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Swimmer963 comments on A discussion of heroic responsibility - Less Wrong
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You are using the wrong yardstick. Ain't no thing is perfectly reliable. What matters is whether an automated system will be more reliable than the alternative -- human doctors.
Commercial aviation has a pretty good safety record while relying on autopilots. Are you quite sure that without the autopilot the safety record would be better?
And why do you think a doctor will do better in this case?
I was going to say "doctor's don't have the option of not picking the diagnosis", but that's actually not true; they just don't have the option of not picking a treatment. I've had plenty of patients who were "symptom X not yet diagnosed" and the treatment is basically supportive, "don't let them die and try to notice if they get worse, while we figure this out." I suspect that often it never gets figured out; the patient gets better and they go home. (Less so in the ICU, because it's higher stakes and there's more of an attitude of "do ALL the tests!")
They do, they call the problem "psychosomatic" and send you to therapy or give you some echinacea "to support your immune system" or prescribe "something homeopathic" or whatever... And in very rare cases especially honest doctors may even admit that they do not have any idea what to do.