Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
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Notes -
What employees have you fired so far?
In Zvi's recent post, I noticed an interesting pairing of two things:
and:
It was a bit stark, because getting a pretty good answer, vastly better than you could otherwise get without a real estate professional, would seem to cost ~$0, when the professional apparently costs something like $36,000 and up. So why not fire the real estate agent?
There could be a variety of reasons involving the nature of the work, regulatory barriers, etc., but one thing that comes to mind is that Zvi has paid for a real estate agent before and is consciously thinking about what that situation is like when thinking about whether he would hire again. Whereas, I doubt he's hired a radiologist before and is probably not in a situation where he's thinking super seriously about the considerations that would be involved if he had a need for such a service.
This leads me to ask, "Which employees have you fired?" In this case, "employees" can be read broadly, covering folks like real estate agents/radiologists, who you may procure services from on occasion, in addition to actual employment relations if you're a manager/business owner. But I want to particularly hone in on examples where you have paid a human for a particular service in the past and have subsequently encountered a nearly-identical need, but have chosen to not pay a human now for the service.
This question is in significant part simply selfish. I might be missing some aspect in my life where I can save a bunch of money. That would be cool, and I'd like to do that if I can.
I used AI to replace what I guess could have been a doctor's visit. I had some questions about an OTC medication I was taking for seasonal allergy issues, so I went to Gemini. The initial question seemed a bit basic to bother setting up an actual doctor's visit. It gave good answers to everything, helped identify some issues it was causing me, and suggested some other treatments (other OTC medications), one of which I tried and was much better. It's honestly a way, way better experience than anything I've done with the "proper" healthcare system. AI will give you an answer to any sane question at any hour of the day or night immediately, doesn't mind at all if I ignore a conversation for a week and then ask another question to continue it, and it actually listens to things you tell it better than most doctors. I know it's not as reliable as a real doctor, but I think I'm smart enough to apply common sense, ask for references to properly validated information sources, and only actually use treatments purchased from a real brick-and-mortar drugstore that are advertised to treat the proper conditions and used in accordance with their labeling etc.
In comparison, a proper doctor requires the slog of finding one of the appropriate specialty that my insurance accepts, setting an appointment that might be a week or two away, travelling to the office, usually filling out a ton of forms answering a slew of questions unrelated to my actual complaint, usually getting seen late, talking to a nurse first, then actually talking to a doctor for a few minutes, and that's the only time they'll actually answer any questions, since apparently email is too insecure, so nobody uses it, even if I positively give zero fucks who knows about my allergy issues. Though even if the system worked perfectly and I could use email or some similarly convenient modern communication medium to ask questions of a doctor, it's a bit much to expect a real expert to answer any question instantly 24x7. I know there are some things that will basically always require a real doctor, but for the minor stuff in the gaps, this feels like a great solution to me.
My experience with ai medical is the same reason I wouldn't dare use it for therapy. It will indeed let you just keep talking and asking questions forever in a way your real doctor will not. Which is fine when I need answers about my hip hurting (probably a muscle strain from my move, thanks chatgpt, and it is getting better now that I'm trying to avoid certain activities, thanks chatgpt) but I could imagine obsessing about a thing that was emotionally upsetting me for an unhealthy long time. With a person you are concerned about their opinion of you and that trims the excesses of narcissism, as does the ticking away of an expensive hour.
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