Two surgeries taught me something about AI and choice
My friend had a hip replacement. Coincidentally, her daughter underwent the same surgery just a month later. The difference in healthcare was staggering to me.
My friend chose a regional hospital where a highly regarded specialist performed the operation. Her after care followed a familiar rhythm: the first days with painkillers, physiotherapy to help her walk again and a hospital stay that was shortened from the planned eight days (she lives alone) to five because her recovery went so well. The care was adjusted to her actual condition, fewer painkillers and less clinical support, because someone was paying attention to how she was doing.
Her daughter went to a well-known university hospital. She went home, as planned, after two days with a set of rehabilitation videos and a fixed medication protocol. Two and a half weeks later she was still on heavy pain medication, not because her situation required it, but because the schedule said so, she didn’t question it. The videos replaced a physical therapist. She had to film her walking exercises and send them to the hospital for feedback, which she received daily, digitally. No human contact, no human care.
A few days later I spoke with another friend about the incredible advances AI is bringing, at least from her perspective. Enthousiastically she said that AI saves us enormous amounts of time because we no longer have to study endless theories; it will do that for us. In return, she added, we will finally be able to focus on human connection and develop our EQ which lags behind our IQ.
Will we, I asked?
Will health education redesign its curriculum and place communication skilles at the center? Will todays children who grown up with Ipads before they can walk, develop stronger relational abilities? Will they naturally crave human contact rather than an interface? And will our brains develop in the same way if we outsource most of our thinking and research to machines?
Perhaps it seems like a small example, but I notice how much my own memory for simple details has declined. Before mobile phones, everyone knew the phone numbers of the people closest to them. Now, when I have to enter a six digit security code, I often have to check it twice. It is not only my memory that has changed, it is concentration, the capacity to hold something in attention.
I use AI as well. Mostly to edit my writing, to find alternative wording for web texts, or to compare psychological perspectives on themes in personal development. It has been absolutely useful and taught me a great deal in a short time. At the same time I see how quickly it has become embedded in my daily life, just as the smartphone once did. And more subtly, how it has influenced my confidence. AI always has an answer, an improvement, a refinement, another layer of information. Now, I have become more deliberate about when and why I use it. I ask specific feedback in stead of letting it rewrite and entire article.
What is quietly shifting is not our tools, but how we relate. From direct human experience and self trust, to outsourced answers and prescribed pathways.
Where does this leave us? What is our role in a time of accelerating technology? Where do we consciously say yes and where do we decline?
Because there is a choice, even if few of us experience it that way. Non of these developments are literally forced upon us. We, collectively, decide what becomes normal by what we adopt in our lives. It is easy to dismiss that with: ‘if everyone else accepts it, my choice makes no difference’. But it does. The choice is not black and white; it is personal. If full technological integration is your path, that is a valid one.
And for those who, like me, feel the need to step back in certain areas, that is equally valid. For example, ten years ago I didn’t realise that smartphones and other tech solutions would result in a dense electromagnetic environment that would push me out of the city.
Collectively we shape our societies through its solutions we normalize. Individually we shape our lives through the lines we draw.
The essential point is to remember that there is always a choice. Nothing is simply a given.
So which hospital would you choose if you needed surgery tomorrow?
With every small decision we make, day after day, we shape not only our own future but the future we share.
It is, in the end, up to us.
