I loved Mel's hopeful attitude regarding the future prospect of robots and artificial intelligences to guide our medical decisions. Sadly, I think even the savviest artificial mind will have trouble with two very common ER phenomena: anxiety and lies. I can easily see HAL telling me there's nothing wrong with a patient who wants narcotics for back pain or is convinced that she's infested with invisible parasites, but we're still going to have to be the one who has to go back in and say "no."
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Whit F. - December 26, 2015 8:37 AM
I loved Mel's hopeful attitude regarding the future prospect of robots and artificial intelligences to guide our medical decisions. Sadly, I think even the savviest artificial mind will have trouble with two very common ER phenomena: anxiety and lies. I can easily see HAL telling me there's nothing wrong with a patient who wants narcotics for back pain or is convinced that she's infested with invisible parasites, but we're still going to have to be the one who has to go back in and say "no."