Being a doctor is one of the jobs expected to be least at risk from AI replacement. But a new program launched in Utah is raising questions over that assumption. A healthcare startup will begin offering AI examinations and prescriptions to patients without direct human oversight, making Utah the first state to replace a doctor with an AI.

The good news is that the program is currently very limited in its scope. It’s just one year long and only for patients with mild-to-moderate acne.

The process works when a person signs up for Nolla Health’s $4.99-per-month app and uses it to scan their face. After completing a medical history and personal information form, the AI analyzes their skin, identifies the acne problem, rates the skin’s oiliness, and then generates a numerical acne severity score that ranges between clear skin and severe acne, reports Bloomberg.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I wonder if any of this would mean any of us hoi polloi will have cheaper healthcare?

    LOL, who am I kidding? The private equity firms running our clinics will probably try to reduce staff, underpay them as much as they can get away with, enshittify the outcomes as much as possible, and still jack up the prices for everything.

  • Jhex@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    This reminds me of the Futurama joke:

    Mars was a “dreary, uninhabitable wasteland” much like Utah, according to the Professor. However unlike Utah, it was “eventually made livable”

  • leadore@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Sounds like yet another way to gather facial recognition data for the panopticon.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      2 hours ago

      theranos, holemes was purely scamming, with “fake” medical tests though it never got off the ground. AI is going to prescribe the wrong medication, or the wrong procedure or deny/accept.

      another fun fact, is her husband started another company that is exactly theranos in 2024.

  • rogsson@piefed.social
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    10 hours ago

    So ppl will give AI their facial biometric data and all their health records? Sounds like a bright future.

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    14 hours ago

    AI medical errors aside, isn’t this a way to get facial scans into the AI database, specifically those of the youths? Especially the most gullible youths. And connect them with their medical history and identity.

    HIPAA means nothing to AI

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
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      11 hours ago

      Everything AI does is a scam. So yes.

      Look past the hype of electronics mimicking intelligent processes for a moment, and look at what else is being done:

      • monitor all cameras (report on populace)
      • require all computing components on earth (price populace out of independent compute)
      • require facial scans for medical reasons (store and categorize population demographics)
      • require cloud storage for agent to have access to and buying your own hardware is impossible (report on populace, including enterprise)
      • provide answers to internet queries and summarize news and current events (manufacture consent of the populace)

      This is a total information takeover happening in broad daylight. They want to get us to pay to give them everything about us at all times. Like WAY more than we already have been, which was already too far. This needs to be STOPPED.