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Everyone talks about truck drivers becoming obsolete once self driving cars take over the road. What I would worry about are endless number of doctors and surg

Everyone talks about truck drivers becoming obsolete once self driving cars take over the road. What I would worry about are endless number of doctors and surgeons that spent a life time mastering a skill and will just as easily be rendered obsolete by the same technology. Lawyers too.

wott 9y ago
> What I would worry about are endless number of doctors and surgeons that spent a life time mastering a skill and will just as easily be rendered obsolete by the same technology. You mean, because they operate on car crash victims?
- Density 9y ago
  You jest but the vast majority of lawyers in the US practice automotive law.
  - alphaalpha101 9y ago
    That doesn't mean they only practice automotive law.
wbl 9y ago
The day we don't need trauma surgeons is a good day.
petra 9y ago
Don't worry about doctors. Political power wins out in the end, and they have tons of it. For example: for decades they've managed to resist entry of decision-support systems(which were not perfect, but still, an improvement), even though their own error rate is ~1/8.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Pretty much the reason I don't go to the doctor unless I need stitches or am experiencing intolerable pain.
  - kamaal 9y ago
    A couple of years back, after being tossed around by a dozen doctors for simple infection. A few hours of internet research helped me solve my problem, better than any doctor did. Health care industry is a cartel that optimizes for profit.
- kamaal 9y ago
  >>Political power wins out in the end Well actually its economic power. These people just have to pray technology doesn't get cheaper with time. I remember in the 90s an entire generation of Indian workforce lost jobs overnight, for decades they fought computers and software. They bought in regulations, laws and what not. Unions fought 'computers' tooth and nail. Yes, you read it right- they were against the very use of computers. When the prime minister called for use of computers in India in the 1980s there was a national strike. Eventually it became impossible to not use computers without slipping into an economic stone age. People had to give way.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Be careful what you hope for by way of law. The Jevons Paradox implications of reducing the costs of litigation by one or more orders of magnitude ... terrify me. The more so as reducing costs tends to increase the level of concentration of power.

wott 9y ago

> What I would worry about are endless number of doctors and surgeons that spent a life time mastering a skill and will just as easily be rendered obsolete by the same technology. You mean, because they operate on car crash victims?

Density 9y ago
You jest but the vast majority of lawyers in the US practice automotive law.
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  That doesn't mean they only practice automotive law.

wbl 9y ago

The day we don't need trauma surgeons is a good day.

petra 9y ago

Don't worry about doctors. Political power wins out in the end, and they have tons of it. For example: for decades they've managed to resist entry of decision-support systems(which were not perfect, but still, an improvement), even though their own error rate is ~1/8.

ams6110 9y ago
Pretty much the reason I don't go to the doctor unless I need stitches or am experiencing intolerable pain.
- kamaal 9y ago
  A couple of years back, after being tossed around by a dozen doctors for simple infection. A few hours of internet research helped me solve my problem, better than any doctor did. Health care industry is a cartel that optimizes for profit.
kamaal 9y ago
>>Political power wins out in the end Well actually its economic power. These people just have to pray technology doesn't get cheaper with time. I remember in the 90s an entire generation of Indian workforce lost jobs overnight, for decades they fought computers and software. They bought in regulations, laws and what not. Unions fought 'computers' tooth and nail. Yes, you read it right- they were against the very use of computers. When the prime minister called for use of computers in India in the 1980s there was a national strike. Eventually it became impossible to not use computers without slipping into an economic stone age. People had to give way.

dredmorbius 9y ago

Be careful what you hope for by way of law. The Jevons Paradox implications of reducing the costs of litigation by one or more orders of magnitude ... terrify me. The more so as reducing costs tends to increase the level of concentration of power.