How Opus and o3 saved me from permanent blindness

mmaaz.ca

14 points·pr337h4m··6 comments

So to be clear, AI contributed the following to this ordeal:

- assured the author that going blind over the course of a day is, in fact, something to be concerned about

- suggested using eye drops -- which the author didn't have, and had to navigate to a pharmacy to buy (while in the process of losing their vision) -- which unsurprisingly didn't have any effect

- directed them to a campus hospital, which was not equipped to handle a case like this, and led to a day of wasted time calling around

- finally, directed them to a proper ER with on-call ophthalmologists, where the issue was solved

This isn't exactly the case for AI the author seems to think it is. I'm glad they were able to get this sorted, anyway. Waking up one day to find your vision going sounds absolutely terrifying.

yes.

Seems like the AI in this case just gave false reassurance at time when panic and running to a hospital was justified.

Waiting for part 2 about the bill..

>> Now, I knew that I couldn't just go to any ER. I had to go to one that had on-call ophthalmologists. I asked AI, and it told me to go UCSF Parnassus, so I called an Uber and off I went.

Well, at least he skipped on ER ride and used Uber.

I am glad the author is recovering, but (being in Germany) I would have just gone to the hospital after the first symptoms without even thinking about asking AI what to do.

The UCSF "you need a referral but we can't find it, and we can't be bothered to figure out why" experience matches my own. Infuriating.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com