Sapphire
Paris MarxWhen we warn the real threat of AI is how it’s used against people in the present, not the fantasies that some day computers might think for themselves, this is exactly the kind of thing we’re talking about: health insurers using AI to deny care.
Samhain Night@parismarx Funny how the errors aren’t in the customer’s favor…
mattg@samhainnight @parismarx I'm certain they have a human review the decisions... whenever the ai says to approve care.
@mattg @parismarx Most likely.
Waseem@samhainnight @parismarx because that's not how businesses work
arthurforest
anubis2814@parismarx "Bank error in your favor" One of the greatest lies the game of monopoly ever told me.
Jeff ♨️ Darcy@parismarx From a business perspective, the biggest thing about LLMs is not what they can actually do but how they can wash away responsibility. That's a *huge* deal to the rentier class, and "AI" proponents are well aware of it.
Jargoggles@Obdurodon @parismarx
Companies have been pretending like nobody is personally responsible for shitty behavior for a long time by saying "it's just policy." However, people have always known that, at some level, people wrote those policies.
Much more recently, it's gotten worse when they can say "it's just the algorithm." Sure, people wrote the algorithms, but they're much more arcane than a written document.
LLMs are going to escalate this even further.
alex (MOVED)@jargoggles @Obdurodon @parismarx this this this.
AI will be yet another scapegoat for companies to continue to make worse and worse decisions. there is ALWAYS someone behind the machine, enacting the decisions and/or allowing the AI's rulings to be honored. therefore, it is still ultimately a decision made by humans. sickening that our most powerful technology to date is already being used to continually reinforce rotten power structures and systems...
@parismarx re: slimy #UnitedHealth automated AI healthcare denials, people need to know that #MedicareAdvantage <> #Medicare! #MedicareDisadvantage
P.S. Mastodon should have quote toots
@ShutterbugDoug @parismarx Friendica and Firefish do. Lots of advantages over mastodon. Both are fediverse connected.
🪐@ShutterbugDoug @parismarx FYI Quote Toots is a feature being implemented by the Mastodon developers. I think some other Mastodon compatible services already have them implemented.
🧙♂️ Julian Invictus ☕@parismarx it's like corporations are bad and every tool they use is used in the worst way possibly because they're inherently corrupt.
Robert M@parismarx AI "death panels".
@parismarx Correct. Skynet is never going to happen. But humans using AI nefariously against each other, that's the threat.
@sanwu @parismarx Pay no attention to the soulless entity behind the techno gibberish curtain.
Securopean@parismarx The EU is putting together some good legislation on this in the AI Act - along the lines of GDPR, so you can't be subject to arbitrary automated decision making.
Bill LambStay with regular Medicare. AVOID health insurance companies whenever possible.
zilla@parismarx solution, don't give them your money in the first place.
Acausal Robot God@parismarx I was assured that the only issue with AI was that it would simulate copies of people and torture them for not working sufficiently hard to bring the AI into being.
MIGRATED TO: @AcausalRobotGod @parismarx somehow reality has managed to be even more fucked up than fiction yet again
The Gray Witch@parismarx Request the reason and signature from the doctor advising the insurer deny care.
Shane Kerr@gray_witch @parismarx From the fine article:
"His family appealed the denial, twice, overturning it on the second appeal after NaviHealth doctors reviewed Tetzloff's medical records. But, after 40 days at the skilled nursing home, UnitedHealth denied coverage again and refused to provide a reason. The family continued trying to appeal the denial, but were unsuccessful."
So you can ask for whatever documentation you want, but that doesn't mean that you will get it.
@shane_kerr @parismarx A doctor's signature on the denial gives much greater grounds for a lawsuit later on malpractice.
@gray_witch @parismarx I have no idea about the legal implications, so you are probably correct about those. But according to the article the insurance company did not provide any justification for denying the claim. Presumably they were asked.
I find it shocking that this would even be possible, but the article seems credible, and health care in the USA is crazy, so I am inclined to believe it.
@shane_kerr @parismarx I've seen it a number of times.
Nicole ParsonsWorry more about AI becoming part of business models of funded malign influence campaigns
Like the GOP lies that let 1.18 million Americans die of preventable disease
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/12/covid-deaths-anti-vaccine-republican-voters/672575/
Imagine if Texas's Dan Patrick's donors had been able to buy an AI-assisted covid disinfo campaign, instead of relying on Fox News?
It wouldn't have just been granny targeted for callous & neglectful social murder. It would have been POC, non-Christians, & immigrants too
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/dan-patrick-coronavirus-grandparents
Someone within the GOP donor class paid a lot of money to spread covid disinformation...who?
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-unnecessary-deaths-covid-19
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/dan-patrick-coronavirus-grandparents
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/18/trump-coronavirus-plan-bailouts/
The Day Trump Decided to Let Hundreds of Thousands of Americans Die to Gain Political Advantage | Common Dreams
Once the disgraced former president realized who was dying most from Covid-19 things began to change as the federal government stopped trying to save lives and started promoting policies that would eventually kill — unnecessarily — a half-million Americans.
Squiggle@Npars01 @parismarx We are looking at Augmented Idiocy.
The failing public education leaves is building. At least here in Australia basic literacy, numeracy and critical thinking is on the decline.
The failing public education leaves is building. At least here in Australia basic literacy, numeracy and critical thinking is on the decline.
The public education system is not failing.
It's being deliberately disrupted and defunded, by billionaires.
They're attempting to use vouchers & charter schools to get public funding for segregated private schools.
They want to convert every publicly funded system into systems of public corruption.
Patronage & pork for their billionaire donors is all the GOP do.
https://jacobin.com/2018/06/public-education-privatization-koch-brothers-teachers
https://www.newsweek.com/greg-abbott-dream-defunding-public-schools-moves-one-step-closer-1834445
Jim Vernon@parismarx That's more like just plain fraud than it is "AI".
OpenDNA⚙️@jimvernon @parismarx Fraud is what UnitedHealthcare does best.
Not even clever, sophisticated fraud either. They'll just take your money every month and then tell your doctor that they've never heard of you.
RanaldClouston@parismarx i feel like we could have seen this exact headline 10 years ago, but it would have said 'algorithm' rather than 'AI model', probably to describe the exact same software
Paul 💙 28 💔 💚@parismarx AI decisions aren't really decisions ..they are averaged guesses weighted in the companies favour.
2¢@parismarx but they don't need AI for that. It's just something to hide behind, to pretend that denying care isn't simply their profitability model.
@Qbitzerre @parismarx You are correct, although in the case of AI normally we see not being able to explain results as a problem. But for scammy insurance companies, it is a feature.
Antiroo 🔞@parismarx well the company was going to do the same. Soon they will have AI that tries to guilt trip you into going to work when you are sick, AI that fires you for being queer and AI that drops bombs on villages
Frances LarinaIt doesn't matter how accurate it is, so long as it gives the answer that's more profitable. And because it's a black box to everyone who doesn't understand AI, it's a very useful tool for profiting.
Lothus Marque@parismarx I hesitate to call this stuff "AI" but algorithmic denials have been an issue for a while. In particular I remember reading something a while back that one (about drug seeking, IIRC SAID it was "for advisory use only" or something like that, but people were taking this potential flag and running with it as if it was gospel... unfortunately I think part of it has to do with liability. "This says there's a chance, so if I disregard this, I could be liable" ...which is shitty as hell.
Sabella@parismarx now I have two things I hate: people calling it AI, and people using machine learning to make life all the more hellish.
Alkaris 
@parismarx Obviously these companies are using AI for nefarious reasons, but this doesn't inherently mean all AI is bad. What we have here is a bad actor abusing AI with a model that's been specifically designed to be biased and deny any and all claims, all to penny pinch those who signed up to their insurance policy and to avoid having to pay out any claims to their clients. It's just fraud.
Sunday_lunar@parismarx that is in the nature of health insurers. They will misuse any tool in the book to deny people their rightful payments. Nothing has changed.
it's B! Cavello 🐝@parismarx hoping some version of the Algorithmic Accountability Act makes its way into law, at the very LEAST
https://posts.bcavello.com/why-im-still-hyped-about-the-algorithmic-accountability-act/
https://posts.bcavello.com/why-im-still-hyped-about-the-algorithmic-accountability-act/
Thibaultmol 🌈@parismarx tbf.... United healthcare was already denying a shit ton of claims without AI. That's a horrible company
Token Sane Person@parismarx This was almost certainly not "AI" in any real sense. The company is just using the word as a barrier to stop people asking questions. What data was this model based on? Who decided the rules it should follow?
My guess is it was a simple linear regression based on previous insurance decisions, which of course are not biased in any way at all.
Philip C JamesYou mean that in 9 out of 10 cases the UnitedHealth AI awards funding the patient doesn't actually merit?
...
Thought not.
Anisse@parismarx @ljs AI isn't the issue here. Having a for-profit medical insurer is. Using the worst tool for the job that increases profits is only a byproduct of that.
@Aissen @parismarx you can have more than one problem at once. 'AI' is absolutely a problem, this is hardly the only example.
@ljs @parismarx I cannot disagree, but I find that addressing a leaf issue instead of the root cause is waste of time and energy.
@Aissen @parismarx I don't disagree, but the point was about AI and you're getting distracted :)
If you want an alternative that's less distracting, 'self driving' technologies have already killed people.
If you want an alternative that's less distracting, 'self driving' technologies have already killed people.
Voron@parismarx if corporations are people this is basically theft and probably some bodily harm in there, why isn’t this corporation in jail, you know since it’s a person
arnicas@parismarx but ML models have already been doing this for years.
Veranderwens@parismarx
Wat #Rutte, #Kamp en trawanten deden/doen met #algoritmes, doen ze nu met #AI ook.
Weet wat je kiest