The market’s bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: “Look, you fire nine out of 10 of your radiologists, saving $20m a year. You give us $10m a year, and you net $10m a year, and the remaining radiologists’ job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed – and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it’s catastrophically wrong.
“And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist’s fault, because they are the ‘human in the loop’. It’s their signature on the diagnosis.”
I mean the productivity gains are there. I think the argument about cancer is should hospitals be run as non-profits…
Quote Citation: Cory Doctorow, “AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian”, Sun 18 Jan 2026 09.00 EST, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur