[cap-talk] prescriptions for computers

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Sun, 17 Dec 2006 15:48:40 -0500,
"Jonathan S. Shapiro" <shap at eros-os.com> wrote:
> > I would feel much more comfortable if the pill came
> > with a long list of side effects and things to look out for
> > (a long license?).  Do people read these things?
> 
> People do not generally read these things -- not even for pills in the
> medical sense.

You may mix this up with instruction manuals for technical devices, or
it is very different in the US than in Germany.

A study[1] shows that about 65% rely on the instructions accompanying
the medication, this is second only to the information given by the
physician (83%).  And this despite all the obvious obstacles (too
small font, too difficult to understand, etc).

Of course the instructions can only supplement the medical treatment
by professional medical personal.  As for the original suggestion, I
can't even begin to describe how horrible a world would be where human
judgement is removed from important technical processes.  I'll happily
leave this to science fiction authors, where such scenarios squarely
belong.  I thought such ideas died with the medical diagnosis "expert"
systems in the 70s.

Thanks,
Marcus

[1] http://www.bfarm.de/nn_1040610/SharedDocs/Publikationen/DE/BfArM/publ/praesent/dialog__2006/dialog-060215/vortrag__schroeder-nink,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/vortrag_schroeder-nink.pdf