Side Effects

Healthcare often begins before the hospital.Not with a diagnosis, but with a recommendation.Do you know a good doctor?In this episode of Side Effects, we look at what changes when AI enters healthcare: before the doctor, inside the clinic, in medical records, in screening systems, and around the decisions that decide whether care actually happens.The question is not only whether AI can find the signal faster. A medical answer is different from most other answers because people may act on it. They may change a medicine, delay treatment, travel to a hospital, spend money, or worry about someone they love.So the real question is whether the system around that answer can explain it, check it, act on it, and stay responsible after the patient hears it.This episode is not medical advice.Next episode - relationships.The reply you didn’t write.

Episode 3 looks at education: what we teach, what we measure, and what happens when a student can produce the answer before anyone is sure the learning happened.The common worry is cheating. Students will use AI. Teachers will not know what is real. Grades will stop meaning what they used to mean.That worry is real, but it is too small.AI does not only disturb the assignment. It disturbs the old bargain around education: study hard, get good marks, get into the right college, get a stable job.In this episode, Amit looks at students, teachers, parents, institutions, and governments as AI enters classrooms. The same tool can become a private tutor or a private shortcut. It can make explanation more accessible, but it can also make the appearance of learning easier to produce.So the question is not only whether students should use AI.They will.The harder question is whether AI use builds capability or replaces it.Because every system has side effects.References:India National Education Policy 2020:https://www.education.gov.in/nep/about-nepUNESCO guidance on generative AI in education and research:https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/guidance-generative-ai-education-and-researchUNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report 2023:https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/technologyPew Research Center on teens and AI chatbots:https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/15/about-a-quarter-of-us-teens-have-used-chatgpt-for-schoolwork-double-the-share-in-2023/

Episode 2 looks at information: what we read, what we trust, and how we move from not knowing something to feeling like we do.AI does not only give us more information. It gives us answers, summaries, explanations, counterarguments, and follow-up questions in one place. That can be useful, even extraordinary. But it also changes the pause between having a question and getting an answer.In this episode, Amit looks at what happens when writing looks finished, answers arrive faster, and the habit of checking begins to change. The question is not only whether AI makes information true or false. It is whether fluency starts to feel like trust.The episode also looks at the other side of the story: access. For people who never had a tutor, expert, doctor, or patient explainer nearby, cheaper help with understanding can open a real door.So the question becomes: where does help end, and replacement begin?Because every system has side effects.References:Dawn editor’s note on AI-edited report:https://www.dawn.com/news/1954790/regretMIT Media Lab, “Your Brain on ChatGPT”:https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/Jack Clark, Import AI 451, summarising Andy Hall’s argument:https://jack-clark.net/2026/03/30/import-ai-451-political-superintelligence-googles-society-of-minds-and-a-robot-drummer/PM-Kisan Kisan e-Mitra chatbot:https://chatbot.pmkisan.gov.in/

Episode 1 introduces the pattern behind Side Effects: useful things arrive, systems were not built for them, and outcomes emerge that no one quite designed.A neighbourhood changes after malls and a metro arrive. Ten-minute delivery changes what convenience feels like. Social media changes how we connect, pay attention, and trust. None of these changes needs a villain. Often, a hundred reasonable decisions simply connect, and one day the thing we were living inside feels different.This season, that pattern turns to AI.AI is not arriving in an empty world. It is arriving in schools, offices, hospitals, hiring systems, customer support, media, family WhatsApp groups, and the ordinary machinery of life. The question is not only whether AI is good or bad. The better question is: what is AI running into?Hosted by Amit Tripathi, Side Effects looks at what gets strained, what becomes possible, and what changes around powerful forces once they arrive.Because every system has side effects.Reference:Ethan Mollick on AI labs and the future they are building: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/emollick_the-ai-labs-have-actually-done-a-bad-job-activity-7444925181782843392-ipQmIntro and Outro Credited to https://pixabay.com/users/paulyudin-27739282/