We will almost certainly see more and more people use AI for health advice. This substitutes away from asking an actual doctor. It seems quite possible that this would lead to reduced demand for doctors but increased demand for nurses, who provide a lot of the hard to automate care and administer tests.
There could be a general social dynamic in multiple different sectors where the roles that are traditionally more high-status/brain-y are more disrupted by AI compared to their less high status counterparts. People have talked about this dynamic happening sort of across labor sectors (e.g. white v. blue collar work), but we will probably also see this within sectors (e.g., doctors versus nurses). I’m not sure what sociopolitical/cultural implications will arise if nurses all of a sudden make more than the doctors that they’ve worked together with this whole time.
Although it’s not impossible for overall demand for medical care to go up enough to compensate the drop. Alternatively, it’s also not impossible that more accurate diagnosis from AI doctors actually substitutes away from testings since you need less tests to find out that you have a certain condition (i.e., less demand for nurses as well). Collective bargaining (i.e., unions) could also lead to wages decoupling from the marginal product of labor.
Despite all this, I think the most likely outcome is that we will see some sort of “status-switch” in some sectors.
(Idk I think this is sort of obvious but I haven’t seen it cleanly written up anywhere)
AI could replace doctors but not nurses.
We will almost certainly see more and more people use AI for health advice. This substitutes away from asking an actual doctor. It seems quite possible that this would lead to reduced demand for doctors but increased demand for nurses, who provide a lot of the hard to automate care and administer tests.
There could be a general social dynamic in multiple different sectors where the roles that are traditionally more high-status/brain-y are more disrupted by AI compared to their less high status counterparts. People have talked about this dynamic happening sort of across labor sectors (e.g. white v. blue collar work), but we will probably also see this within sectors (e.g., doctors versus nurses). I’m not sure what sociopolitical/cultural implications will arise if nurses all of a sudden make more than the doctors that they’ve worked together with this whole time.
Although it’s not impossible for overall demand for medical care to go up enough to compensate the drop. Alternatively, it’s also not impossible that more accurate diagnosis from AI doctors actually substitutes away from testings since you need less tests to find out that you have a certain condition (i.e., less demand for nurses as well). Collective bargaining (i.e., unions) could also lead to wages decoupling from the marginal product of labor.
Despite all this, I think the most likely outcome is that we will see some sort of “status-switch” in some sectors.
(Idk I think this is sort of obvious but I haven’t seen it cleanly written up anywhere)