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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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Demand for healthcare is comparatively inelastic, but it is not unbounded. If going to the doctor was cheap, you wouldn't spend all your time going to the doctor.

The specific outcome depends heavily on a variety of factors, including the degree of boosted productivity and whether having a fully trained medical professional in the room is necessary at all. If AI could do 90% of a doctor's work and save 90% of their time, but the demand for medical care only doubled, then I can see it easily being the case that hospitals would slash headcounts and pocket the change.

If the AI was >=100% as good as a human doctor (or got away with using less skilled alternatives like nurses, NPs etc for the physical stuff), then that might lead to mass unemployment or paycuts. 90% of doctors ending up unemployed, from my perspective, is almost as bad as all of us getting the sack.

Demand for healthcare is comparatively inelastic, but it is not unbounded. If going to the doctor was cheap, you wouldn't spend all your time going to the doctor.

I wouldn't. As you probably know, there are people who do.

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