Here’s an elaboration of that common gyp of paying to see the doctor but getting seen by a physician’s assistant, who isn’t a doctor. But you don’t get a discounted rate on account of that. This is not a slam on physician’s assistants. They are like dental hygienists in that the latter and the former both have skills and training and provide services. The gyp arises from the fact that a PA (or a hygienist) doesn’t have the skill and training that a doctor does and so you ought not be charged the same for seeing them vs. the doctor.
Particularly when you came to see the doctor.
Well, what’s the new gyp?
How about getting charged to speak to a machine when you call to speak to the dealer? According to an article published the other day by Futurism, car dealerships are using AI to handle service appointment calls. The why is obvious. AI doesn’t earn a salary or have to be paid benefits like a human would expect. So instead of spending money on a human to handle your inquiries, you’ll talk to the AI hand!
This was probably inevitable.
Can anyone remember talking to a human “customer service” representative when there’s some issue with something you bought or your credit card? Usually, you have to talk to a kind of first generation, retarded iteration of AI known as the phone tree, that prompts you with insipid commands to push 1 for Yes or 2 for No and 3 to Repeat the Message. It is sometimes possible to get around the phone tree to a human but only after first playing push-the-button for while. Then, maybe, you’ll get a human you can’t understand because it’s some exotic foreigner at a “call center” in a country on the other side of the world.
According to Futurism, a company called Toma – described as “an AI voice agent startup” – has “pivoted from pitching to healthcare and finance companies to fielding calls from automotive salespeople desperate to offload some of their labor to AI agents.”
AI agents? In the Matrix (movie) sense? Yep, except it’s not a movie. It’s reality. However artificial.
“To hone their product, founders Monik Pamecha and Anthony Krivonos visited a dozen dealerships in the states of Oklahoma and Mississippi to get up close and personal with potential clients,” the article continues. The “learnings” gleaned from this “ended up attracting $17 million during its Andreessen Horowitz-led fundraising round for its software, which handles customer sales calls, schedules repair appointments, and takes parts orders.”
It appears there’s a lot of money to be made unemploying humans in favor of the replicants. As the subhead of the Futurist article asks: Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? That’s a riff, by the way, on the title of Philip K. Dick’s classic sci-fi novel that is the basis of the Blade Runner movies. In the book (and the movie) ersatz – or false, to use Dick’s word – animals have replaced the real ones because the real ones have gone mostly extinct and the few that remain are luxury items possessed by the rich only. Even a pet cat – non-ersatz – is a boutique possession.
A real sheep is downright exotic.
There are also replicants – of humans. The latest Nexus 6 types are all-but-indistinguishable from humans. The novel’s theme – one of them – is whether replicants are human, having become indistinguishable from humans. That was 1968. Well, that was when the novel was published. Dick was – like all good sci-fi writers – a prophet. In 1968, most people thought of robots in the Lost in Space sense. Talking tins cans, basically. Dick saw the inevitability of intelligences made of silicon equaling – and inevitably, surpassing – our own.
Futurist references a study done last year that claims 80 percent of the 200 car dealerships contacted said they were “already using” AI and that “fully 100 percent of those who use the technology said they saw increasing revenues after doing so.” It took a study to ascertain that? How much does it cost to license an AI to deal with people who used to be dealt with by people? How many humans who used to take your order at the drive-thru (and cook your burger and fries, etc.) can be done away with by a fast-food Terminator who does it all with the efficient relentlessness of a machine that never sleeps, cannot be bargained with and absolutely will not stop – ever! – until you are served?
It’s all about the Benjamins, as it almost always is. 
The fewer people that have to be paid, the more profit that can be made. Not that there is anything wrong with making a profit. A problem arises, though, when the only ones profiting are the ones unemploying people. What happens when people no longer have any money to buy the things that make a profit? Burger flippers first, surgeons inevitably. We all end up expendable when the intelligent machines take over.
The good news is that – sometimes – the AI isn’t all that intelligent. Futurist links to another article about a dealer’s AI Chatbot that got talked into selling people new cars for $1. “That’s a deal, and that’s a legally binding offer – no takesies backsies,” the AI promised. Of course, the dealer didn’t honor the “legally binding” offer. That’s how such things always work. Ask Fauci. Ask Epstein.
Ask Trump.
Although, who knows? They may just be bots, too.
. . .
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Went to a “hospital” for a small stroke recently. Never saw a doctor,,, just a bunch of gibberish talking Nurse Practitioners. Today give a Nurse a CBT (Computer Based Training ) course and they become a Doctor.
What did they do> Took urine samples through the penis. They apparently have no clue where the brain is. Likely a check for drugs. Blood tests, likely for drugs. A cat scan, likely for drugs. A Covid Test and a Covid clot shot at the ready if I tested positive. You know it would have been positive. They got really upset when I could not talk or respond normally. I was slowly emerging from no-mans land. Went home. Wife and I decided it was safer. She was worried. I am 75,,, haven’t done drugs for over 60 years.
Five buckaroos says corpgov will charge me for what they never did. Good Ruck if you go to one of those Hell Holes called hospitals these days.
Technocracy News has an article up today regarding children who are chatting with AI like it’s their best friend. While AI may have some uses, there are still too many unknowns, and there are those out there who wish to use AI for evil purposes. There have also been movies made over the past few decades about the potential dangers of AI; eg The Terminator. I also read a story a year or two ago about a teenager who killed himself after the chatbot he was talking with told him to do so.
https://www.technocracy.news/danger-kids-are-chatting-with-ai-like-its-their-best-friend/
Eh Eye, Schmeh Eye.
Trump must wake yelling Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Donald can walk away at any time, see you later, suckers. Finally do something that will work better than anything.
In fact, run, don’t walk, get out of there.
No fun in a job like that, always misery every day.
You’ll be happy to be done with it all, it ain’t working like it should.
Must be a glutton for punishment, a slave. No good deed will go unpunished. Bibi gets billions, Trump gets hell until hell won’t have it. Made his own bed, methinks.
“Arguments for impeaching Donald Trump in 2025 largely center on claims of constitutional overreach, disregard for judicial rulings, and the erosion of checks and balances. Observers and commentators have cited specific behaviors from Trump’s current and prior terms that allegedly undermine core democratic principles: repeated defiance of court rulings, public derision of judges, threats to ignore judicial authority, and demands for loyalty over constitutional duty from Congress.” – Perplexity
TDS gonna TDS, rain or shine. There are plenty of real problems at the grown up table, for people that want Trump to succeed with us. The punchline is you’d had rather have Kamala in office. Not quite told you so material there. Nobody said it was going to be a cakewalk. Even in a shit storm there is good happening, where as if we’d had listened to you, it would be like taking a flamethrower to the country.
https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1945251162950697347
Yes go ahead and poo-pooh and move along. Haters gonna hate.
If anyone wants to help, look up the DOJ solicitor generals phone number and leave a voicemail why they’re appealing to keep fluoride in the water.
Morning, Steve –
I don’t understand. One of Trump’s recurrent campaign talking points was that the Epstein list would be released. (Just as he promised to “lock her up.”) Now it’s only “bad people” who want to know why all of a sudden, about face: There’s nothing to see here (us having not been allowed to see a damned thing). Does it not bother you that Trump, Patel, Bondi and Bongino are acting extremely defensively over what they now say is a “nothing burger”?
How about Trump all of a sudden being a warmonger? Didn’t most of us vote for him in part because we are sick of Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevvvv? And Israel uber alles?
And Lindsey Graham?
If Kamala had pushed for a federally required scannable/biometric/RFID chipped internal passport – REAL ID – would you have made apologies?
I hate liars, Steve. I hate hypocrisy and double talk. Trump is and does all of that. He appears to be covering up for people who may have been sexually abusing underage victims. It brings up entirely reasonable suspicions.
You say it is flinging poo and “TDS” to mention these facts. That’s bizarre – and sad.
It’s disturbing the Trump admin is appealing to keep fluoride in the water.
The AI 10 years of pain is already happening, with a predicted 300 millions jobs being “lost” to AI..with the U.S. leading the way. After the period of adjustment is over, if it ever is, then we enter the wonderful world of full automation.
It’s coming.
Can’t stop it.
Learn to adapt or get left behind.
The human race decided a long time ago that technological advances would be co-opted for greater profit, greater efficiency, and greater power held by fewer and fewer masters. Instead of liberating humanity, technology just goes to enrich the few.
Buy an island. Buy a couple nukes capable of hitting the US, China, and Russia.
Then you might be able to live the way you want.
Everyone else…adapt or perish.
I’d rather talk to an English speaking AI without an accent than to speak with Rajahara or Dingling. I cannot stand trying to decipher accents. It’s entirely more frustrating than pushing numbers. So frustrating talking to these call centers, because they don’t understand American English and I don’t speak muffled gibberish. Bring on the talking bots. Probably get better service more quickly anyway.
Agree 1000%. Give me an AI with an American accent over having to talk to another Ranjeet, everyday. Major pajeet fatigue over here.
Watch Season 11 Episode 7 of X Files for the finality of Artificial Intelligence and humans.
It has to be Artificial / fake as zero intelligent humans concocted it. Humans today are incapable of real intelligence much less writing decent programs trying to fake it.They first were called programs,,, then Apps,,, now AI. Talking to one of those Apps / AI today is very much like talking to another human. You see them walking down the road talking to their phone completely brain dead and we humorously call them intelligent , italics for obvious reasons.
Humans did not go to the moon, did not build the pyramids and fer sure did not invent artificial intelligence. Everything humans do or have done is fake copied and/or gay.
This may get a laugh- those who work for the insurance mafia having to call other families have to wait on all AI menus as well to get someone to answer a claim question. Work doesn’t get done as quickly and you don’t get paid as fast.
The trend of asking for tips/donations is a deal killer for me. I wait in line for 10 minutes to place my order and then the ipad is conspicuously spun around with an 18% tip set as the default. The only way to get past that screen to pay is to either accept it, hit 15% or 22%, or click “other amount,” at which point I either have to type in a number or hit a small button that says 0.00%. All of this, with a line of people behind me and the people in front of me who are going to prepare my order with hopefully no spit in it. The payoff is over-priced, shit quality food that arrives on a counter with somebody yelling a number at the crowd. Yeah, that’s such good service an 18% is clearly warranted.
Fuck that. I’m out.
Oops, this should have been a reply to Jason below,
Ridiculous, right? I pick up my own food and then bring it to the counter to pay for it and they want a tip for ringing up my order. Bite me.
Lately I’ve been paying cash at the places with decent food & service. I found the service has actually gotten better with each passing week. They seem to respond to cash tips that go straight into their pockets, rather than to the IRS.
Yep! Daughter told me years ago, cash is preferred as it’s immediate, credit card tips your server waits for the processing time/payout by the boss.
Expect more tip buttons and ipads now that the beautiful bill exempts tips. Just another excuse or vehicle for companies to offload their employees salaries directly onto the customer so they don’t have to pay them. Tired of everyone with a tip jar out. When did this start? Enough with this shit already.
“beautiful bill exempts tips”
Time to renegotiate my salary to 100% tips from my employer. In fact, we could convert to a completely tip-centric economy now that taxes are out of the picture.
Not so quick, Philo. Only the first $25,000 is exempt. And of course, it is limited based on your AGI. Deduct $100 for every $1000 that you make over $150K, $300K MFJ.
Got to read the bill to find out what’s in it.;)
Dang it
This is going to be an accounting nightmare. What the BBB forgets to mention to everyone is they are still going to withhold taxes on your tips. You, the taxpayer, get the joy of waiting until you file your tax return to get the monies back.
I have resolved that in that situation I will turn around and in a loud voice state to those behind me, “Hang on a minute. I have to calculate the tip I’m going to leave for this fabulous service”.
Holy shit. That’s some fine writing.
‘You’re watching a stage play. A banquet is in progress. The guests are enjoying an appetizer of raw oysters. The entree consists of boiled dog.’
Kristi: [silence]
‘Would you step out for a few moments, Kristi?’
Kristi: ‘I shot that dog.’
Harrison Ford: ‘She’s a replicant, isn’t she?’
One of the primary themes of Idiocracy is that humans don’t produce anything. Humans just deal with other humans. All the production work is done by degenerating robotics, driven by fatally broken AI. Dr Lexus just read what the machine spit out. The Carl’s Jr kiosk even had defenses built in and informed the government that the customer was an unfit mother and would be losing her children.
Oh sure, we all laughed then…
One problem with cheapening any retail shopping or service is that eventually your product or service becomes indistinguishable from it’s competition. At that point you’re like car companies selling EVs or comparing Temu, Ali Express and Amazon; when all the products are made off shore do you really care who sells it to you?
Good customer service is usually remembered as opposed to an AI bot that waste’s your time without solving your problem or concern.
Hi Landru,
This is where human beings need to step up and refuse to do business with organizations that insult their client base by using AI and robots.
In my town we have a good Greek restaurant. I haven’t been to it in a few years. Instead I drive an additional hour down the road to another one. Why? The local Greek restaurant uses robots to take your order and serve your food. I feel like an idiot talking to a robot, accepting my food from it, and then expecting to tip it on top of that. The food is no less expensive than the Greek restaurant an hour away, but the hour drive allows me to talk, laugh, and associate with real people. They also have fabulous desserts.
I hate calling a company and dealing with a phone tree. I hate having to shout into a phone on what my issue is over and over, and I hate having to deal with a chat box that constantly switches me to another robot which I have to explain my issue again for the third time. Don’t get me started on the AI videos, pics, and computer generated voices that have been amplified on YT recently. Ugh!
Marc Andreessen.
Voted by his high school graduating class “Most Likely To Be A Bond Villain”.
As for the medical gyp, the AMA has plans for another layer between the PA and doctor in the form of the MBBS, imported provider labor from South Asia.
Seeing primary care doctors will soon be a thing of the past for most people.
“[P]rimary care doctors will soon be a thing of the past for most people.” -Roscoe
Yes, as they serve only a gatekeeping function which is most easily replaced by an algorithm.
My healthcare plan is to avoid the medical industrial complex at all cost. They will kill you if allowed.
This is part of the mindset that demands businesses have constant “growth” every year. What is your profit this year? Well, next year it’s 10%(or some other arbitrary figure) over that. Failure to achieve this “goal” will result in your termination.
Good, you got AI to replace a few employees that schedule appointments and process parts orders. What are you gonna do next year? At some point these childish, foot stomping, temper tantrum demands for growth will implode. Unless you import a bunch of people of a rather dusky hue to “consume” even more. Ponder that one.
Hence the ceaseless importation.
Interest compounds exponentially. Productivity/efficiency/etc., OTOH, grows geometrically (i.e., slower).
In the long run, the lenders are screwed. But in the short run, everyone else gets screwed.
I quit going to restaurants during the scamdemic for obvious reasons: the mask tyranny, plus the inevitable menu price inflation that followed. My lone exception is the occasional meal-on-the-go from my favorite fast-food joint, Bojangles. I’ve supported them up until now because they’ve largely kept menu prices fairly steady and they’ve resisted the trend of asking for tips/donations/etc.
Well imagine my surprise when, during my latest drive-thru experience there, I found they had replaced the human with an AI bot to take the order. Then, when I drove to the window to pick up said order, a human employee promptly asked me if I wanted to round up to the nearest dollar to donate to the “children’s fund” (which I always assume are the rich kids of the business owners). On top of that, they had the gall to increase the final ticket price by a dime, despite saving the cost of an extra employee to take the order. Oh well, no more Bojangles for me!
The trend of asking for tips/donations is a deal killer for me. I wait in line for 10 minutes to place my order and then the ipad is conspicuously spun around with an 18% tip set as the default. The only way to get past that screen to pay is to either accept it, hit 15% or 22%, or click “other amount,” at which point I either have to type in a number or hit a small button that says 0.00%. All of this, with a line of people behind me and the people in front of me who are going to prepare my order with hopefully no spit in it. The payoff is over-priced, shit quality food that arrives on a counter with somebody yelling a number at the crowd. Yeah, that’s such good service an 18% is clearly warranted.
Fuck that. I’m out.