Also scary: Seeing a comment this ostensibly un-controversial in grey.

HN is rigged - downvotes are half fake and explicitly target comments critical of the oligarchy.

Also generally anything critical of capitalism, imperialism, or the military-industrial complex. It doesn't really matter whether it's a measured analysis or shrill shrieking; literally just using any of those words amounts to soliciting downvotes.

This is true but I don't think the downvotes are "fake" though. There's just a whole lot of people who truly believe they are Making the World a Better Place Through Capitalism

I'm more cynical - I think that breed is mostly extinct, and the current batch is downvoting/flagging because they don't want the sentiment to spread.

It’s far, far too late to contain this sentiment.

Maybe this is just a symptom of my screen addiction, but I keep a close eye on this site for a lot of the day. I’ve noticed a pattern where my commments initially get one or two upvotes (within the first 5-10 minutes of posting) but will then immediately get a greater than or equal amount of downvotes very quickly. It happens consistently enough that I’ve noticed a pattern. The upvotes happen sporadically and the downvotes happen simultaneously.

and this comment is grey at the time of me upvoting it, ironic

I agree it is scary, but why would a robot take healthcare away? Wouldn't that be the contrary?

There are stories about insurance companies using AI when determining if a claim should be let through or denied.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/healthcare/2026/03/...

That is scary but the methods traditionally used to deny claims aren't really any better. I've had claims denied after they were explicitly pre-approved because of string literals not matching exactly.

It at the very least provides more cover to the ones denying the claims. They can blame it on AI in the hopes they're not the next one being targeted by vigilantes.

My aunt worked for an insurance company while she was semi-retiring as a doc, she lasted a few months before she was too disgusted to continue.

AI isn't needed for insurance to fuck anyone over.

The quickest way to rile up an existing mob is to make them fear their livelihood is being reduced or removed. The _robot_ is not taking away healthcare, but the effect of the robot existing hit directly at the livelihood of the masses.

In the US, health insurance is largely tied to employment. Health insurance, in a personal economic sense, reduces to being able to pay for healthcare. This policy is largely a left-over of World War II era employment policies. No one is taking healthcare _away_ from anyone (strictly speaking), but the ability to be able to _pay_ for healthcare is reduced to zero when employment ceases. Accessing the safety net is a separate skillset. This skill set becomes more difficult to achieve because the political class does not want to provide healthcare for everyone, only the worthy (their loyal voters).

I grew up in and am still a member of the precariat. I am educated and doing well, but I wear a well-polished pair of golden handcuffs due to how my ability to afford healthcare for myself, and my family, is tied to employment. Politically, I _do not_ like being tied to my employer by such a chain, but my arguments to change the system have been met with quite firm push-back.

Insurance companies are using AI (whatever that means in this case) to make coverage denial decisions. That can be reasonably summarized as robots are taking away our healthcare.

Link, please? I 100% believe this but I'm curious about the reporting by which you discovered this

Google this and take your pick:

ai decisions health insurance

Also, to be clear, I don't think violence is the way to confront the oligarch sociopaths. There is clearly enough momentum to fix a lot of the monopoly / anti-consumer issues over the next 4-8 years. Assuming Trumpty Dumpty doesn't try to put our military at polling places or some other anti-democracy putinesque bullshit like that.

That’s quite the assumption.

You clearly haven't been paying attention.

Oh, no, I was agreeing with you. What you posited wrt elections is what I’ve been anticipating (with dread) for the past 18-ish months.

My bad, I thought you were referring to the implicit assumption about momentum. Not the explicit assuming that Trump doesn't put troops at the polls. He sure is trying his best to normalize troops in civilian settings.

Because healthcare in the US is tied to employment. For most people here, losing a job means losing access to healthcare (partially or totally).

Because the robot would take their job and having a job is a precondition to healthcare (may vary by country)?

As far as I know, the US is the only country like this. But anti-AI sentiment is rising around the world.

1. Americans need a job to get healthcare

2. Robots take away jobs from Americans and the proceeds to go the owner (investor) class

3. Americans no longer have healthcare

Understand?

I understand (I'm not from the US), however, wouldn't healthcare in the US would get drastically cheaper (even eventually free?) if hospitals/clinics were composed of humanoids instead of humans?

Interesting idea. I cannot say that I can answer affirmatively nor negatively. There are also human elements to be considered. Humans are status-seeking social creatures. There will always be a stain of humanoid-delivered care, no matter how high-quality, as being not as high quality of all-human delivered care. This is, status accounts for a lot.

I can also draw pictures of how dangerous humanoid care can be, as there is a possibility in a break in the chain of responsibility. If a human medical professional messes up, you (or your survivors) can sue and seek damages directly, as well as sue the hospital and insurance system (with mixed results).

With humanoids? Currently, the bar is higher as the entity being sued is not the hospital, nor a person, or even a team. The only entities that can be addressed are the corporation the runs the hospital and the corporation that produced the humanoid. These two entities have an incredible out-sized advantage in terms of sheer delaying tactics, not to mention arbitration clauses and other legal innovations. Most injured will simply give up, which is a legal win for the two entities.

In my opinion, humanoid care will take a large amount of time, damage, and treasure to lower the costs. No actor will willingly give up their cash flow. My view may be too strong.

Lol no

This is definitely a potential future state, but not one I could imagine happening soon. Given that the robots which are currently deployed do not benefit people directly (and even the indirect benefit of lower costs or better investment returns appear to be captured by the upper tiers of the economy), we have no confidence that they would deployed to benefit anyone but their owners.

More likely near-term states are less rosy, given intelligence takes off.

The price is set by how much providers can extract, not by their costs to provide. It's not at all obvious that a vast reduction in their cost of labour would translate to price reductions.

It's worth keeping in mind that in the U.S. the health marketplace is extremely complicated and cannot be analyzed with simple demand/supply graphs.

Doctors are an incredibly powerful lobby in America and are massive beneficiaries of the status quo. Across America, doctors live in huge mcmansions in gated communities, even while medical bankruptcies cripple the working class in the same town. Oh but the administrators! It's not the doctors, it's the administrators... Who are more often than not also MDs.

This is to say, doctors protect their own professional interests and would never permit this.

That’s the logic Keynes used to suggest that we’d all be working 15 hour weeks by now, with computers doing all the work.

Needless to say, we have discovered that productivity gains are not consistently converted into reduced costs and work hours.

No, they wouldn’t get cheaper. The profit margins in the healthcare industry would get bigger.

No. Bosses are not actually incentivized to make the unit price of health services cheaper.

Well in the US you get healthcare from a job (either directly in the form of insurance or indirectly in the form the money to pay for healthcare). If the robot takes your job, it takes your healthcare too.

You know this, stop pretending otherwise.

Robots can take away healthcare also by algorithm (or AI) denying healthcare benefits, while still being employed. It doesn't need to be a robot in cogs and hydraulics, but rather just a computer program. Probably already happening.

because in America, if they don't have a job (because a robot replaced them), they can't get healthcare

the narrative im hearing is AI breakthroughs will drive the cost of healthcare to zero (i.e. Alphafold etc)