Comment half in jest, half serious: if the problem is lack of fluency in Obscure Language, then might this be a case where people today would be better-served by LLM nurses and doctors, rather than human ones?
One of the problems with low german as I understand it (I have mennonite grandparents that speak it), is that there’s no formal spelling system, and an abundance dialects. There’s also not a ton of low german content online to train off of, though there are a decent number of books written in low german.
I’d be curious to know how good LLM translation is despite that.
Seems like even pretty bad automated translation would get you most of the way to functional communication—and the critical enabler is more translated text, which could be gathered and trained on given the current importance—I bet there are plenty of NLP / AIxHealth folks who could help if Canadian health folks asked.
A nurse or doctor having gone through the trouble of learning an obscure language to provide healthcare for Mennonites, is a costly signal that suggests that the doctor cares about Mennonites.
A costly signal like that is good to establish trust. Most of vaccine hesitancy is likely about lack of trust in mainstream medicine and an LLM nurse or doctor is unlikely very trustworthy for Mennonites who are skeptical of a lot of technology.
If the costly signal hypothesis is true, it is really a self-sabotaging memeplex for those religious nuts, since the larger society should probably consider cost-benefit ratios and funding medical practitioners training in an obscure language meant to be costly[1] is probably not the way to buy the most QALYs. You don’t even have to be anti-religious, you just have to be EA to see that helping people who make themselves cheaper to help is more effective if you’re egalitarian.
I think it’s quite easy to see communities as the Mennonites or Amish als self-sabotaging memeplexes. They way they operate is quite costly. At the same time, they might argue that they have healthy birth rates and it’s mainstream society with birth rates that aren’t enough to long-term sustain the society as “self-sabotaging memeplex”.
Your comment runs counter to the OP’s claim in the bottom section called Mennonites Are Susceptible To Facts and Logic, When Presented In Low German. E.g. the anecdote about the woman who thought the hospital turned her away, sounds like it’s not about vaccine hesitancy but about total inability to communicate.
And sure, human doctors and nurses who know Obscure Language are a much better solution than LLM doctors and nurses, but realistically the former basically don’t exist, so...
ChristianKl’s point in their second paragraph still stands though. Most people still aren’t trusting of LLMs giving them medical solutions, and Mennonites are unlikely to be any more trusting
Again, I feel like both you and ChristianKI are pattern matching on a different type of low-vaccination community, one with vaccine hesitancy out of conviction etc. The claim in the OP is that the main problem for this particular community isn’t that they distrust mainstream medicine; their main problem is that they outright can’t communicate.
We are talking about a community that has community evaluation of technology and only uses technology when the community evaluates the tech to be good for the social fabric of the community.
It’s not that they distrust mainstream medicine in particular but that general distrust of authorities leads to distrust of vaccination as well.
While it that case it’s more historical distrust, it’s probably similar to the distrust you get prevent churches from gathering during lockdowns because of bad public health policy and afterwards discover that the congregation doesn’t trust you anymore on vaccines.
Comment half in jest, half serious: if the problem is lack of fluency in Obscure Language, then might this be a case where people today would be better-served by LLM nurses and doctors, rather than human ones?
One of the problems with low german as I understand it (I have mennonite grandparents that speak it), is that there’s no formal spelling system, and an abundance dialects. There’s also not a ton of low german content online to train off of, though there are a decent number of books written in low german.
I’d be curious to know how good LLM translation is despite that.
Seems like even pretty bad automated translation would get you most of the way to functional communication—and the critical enabler is more translated text, which could be gathered and trained on given the current importance—I bet there are plenty of NLP / AIxHealth folks who could help if Canadian health folks asked.
A nurse or doctor having gone through the trouble of learning an obscure language to provide healthcare for Mennonites, is a costly signal that suggests that the doctor cares about Mennonites.
A costly signal like that is good to establish trust. Most of vaccine hesitancy is likely about lack of trust in mainstream medicine and an LLM nurse or doctor is unlikely very trustworthy for Mennonites who are skeptical of a lot of technology.
If the costly signal hypothesis is true, it is really a self-sabotaging memeplex for those religious nuts, since the larger society should probably consider cost-benefit ratios and funding medical practitioners training in an obscure language meant to be costly[1] is probably not the way to buy the most QALYs. You don’t even have to be anti-religious, you just have to be EA to see that helping people who make themselves cheaper to help is more effective if you’re egalitarian.
So if it ever becomes cheap, like with the LLM suggestion, then it no longer works
I think it’s quite easy to see communities as the Mennonites or Amish als self-sabotaging memeplexes. They way they operate is quite costly. At the same time, they might argue that they have healthy birth rates and it’s mainstream society with birth rates that aren’t enough to long-term sustain the society as “self-sabotaging memeplex”.
Your comment runs counter to the OP’s claim in the bottom section called Mennonites Are Susceptible To Facts and Logic, When Presented In Low German. E.g. the anecdote about the woman who thought the hospital turned her away, sounds like it’s not about vaccine hesitancy but about total inability to communicate.
And sure, human doctors and nurses who know Obscure Language are a much better solution than LLM doctors and nurses, but realistically the former basically don’t exist, so...
ChristianKl’s point in their second paragraph still stands though. Most people still aren’t trusting of LLMs giving them medical solutions, and Mennonites are unlikely to be any more trusting
Again, I feel like both you and ChristianKI are pattern matching on a different type of low-vaccination community, one with vaccine hesitancy out of conviction etc. The claim in the OP is that the main problem for this particular community isn’t that they distrust mainstream medicine; their main problem is that they outright can’t communicate.
We are talking about a community that has community evaluation of technology and only uses technology when the community evaluates the tech to be good for the social fabric of the community.
I’m not sure whether “out of conviction” is a very good category. https://globalnews.ca/news/11214661/ont-measles-mennonite/ does suggest that historic distrust in authorities is a key factor.
It’s not that they distrust mainstream medicine in particular but that general distrust of authorities leads to distrust of vaccination as well.
While it that case it’s more historical distrust, it’s probably similar to the distrust you get prevent churches from gathering during lockdowns because of bad public health policy and afterwards discover that the congregation doesn’t trust you anymore on vaccines.
Even if they are receptive to vaccinations, what makes you think they will be receptive to a newfangled communication medium such as LLM?