Last night I was watching Oprah who was interviewing actor Dennis Quaid about how his newborn twins nearly died due to a medical mistake. The babies developed some kind of infection few days after they were born and Dennis and his wife took them to Cedar Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. There due to human error they were given an overdose of antibiotics which led the twins to get sick and then treated. Now the babies are happy toddlers. My blog is not about them but it's about the change that was brought in after this error. Cedar Sinai went electronic where every medication has a bar code which is scanned by a handheld scanner which feeds into a computer and only after that the medication is dispensed. All this to avoid human error.
OK so I was touched by this story and I like the fact that change has been put in place but how come we give machines such credibility over humans? After all aren't all machines made by humans? I love something my husband says, "A machine is only as intelligent as the human being who built it." Touche.
Now lets talk about how much the humans who built these machines are dependent on them. For example, cell phones. How many of us carry practically our whole lives in our cell phones? How many of us know five numbers of our family and friends without looking at the contacts on our phone? First it was saving phone numbers on it to save us from memorizing numbers or carrying a bulky diary. Now our music, calendar, alarm, camera and Internet are all on our phones. We would rather lose an arm but God forbid if our phone should get lost. I personally love my cellphone because I can save phone numbers but is that an excuse for not remembering my mom's number? What if I am stranded somewhere and don't have my phone with me. Will my mom ever know if I am dead or alive? Scary thought huh?
Cell phones are genius and texting and email capabilities on them has made life so much easier. We can send and receive texts and emails instantly. No more excuses such as, "I was in the bathroom", because you can take it there too. But I think this texting business has gone too far. Personally I'd like to hear from a loved one when it is my birthday and not get a text that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! in all caps with three exclamation points at the end. Or better yet just send a message on Facebook. Now don't even get me started about that!
However there are many benefits to having machines in our homes and offices. It's time efficient and predictable but machines shouldn't replace human intelligence. God has named us superior beings over all his creatures for a reason after all. I am afraid that dependence on machines have made us complacent and also stupid. We don't see a reason to use our brains when we have calculators, computers and fancy gadgets to help us. The other day I was trying to have a competition among students in my religious education class and asked the kids if anyone had a quarter to flip. One of the students handed me his iPhone which had a coin on the screen. I looked at him puzzled, "You want me to flip your phone in the air?" he looked at me like "no dummy" you just shake it and the coin will flip a few times and then stop. Whoa! Isn't that something? All I wanted was a good old coin to flip in the air.
Another place machines are making their presence felt are in the medical field. It is really awesome that a programmed robot can perform a very complicated surgery in which the physician is videoconferenced from across the country. I don't know about you but I would want my doctor to be IN the room and NOT across the country when I am on the operating table.
Machines are great but I don't want them to take over the world.
R
No comments:
Post a Comment