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> The result: the nurse’s job changes > As the nurse incorporates AI into her job, the nurse is able to oversee and accomplish more. She can spend more time ta

> The result: the nurse’s job changes > As the nurse incorporates AI into her job, the nurse is able to oversee and accomplish more. She can spend more time talking with patients and helping them understand diagnoses. Productivity increases. Except what actually happens is that the patient contact time stays the same, but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses.

cucumber3732842 7d ago
>Except what actually happens is that the patient contact time stays the same, but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses. They'll fire the janitor and the secretary and make the nurses do that stuff too because "muh regulatory required staffing levels".
simianwords 7d ago
how come productivity increase actually led to increase in quality in almost all cases? internet/digitasion for doctors for example.
- chris_money202 7d ago
  I think this is only true if the # of doctors available per patient stays the same. If productivity increases, you can have fewer doctors available while providing the same quality of care. So, quality doesn't necessarily increase in all cases.
- ang_cire 7d ago
  > how come productivity increase actually led to increase in quality in almost all cases? It doesn't, this is just plain false. Most productivity gains happen by cutting value-add complexity or material quality. See IKEA chairs versus Shaker ones, or lycra clothes versus silk. > internet/digitasion for doctors for example. I see the misconception. The internet was not created to serve productivity, it was a communication medium. That it can be used to increase productivity is orthogonal to its existence or purpose, and whether it has been used to actually increase quality of something is entirely dependent of the specifics of what you're discussing. For instance, in gaming right now there's a huge discussion going on about whether digital distribution has actually trapped us with crappier goods which we can't resell or transfer.
  - simianwords 7d ago
    > It doesn't, this is just plain false. Most productivity gains happen by cutting value-add complexity or material quality. See IKEA chairs versus Shaker ones, or lycra clothes versus silk. this is a popular misconception. IKEA made bad furniture more accessible. good quality furniture still exists and is more affordable (share of disposable income) now than in the past. its the same deal for watches, dryers, computers etc. if you don't trust me, use ChatGPT/Claude to verify this.
    - ang_cire 7d ago
      You think handcrafted furniture is more readily accessible to the average person now than say 30 years ago? When people are struggling to buy gas, nevermind homes? And I asked Claude (Fable 5), and they said you're wrong. I'd paste it here, but it literally dumped a 10 paragraph rant about "Baumol's Cost Disease".
      - simianwords 7d ago
        What did you ask it? It’s pretty clear that share of disposable income is more or less flat for handcrafted furniture which is cherry picked.
        asdff 6d ago
        You are probably getting caught up in the idea of an inflation adjusted price of a new hand crafted dresser now and in some point of the past. It probably is pretty similar. But, that is just a piece of the puzzle here. In the past, every single home in the damn country rich and poor that had a dresser, had a hand crafted dresser. The rich people bought nice new ones. The middle class people bought modest new ones. The poor people bought used ones or found them on the side of the road. Fast forward to today, and every single home in the damn country rich and poor still has a dresser, only most of those are made of dust and glue. The entire new to used to side of the road pipeline is polluted with an inferior product compared to years past. Side of the road furniture is worthless now. One drizzle on the sidewalk that melamine board is swelling up and falling apart. Old furniture you could sand any damage and restain for probably 200 years. And people try and tell me the glue and dust stuff is "more sustainable" forgetting that its going to last maybe 2 moves if you are lucky, not 200 years, 200 weeks if you are lucky.
sscaryterry 7d ago
There we go. Except, all business owners, private or public, will tell you that this isn't the case. :)
detectivestory 7d ago
that didn't happen with self-checkout tills in supermakets...
- leto_ii 7d ago
  Wdym? self-checkout definitely lead to fewer supermarket workers being employed.
  - heaney-555 7d ago
    Actually, it has been essentially balanced out by a greater need for behind-the-shelves workers to pack and load orders for online/app delivery and eCommerce orders. This is how the economy often works. The loss of one kind of job to technology lets the business grow by using the same number of staff, or often even more, to serve new opportunities/markets/products/services.
  - rootusrootus 7d ago
    The data seems to contradict that, if Freakonomics is to be believed (and some people don't like them, I get that). Apparently overall headcount actually increased as a result of self-checkout. E.g. cashiers did drop a little but loss prevention more than made up for it.
    - nemomarx 7d ago
      seems like a worse customer experience though. longer lines at checkouts and the self checkout process is unnecessarily slow to deter theft.
      - trallnag 7d ago
        Some supermarkets let customers scan their items as they go through the store with a handheld device
        rootusrootus 7d ago
bpodgursky 7d ago
> but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses Lower staffing levels per unit of care performed makes medical care cheaper for patients. If the goal of a healthcare system is to make healthcare more accessible (rather than be a jobs program), that's a success.
- asdff 6d ago
  Everything is theoretically cheaper for the patients/customer/stakeholders if you just didn't employ anyone at all to do whatever it is you are doing. The thing is, your customers are paying customers because, drum roll, some one pays them to do something. And of course the only argument against this is "uhh maybe ubi" and that's rich that we will just come up with a nice tidy sum for everyone that will cover all their food, healthcare, housing, wants and needs, while we can't create programs to cover any one of those things today. Can't wait to see the GOP proposal.
- lbreakjai 7d ago
  If, and that's a huge if, the savings are actually passed on to the customers rather than the capital owners.
  - submain 7d ago
    Which is why we need competition. Which is almost non-existent in US healthcare as comparing prices is near impossible.
    - lbreakjai 7d ago
      The incumbents can just swallow the competition and consolidate further. The end state of crony capitalism is always a monopoly.
  - dgellow 7d ago
    Or any of the middlemen
- leto_ii 7d ago
crossroadsguy 7d ago
Something like this: same.. > nurse is able to oversee and accomplish more .. and work with more patients in the same shift. > She can spend more time talking with patients .. we mean the talking will be through the "ClaudeMedTalker Nurse" billed per patient, per second (depending upon tokens used and if any translation need, depending upon patient nationality and accents)
cman1444 7d ago
Except, so far, this isn't actually what happens. I listened to Moody's "Inside Economics" podcast with Ramp's Chief Economist, and they observe that companies who adopt AI intensively actually hire 10% more people. Also, this article from The Economist suggests that evidence is mixed-to-positive for long term employment, while short term data center buildout is extremely positive for jobs. Paywalled unfortunately. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/09/04/the-jobs-apocalypse-is-postponed-an-ai-jobs-boom-is-here https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/09/04/t...
- ang_cire 7d ago
  This is like asking your drug dealer if being high will help you forget your problems.
  - cman1444 7d ago
    No. As I said, the long-term gains are mixed-to-positive. And, all else being equal, you would rather have more short term job gains than none at all.
glaslong 7d ago
Self-checkout will free up cashiers to focus on high-quality customer service!
- emil-lp 7d ago
  Yes, I too have noticed an increased high quality customer service.

cucumber3732842 7d ago

>Except what actually happens is that the patient contact time stays the same, but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses. They'll fire the janitor and the secretary and make the nurses do that stuff too because "muh regulatory required staffing levels".

simianwords 7d ago

how come productivity increase actually led to increase in quality in almost all cases? internet/digitasion for doctors for example.

chris_money202 7d ago
I think this is only true if the # of doctors available per patient stays the same. If productivity increases, you can have fewer doctors available while providing the same quality of care. So, quality doesn't necessarily increase in all cases.
ang_cire 7d ago
> how come productivity increase actually led to increase in quality in almost all cases? It doesn't, this is just plain false. Most productivity gains happen by cutting value-add complexity or material quality. See IKEA chairs versus Shaker ones, or lycra clothes versus silk. > internet/digitasion for doctors for example. I see the misconception. The internet was not created to serve productivity, it was a communication medium. That it can be used to increase productivity is orthogonal to its existence or purpose, and whether it has been used to actually increase quality of something is entirely dependent of the specifics of what you're discussing. For instance, in gaming right now there's a huge discussion going on about whether digital distribution has actually trapped us with crappier goods which we can't resell or transfer.
- simianwords 7d ago
  > It doesn't, this is just plain false. Most productivity gains happen by cutting value-add complexity or material quality. See IKEA chairs versus Shaker ones, or lycra clothes versus silk. this is a popular misconception. IKEA made bad furniture more accessible. good quality furniture still exists and is more affordable (share of disposable income) now than in the past. its the same deal for watches, dryers, computers etc. if you don't trust me, use ChatGPT/Claude to verify this.
  - ang_cire 7d ago
    You think handcrafted furniture is more readily accessible to the average person now than say 30 years ago? When people are struggling to buy gas, nevermind homes? And I asked Claude (Fable 5), and they said you're wrong. I'd paste it here, but it literally dumped a 10 paragraph rant about "Baumol's Cost Disease".
    - simianwords 7d ago
      What did you ask it? It’s pretty clear that share of disposable income is more or less flat for handcrafted furniture which is cherry picked.
      - asdff 6d ago
        You are probably getting caught up in the idea of an inflation adjusted price of a new hand crafted dresser now and in some point of the past. It probably is pretty similar. But, that is just a piece of the puzzle here. In the past, every single home in the damn country rich and poor that had a dresser, had a hand crafted dresser. The rich people bought nice new ones. The middle class people bought modest new ones. The poor people bought used ones or found them on the side of the road. Fast forward to today, and every single home in the damn country rich and poor still has a dresser, only most of those are made of dust and glue. The entire new to used to side of the road pipeline is polluted with an inferior product compared to years past. Side of the road furniture is worthless now. One drizzle on the sidewalk that melamine board is swelling up and falling apart. Old furniture you could sand any damage and restain for probably 200 years. And people try and tell me the glue and dust stuff is "more sustainable" forgetting that its going to last maybe 2 moves if you are lucky, not 200 years, 200 weeks if you are lucky.

sscaryterry 7d ago

There we go. Except, all business owners, private or public, will tell you that this isn't the case. :)

detectivestory 7d ago

that didn't happen with self-checkout tills in supermakets...

leto_ii 7d ago
Wdym? self-checkout definitely lead to fewer supermarket workers being employed.
- heaney-555 7d ago
  Actually, it has been essentially balanced out by a greater need for behind-the-shelves workers to pack and load orders for online/app delivery and eCommerce orders. This is how the economy often works. The loss of one kind of job to technology lets the business grow by using the same number of staff, or often even more, to serve new opportunities/markets/products/services.
- rootusrootus 7d ago
  The data seems to contradict that, if Freakonomics is to be believed (and some people don't like them, I get that). Apparently overall headcount actually increased as a result of self-checkout. E.g. cashiers did drop a little but loss prevention more than made up for it.
  - nemomarx 7d ago
    seems like a worse customer experience though. longer lines at checkouts and the self checkout process is unnecessarily slow to deter theft.
    - trallnag 7d ago
      Some supermarkets let customers scan their items as they go through the store with a handheld device
      - rootusrootus 7d ago

bpodgursky 7d ago

> but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses Lower staffing levels per unit of care performed makes medical care cheaper for patients. If the goal of a healthcare system is to make healthcare more accessible (rather than be a jobs program), that's a success.

asdff 6d ago
Everything is theoretically cheaper for the patients/customer/stakeholders if you just didn't employ anyone at all to do whatever it is you are doing. The thing is, your customers are paying customers because, drum roll, some one pays them to do something. And of course the only argument against this is "uhh maybe ubi" and that's rich that we will just come up with a nice tidy sum for everyone that will cover all their food, healthcare, housing, wants and needs, while we can't create programs to cover any one of those things today. Can't wait to see the GOP proposal.
lbreakjai 7d ago
If, and that's a huge if, the savings are actually passed on to the customers rather than the capital owners.
- submain 7d ago
  Which is why we need competition. Which is almost non-existent in US healthcare as comparing prices is near impossible.
  - lbreakjai 7d ago
    The incumbents can just swallow the competition and consolidate further. The end state of crony capitalism is always a monopoly.
- dgellow 7d ago
  Or any of the middlemen
leto_ii 7d ago

crossroadsguy 7d ago

Something like this: same.. > nurse is able to oversee and accomplish more .. and work with more patients in the same shift. > She can spend more time talking with patients .. we mean the talking will be through the "ClaudeMedTalker Nurse" billed per patient, per second (depending upon tokens used and if any translation need, depending upon patient nationality and accents)

cman1444 7d ago

Except, so far, this isn't actually what happens. I listened to Moody's "Inside Economics" podcast with Ramp's Chief Economist, and they observe that companies who adopt AI intensively actually hire 10% more people. Also, this article from The Economist suggests that evidence is mixed-to-positive for long term employment, while short term data center buildout is extremely positive for jobs. Paywalled unfortunately. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/09/04/the-jobs-apocalypse-is-postponed-an-ai-jobs-boom-is-here https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/09/04/t...

ang_cire 7d ago
This is like asking your drug dealer if being high will help you forget your problems.
- cman1444 7d ago
  No. As I said, the long-term gains are mixed-to-positive. And, all else being equal, you would rather have more short term job gains than none at all.

glaslong 7d ago

Self-checkout will free up cashiers to focus on high-quality customer service!

emil-lp 7d ago
Yes, I too have noticed an increased high quality customer service.