As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries
reuters.comThis article is pretty frustrating to read because it conflates many different kinds of so-called AI.
The AI plan involving LLMs and generative AI is conflated with a bunch of medical devices that are using stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the new AI wave.
Are you saying deep learning is not AI anymore, unless it's used to train Gen AI?
Wake up babe, new Therac-25 just dropped.
It’s funny because the Therac-25 failures led the FDA to care about software defects. Before the Therac-25 incidents, software was considered a black box component.
History rhymes doesn’t it?
It’s almost as if we’re an entirely reactive species that can’t think ahead forward on solving problems that aren’t as a result of some massive tragic event
So I wonder then *curiously* what kind of massive tragic event we’re going to have to have before everybody wakes up and realizes superhuman artificial intelligence is something they need to pay attention to politically
I think you’re describing reactive not reactionary.
I'm not totally convinced of this.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reactionary
>relating to, marked by, or favoring reaction
It doesn't denote primarily political usage, although that is my interpretation. Here are a few given examples:
> The Clippers so far have been reactionary in the playoffs. — Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2021
> The demise of the style was spurred by a reactionary resurgence of Classicism. — Regina Cole, Forbes, 1 Jan. 2023
> However, the signing had been in the works for weeks and was not a reactionary move in the wake of Sjöberg’s injury. — Daniel Boniface, The Denver Post, 14 Mar. 2017
>But in most people, facial bloating and undereye puffiness are usually just reactionary. — Georgia Casey, Allure, 6 Feb. 2026
Agreed, corrected
>> It’s almost as if we’re an entirely reactive species that can’t think ahead forward on solving problems that aren’t as a result of some massive tragic event
That's not a characteristic of the species but of specific tendencies within Western civilization. There's certainly people ringing all sorts of alarm bells for digital technology, the climate, food production, etc etc, and they are very often dismissed as "alarmist".
And then there's the motivated reasoning of industrial interests. Think tobacco, asbestos, oil, leaded gasoline, and so on. It's not that we don't know the possible harms, it's just that monetary interests trump the need for health and safety, a.k.a. "health and safety gone mad".
No that’s completely beside the point…
for a computer science degree in the UK to be accredited, the chartered institute mandated an ethics course
therac-25 was in there
and now everyone's shoving as much generative excrement as possibly into everything as quickly as possible
I'm increasingly convinced of the need for professional licensing for software engineering. You get a degree, and sit through that ethics course, and take an exam to get a license, or you don't get to practice. Do unethical things, enjoy major liability.
Software engineers can do just as much damage as civil engineers, automotive engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc...but the industry overall has a disgustingly casual attitude.
I think software engineers in the right place can actually do far more damage than most doctors and lawyers
the scale is simply humongous
just look at what facebook has done to our democracies
Agree, but replace the ethics course with a legal course.
Ethics are just someone else’s biased opinion, legal is put in place by elected officials and has actual consequences.
The law is just someones else encoded ethics for a moment. You don't want your moral to change with the current administration. An ethics course is about thinking about ethics, it is not a mind-altering propaganda action.
AI is a lawyer's wet dream.
oof, I expected the article to NOT be about a medical operating room.
Yea, so what is the base rate of botched surgeries?
So if the base rate is 1 out of 100 botched, and with whatever this AI stuff they are using is 3 out of 100, eh, that doesn't look good.
But if base rate is 1 out of 100 botched and 1 out of 100 with AI is botched this is a tempest in a teapot just trying to use AI outrage to get you mad without thinking.
3 years 7 instances.5 years at least 100 instances. This is in the 2nd paragraph of the article. If you have at least average reading levels you could probably read the article faster than you can make an uninformed comment.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
Fuck off, it’s antisocial behavior and should be shamed accordingly.
No, really? I am SHOCKED.
That could probably be one failure mode.