Category Archives: Health & Medicine

Scott Adams: Our Robot Future

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“Some say robots will take 75% of all jobs. But that is only a problem if the average person who has a job is unable to purchase his own robot when the time comes and lease its services to a corporation, or put it to work directly. The robot will work around the clock and send its “paycheck” to your bank account. In effect, humans will become investors while robots become labor.”

“One can imagine that for every human taxpayer there might someday be fifty humans living off the government. […] In the future, people who have actual jobs might be a rarity. And one business-owner with a fleet of robots might earn so much money that supporting a million unemployed people doesn’t feel like a burden. I can imagine business taxes approaching 95% and no one complaining because the remaining 5% is more than Exxon’s total earnings today.”

“For example, when robots start doing all of the medical research, the speed of discoveries will increase a hundredfold. Robots will simply try every idea until someday there is a cheap pill that keeps your body young and healthy. The government will get out of the healthcare field when the cost of medical services becomes trivial, and I think robots will get us there.”

Scott Adams: Robots

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“I predict that someday robots will have superior rights to humans in specific areas of life because robots can be trusted (programmed) and humans cannot. … I will go so far as to predict that someday it will be illegal for a human to practice medicine because robots will be so much more reliable. In the long transition period, which has already started and will last another twenty years, humans will be in charge of what the technology does. Eventually those roles will reverse because technology will be so much more reliable than humans. Future generations will be appalled that humans were ever allowed to perform invasive surgery on other humans.”

“At some point the real cost of healthcare, energy, construction, transportation, farming, and just about every other basic expense will fall by 90% as robots get involved. It would be absurd to assume we know anything about the economy in thirty years. Nothing will look the same.”

Your Next Doctor Might Be Your Car

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“Since 2010, the USC School of Cinematic Arts and BMW have been working on Nigel, a Mini Cooper outfitted with 230 sensors that creates a log of everything that happens in the vehicle, letting users see it all via an iPhone and iPad app. Now USC’s Center for Body Computing is getting in on the Nigel project, looking at how the car could be used to monitor driver health as well as vehicle health.”

“One day, she imagines, a car’s pollution sensors, heart-rate sensors (maybe integrated into the steering wheel), GPS, and oxygen content sensors could all work together to tell drivers if, say, a certain polluted area of the highway affects their health–or if their heart rate goes up every time they arrive home or at the office.”

Physicians no longer control information

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“Physicians no longer control information. While the idea of a patient bringing new research to her doctor isn’t a new phenomenon, in the broader historical context it’s huge. For the better part of civilization our role as physician has centered around privileged access to information and knowledge. But the web has created a type of disintermediation. The face-to-face encounter with a physician is evolving as a more narrowly defined element in an individual’s quest to understand their condition and get better. Access to information is the bedrock of the health 2.0 movement.”

“There’s too much to know. There was once a time when physicians could get their hands around what they needed to know. You’d go to the mailbox and pick up that 200 page journal and you were all set.
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“Medical students continue to learn in a system that assumes we can teach a doctor what they need to know instead of empowering them to access what they need to know.”

Bryan Vartabedian is a a pediatric gastroenterologist at Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine. He writes about the convergence of social media and medicine.

Testing a Drug That May Stop Alzheimer’s

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In a clinical trial that could lead to treatments that prevent Alzheimer’s disease, people who are genetically guaranteed to suffer from the disease years from now — but who do not yet have any symptoms — will for the first time be given a drug intended to stop them from developing it, federal officials announced Tuesday. NYT

Hospital room of the future?

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According to this post at Fast Company, this might be as close at 10 years away. I don’t want to spendy any time in the hosptial but this would make the stay less awful.

“The room is constructed as a plug-and-play environment in which customizable, prefabricated components integrate all aspects of care. The Patient Ribbon, for example, is a digital, silent, flat screen headboard that captures vital signs, houses gases, and holds the controls for all forms of lighting in the room. Ruthven says it’s possible that it will be the first component to be integrated in existing hospitals in the next five years. A media center at the foot of the bed facilitates collaboration between caregivers, patients, and visitors, and provides connections to multimedia entertainment and hospital information.

While most of the medical care is conducted within the patient room, several key functions for patients, staff, and visitors occur at the entry to the space. Namely, the Staff Resource Station features sliding doors made from smart glass technology and includes digital alerts for patient allergies, food restrictions, or special conditions.”

I’m guessing health care will be really good or really bad. Probably both, depending how wealthy/poor you are.

Carnivores Anonymous

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It’s been almost a week since I ate meat. No, I am not going Vegan or vegetarian. I like meat. Barb’s delicious pulled pork; her smoked chicken wings; a Sonic Burger; even the occasional baloney sandwich. I grew up eating meat. And probably will again. This is just a little experiment. It’s a terrible analogy, but I’m reminded of recovering alcoholics who stay sober one day at a time.

As meal time approaches, I decide if there is any alternative to meat that sounds appetizing. And, for the past week, there has been. I’m not sure what has brought this on or how long it will last but it has been easier than I would have thought.

I don’t think I have any strong moral concerns regarding eating meat. On the other hand, if I had to kill the cow or the chicken, I’d pass.

I should confess I don’t have a real “love” for food the way some do. It’s just fuel for my engine and pretty much any fuel will do.

Not sure where I stand on leather shoes.