But The Machine Said So...

from the relying-on-technology-too-much dept

There was an interesting article recently in the NY Times about various patients who had physical problems misdiagnosed due to a bad MRI scan. Apparently, a number of people continued to suffer from very serious problems for many months, until they finally returned and had another (better) MRI done, which found the problem the first one missed. It's certainly no secret that an MRI (or a technician reading the output of an MRI) might miss something, but it's interesting to see people whose natural inclination is to simply trust that initial ruling. We still have this infatuation with the idea that the machines are always right, so if an MRI says there's no break, it must be true. At some point, though, we need to kick that habit, and recognize that the output of such machines is also fallible, at times.

Filed Under: computers, data, false results, mri, reliance