Does the emergence of artificial intelligence really make our lives better? In the past, everyone thought that AI was used to free our hands and help humans live a better life. However, the reality is chilling: AI not only robbed jobs at work, but also ruthlessly rejected patients' reasonable claims in the field of medical insurance. Because of this "cruelness", a gunshot rang out in Manhattan, New York on December 4, 2024. This shot was not only shot at a person, but also at the original intention of artificial intelligence to benefit mankind. The smarter AI is, will it really make humans happier?
Does the emergence of artificial intelligence really make our lives better? In the past, everyone thought that AI was used to free our hands and help humans live a better life. However, the reality is chilling: AI not only robbed jobs at work, but also ruthlessly rejected patients' reasonable claims in the field of medical insurance. Because of this "cruelness", a gunshot rang out in Manhattan, New York on December 4, 2024. This shot was not only shot at a person, but also at the original intention of artificial intelligence to benefit mankind. The smarter AI is, will it really make humans happier?
The cause of the matter has to start with the UnitedHealth Group of the United States. This company is a well-known money-making expert in the industry, especially during Brian Thompson's tenure as CEO, the company's performance has soared, from $12 billion in profits in 2021 to $16.4 billion in 2023, which is simply the darling of capital. However, behind this is a "secret weapon" that cannot be seen in the light - artificial intelligence algorithm.
This AI system is called nH Predict, which was developed by a company called naviHealth. UnitedHealth bought it for $1 billion in 2020, mainly to predict how long patients will need follow-up care after surgery. It sounds high-tech, but the problem is that the system's predictions are often shorter than the doctor's recommended time. This means that many patients have been deprived of the care they deserve, and even the doctor's professional judgment has been treated as a decoration.
What's even more "absolute" is that the algorithm has an alarmingly high rejection rate. According to a report from the U.S. Senate in October 2024, UnitedHealth Group's rejection rate rose from 10.9% to 22.7% between 2019 and 2022. In some branches in Alabama, the figure is as high as 41.6%. In other words, UnitedHealth saved a lot of money with the AI system, but patients and doctors became losers.
This cold algorithm has made many people angry. On December 4, 2024, a 26-year-old young man, Luigi Nicholas Mangione, simply used a bullet to end Brian Thompson's life.
Luigi is a highly educated talent with a good family background. Logically, he has a bright future ahead of him. But when faced with the cold refusal of compensation by UnitedHealth, this young man was completely driven to a dead end. His anger was not only for himself, but also for those patients who lost the opportunity to receive treatment because of AI's refusal of compensation.
After the incident, Luigi left three words "delay", "expel" and "deny" engraved on the shell. These three words are the three axes of AI's refusal of compensation: first drag you, and finally simply reject you, completely disregarding the patient's life or death. This detail quickly detonated public opinion on the whole case. Some people say that Luigi is crazy, while others think that he is fighting for ordinary people.
However, UnitedHealth is not the only company that does this. The abuse of AI in the medical field has become an unspoken rule in the industry. Everyone knows that it is more "cruel" than humans, but it is also cheaper than humans, and there is no need to rest after get off work. Capital is profit-seeking, and AI has become their best helper.
Luigi's bullet made people begin to reflect on the good and evil of AI. AI's ruthlessness is not its own fault, but its "coach" - those who master it. AI itself has no moral values, nor human emotions. It will only perform tasks according to the requirements of the designer. But the problem is that some people deliberately "corrupt" it for the sake of profit, knowing that AI can do better.
For example, UnitedHealth, which uses AI algorithms to significantly increase the rate of denial of claims and minimize the cost of follow-up care for patients, is a typical case of "corruption". And the consequences of all this have to be paid by patients and ordinary people.
Not only that, the abuse of AI is still spreading. The customer service industry is another example. In 2023, a domestic beauty brand Shangmei Co., Ltd. decided to replace manual customer service with AI, and the layoff rate was as high as 95%. Although AI customer service sounds cheap, can it really completely replace humans? Many people have complained that AI customer service "answers irrelevant questions" and even makes people more angry as they talk.
However, companies only see cost reduction and don't care about user experience at all.
After the Luigi shooting, American society's concerns about AI reached a new height. UnitedHealth's refusal to pay was criticized by Congress, and the scandal of naviHealth's algorithm error rate of up to 90% was also exposed. Although Brian Thompson's death caused the company's image to plummet, UnitedHealth's profits are still growing.
At the same time, the abuse of AI in other fields has also made people vigilant. Europe passed the "Artificial Intelligence Law" in June 2024, strengthening supervision of AI applications in high-risk areas. There are similar regulations in China, such as requiring automated decisions to be explainable to users and users have the right to refuse automated decisions.
However, the rapid development of AI has also brought new challenges. In April 2023, OpenAI released a white paper that mentioned the need to build a safe AI system, but can these measures really guarantee the "conscience" of AI? Some people question that these promises sound good, but the implementation is far away.