am. There's a lot of people in the world. I guess by definition I'm the best at being me, but what the hell that means. Sounds like a kids' book. But generally speaking, there's probably better diagnosticians than me. There might be people who are better at talking to patients. People are better at relationship building. People who are better at navigating systems for patients. People who are just better at coaxing things out of people. And people are better at getting patients to change lifestyle behaviors. There might be people who are better at all these things. So I guess I've never really been the best at anything per se. But as AI advances, I guess one of the things is that, you know, I'm sort of, like, good at a lot of that stuff. And, you know, you probably wouldn't have found any one person who ever was great at any of those things. But as time goes on, obviously AI is getting better, and it will just get better from here. This is as bad as it will ever get. That's what the adage is. So, I mean, you know, and so, like one of the most important things is, can we get to the right— can we actually ask the right questions, right? I think a lot of times patient comes in and they're kind of wondering what's going on, and they're hoping to get to the bottom of something. One of the most important parts is being honest. And I think it's hard to be honest, especially when there's, like some sort of shame involved. But, you know, and I tell people that, but, like, honestly, people are probably the most honest when they're at home by themselves talking to their computers, right? Maybe they're the least honest, to be totally honest, which is saying honest a lot. I don't know what the hell people do with their computers, you know? I remember recently, like different generations, different people, everyone's so different. But I don't know what they do, but I imagine that when you are talking to something that isn't alive, you're going to be, like, the least holding back. Although maybe people will start to feel that their eyes are alive and feel ashamed of talking to them about specific things. I don't know. But overall, all the things I said I was maybe not the best at, I think will, to some extent, exceedingly be bundled inside of one thing, which is an artificial intelligence. Which leaves me wondering, like, where am I? Where am I? And this is, I don't know. There's a lot of ways that things could go forward, right? Like a lot of ways things could go forward. There's a lot of regulation in medicine, so I guess, at least for a while, somewhat protected by that. But it doesn't feel good, right? I don't want to be a guy that's protected by— I want to be really good. I guess the hard part is, like any one patient probably could be pretty good. Obviously AI still can't, like, actually do stuff. But unfortunately that's not really as far as the doing of things, such as, like, the setting of fractures, the incision and drainage of wounds, the freezing of warts. Those are not really the things I enjoy. So, and, you know, I'm sure that they're also worried, right? Hey, we have this one machine that does kind of what I do better than I do. Perhaps they're afraid. Again, this is not really about that. I don't know. I'm trying to think about me. So I guess there is a fear. I mean, I guess in my own mind I think instead of spending a lot of time being afraid of being obsolete, I just think about how I could use, like, be better at using the tool that the patient uses in order to better themselves. I guess that's how I am at this point combating this problem to some extent. Like, to sort of turn your back on that is to turn your back on the future, right? I think. But there definitely is this, like— there is this, like, where do I— And maybe everyone's kind of going through it to some extent, I bet. Like, where do we fit in, right? How do we fit in? And I guess, you know, and that's fine, right? Like, when we're on the precipice and looking down at the fall, you can also look up at the heavens. This is new. When you jump, you don't know how the physics are going to work. For now, I'm going to hang in there. I'm not depressed about it. As a matter of fact, it's exciting. It's one of the things that's, like very invigorating. I think I can go on longer, but I think we'll just stop it there.