From: akman@EARN.TRBILUN

From:       akman@EARN.TRBILUN
Subject:    A Good Story
Date:       Fri, 2 Apr 93 10:09:27 +0300
To:         haskell@UK.AC.GLA.DCS
 
Paul Hudak writes:
 
> For every bad story there is a good one.  Recently Haskell was used
> in an experiment here at Yale in the Medical School.  It was used to
> replace a C program that controlled a heart-lung machine.  In the six
> months that it was in operation, the hospital estimates that probably
> a dozen lives were saved because the program was far more robust than
> the C program, which often crashed and killed the patients.
 
I don't want to be misunderstood but I DON'T WANT to believe this.
I mean, programs do not normally kill patients, doctors do.  So where
were the doctors or nurses who were supposed to keep such patients
under close control?  Or do we nowadays have artificially intelligent
programs acting as doctors?
 
Something missing in the above picture, I think.  And I also detect
a bad smell of abuse and negligence, too.  (Assuming that the last sentence
of Hudak's message does really reflect what happened at Yale Med School.)
 
By the way, I would safely guess that there are dozens of newspapers,
TV stations, etc. who would be interested in this story.  So how come
they never did their job?  Or did they?
 
/Varol Akman