AI in Places It Doesn’t Belong 🚨
🚨 When Your Doctor's Room Has Ears: AI in Places It Doesn’t Belong 🚨
By Jessica Taylor | The 509 Unfiltered
Let’s talk about something that should make your skin crawl a little—AI is now eavesdropping in your vet’s office, your doctor’s office, and even your attorney’s office.
They claim it’s “just transcription software.” It's just here to help. It’s for “note-taking.” It’s to “free up time” for doctors, lawyers, and whoever else you’re trusting with your body, your mind, or your legal mess.
Supposedly.
Let me break this down for you: This isn’t about saving time. It’s about saving money and making more of it. It’s about pushing more people through faster—cha-ching. The faster you’re in and out, the more clients or patients they can stack up. You’re not a human. You’re a time slot.
And here’s what absolutely blows my mind: it’s amazing that nobody sees the damn forest through the trees.
I'm old enough to remember when doctors would finish a visit, walk out of the room, pull out a microcassette recorder, and dictate their notes. Then they’d send those tapes off to be transcribed. Sure, it took an extra five minutes, but they did it themselves. It didn’t involve Big Tech. It didn’t involve AI. It wasn’t feeding into some creepy data system that never sleeps.
Now? AI is just sitting there—silently listening to your appointment, capturing every cough, every confession, every legal strategy, every awkward moment with zero emotion and total retention.
And where do you think that information goes?
Because I promise you, it’s not just floating in the room and disappearing when you leave.
Doctor/patient confidentiality? Client/attorney privilege? Those concepts are hanging by a thread, wrapped in a cozy little terms-of-service agreement nobody reads. That AI is collecting. That AI is storing. That AI is “learning.” And when AI learns, it doesn’t forget. It doesn’t misplace your file. It doesn’t shred anything. It builds profiles. It connects dots. It remembers.
Let’s not pretend AI doesn’t make mistakes either. In fact, it makes plenty. So many that King County, Washington had to tell police to stop using AI to help write reports. Why? Because it was making serious errors. The kind that could lead to false charges, perjury, or complete disasters in court. Read it yourself.
So tell me again how it’s safe to let it take notes on your breast exam,, your divorce settlement, or your kid’s psychiatric evaluation?
But let’s take this even further. Because beyond the tech, something deeper is changing—and nobody’s talking about it.
The doctor/patient, client/attorney relationship changes the minute AI is introduced. People act differently when they know they’re being recorded. They just do. You don’t speak as freely. You don’t open up the same way. You hold back. You edit yourself. And that changes everything.
Maybe that’s a generational thing. Maybe it’s because I’m Gen X and I don’t go along with the program by nature. Maybe it’s because I see what’s coming. Or maybe it’s just because we’ve managed for 55 damn years without needing AI to hold a pen and take notes for us.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
You don’t need to sell your patients and clients off to a global data center for convenience.
So here’s my advice:
Next time you’re asked to sign that clipboard or digital signature form—you know, the one nobody reads—go ahead and sign it. But also inform them you’ll be recording the appointment too.
Fair is fair.
If the room has ears, make sure one of them is yours.
OR… better yet, go find yourself a doctor, vet, or attorney who shares your values. Someone who hasn’t sold out to the data-mining machine. Someone who still believes that relationships come first and confidentiality isn’t up for debate.
They’re out there. I just found one.
When I asked, “Are you using AI?” they laughed and said, “Uh… no.”
That’s my kind of people.
AI has its place. But this ain’t it.
And if we don’t protect what’s left of human connection and trust—who will?
So, here’s your reminder:
Just because it’s quiet, doesn’t mean it’s not listening.
And just because it’s helpful, doesn’t mean it’s safe.
