Dental practices are notorious for being badly run: dentists often have great technical skills but are lacking in people skills, business skills, common sense, etc. Seyle in The Stress of Life talks about early research about how many dentists struggle because of this.
Dentists frequently get talked into MLM scams (which they have a lot of money to lose on) or Scientology management training (which they have a lot of money to lose on.)
Given all that many of them might be happier if they work for private equity, and that trend is stronger with more women entering the field. I dunno if women are really worse at running a business but I think they are better at recognizing that they're not good at running a business when they're not.
Have you encountered those voicemail AI customer service representatives? Those can't route you anywhere so you're stuck talking to a robot.
I was just trying to schedule my daughter's dentist appointment and had to spend 10 minutes talking to an AI when I could have found a time that worked in 30 seconds with a human. And at the end of the whole process, she got my daughter's name wrong. It was demoralizing.
I have yet to encounter a phone system that refuses to provide a human, at least within business hours. But I've encountered those online, definitely, that aggressively want to hide any way to reach a person for something that you know in advance will be outside their script.
This one rings until it's about to go to voicemail, and then all of a sudden a fake dial tone starts and an AI agent picks up. I've only encountered this type for small business owners, like dentist offices and lawyers. But it doesn't seem like there is a way to reach the actual person. I could be wrong though.
I've hit phone trees with no path to a human. Haven't gotten stuck on an AI yet, but I'm sure it will happen. The AIs never have the ability to resolve the odd cases.
An interview I recently read with Seth Rogen was very illuminating (from the NY Times):
"You know how every once in a while you read one sentence and it snaps your whole perspective into place? I remember reading that book “Going Clear,” about Scientology, and there was one sentence about how if famous people aren’t treated in a certain way, it makes them think they’re not as talented as they wish they were. Like, if I go to a restaurant and I have to wait 20 minutes for a table instead of them just seating me right away, am I not as talented as I thought I was? If someone has a nicer hotel room than me on the press tour, does that mean I’m not as good an actor as I thought I was? I think that’s how a lot of famous people interpret how they’re treated."
I think the same applies to Musk. The money is a proxy for how much everybody thinks he is a special genius. Anything in his life that makes him feel less special requires more validation that he is, and money is the easiest validation he is able to acquire.
Did he really win? His kids all hate him, his wives all left him, he has no real friends. Anyone he interacts with is purely after money and power they can get from him. He spends all day being angry on twitter.com.
I think the point of the Rogen quote is that there's no real way to win. This is not cope by the not mega-rich and famous. It's an inevitable result of wanting universal acclaim.
Musk has more money than most of us would dream of, but the game isn't over until it's over.
Speaking just for myself, I've lost respect from Elon Musk. I admire Musk's accomplishments, especially Starship and the Falcon rockets. But I don't respect Musk's personal judgement, his moral integrity or his ethics.
He doesn't know me, and he doesn't care about my opinion (or care about ethics for that matter). But there are a lot of people like me who used to respect him and no longer do. He's surrounded himself with fawning sycophants. At some level he's got to know this, and that the people pretending to pay him respect aren't themselves worthy of respect.
The mistake comes with the very first arrow. You don't have to believe in "science" to be a nerd. You have to be passionate about technology. And that's a very different thing.
Most of the scientists I know can spend years of their life pursuing a hypothesis that turns out to be wrong, shrug their shoulders, and dive back into it. Technologists are all about output. If it's not outputting, you have to give up and seek a different avenue. Scientists (except the very famous and successful ones) tend to be humble and curious. Technologists less so.
Both terms are overloaded, because neither has been used with any consistency. Like the long forgotten trekkie/trekker divide, it was a way for some people to feel superior to other people, but the lines were never clear.
AI is seen as unique innovation, but in terms of the real purpose it serves, it is the logical extension of something like Doordash. "I don't like people. I don't even want to call one on the phone to order a pizza. Make me a tool that lets me avoid that, please."
Let me pose an alternative narrative. Rather than interacting with humans being intrinsically unpleasant (though for some people it is far more unpleasant than others), the technology is lowering your threshold for discomfort, step by step.
This seems akin to hating on a toddler because they can't talk, with the only alternative being pretending that they are great conversationalists. It's a category error.
I don't need a human to be particularly good at anything to like them. Maybe that is how you work, but the idea is just misplaced to me.
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