gimme a couple thousand $$ or suffer pain, and perhaps die

[miriam_e]

Words uttered by Mafia protection racketeers? Nope. Dentist.
I have an abscess and it is unbelievably painful. Worse, they can kill. I can uderstand that because my brain is all fuzzy with the poison from it. They want a couple of thousand dollars to do something about it. I don't know how they get away with it.

I know. I've heard the arguments. The poor dears spend years learning their trade. But writers, artists, and computer programmers spend all their lives learning their craft. At the end of some years of learning then a dentist, so long as he has reasonable coordination and intelligence can be successful at dentistry. A writer or artist can study all their life and no matter how smart they are they're never guaranteed success.

Computer programming is still more art than craft. You can learn the basics of it in a course or from books, but it still doesn't guarantee that you'll be much good, even if you are brilliant. Even the "obvious" advantage of strongly typed computer languages has recently been shown to be wrong.

For a little time I went to a dentist in Melbourne whose fillings had a bad habit of falling out afterward. Did he give refunds? No way. Dentists giving refunds??? Who ever heard of such a thing?

Yeah I'm feeling sour. Half my face feels like it is rotting away in blinding pain. I can hardly think.

Comments

Re: Army Dentists

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Heheheh :)
Me too. That wouldn't be much different from a visit to the dentist. No I'd expect that I'd be watching what they do and would be able to say "No, not that one. It is more to the left." Perhaps not in words, maybe with a joystick and good/bad buttons, but that the robots would be to a large degree autonomous. The user would simply guide them. I wouldn't feel too happy about letting loose little machines with drills in my mouth unless I could keep an eye on them... at least until AI becomes superior to human intelligence. On a good day I figure that's quite a way off; on a bad day, when I read about politicians or religious fundamentalists, I feel AI might not have so far to go after all.

Re: Army Dentists

[jsonstein.livejournal.com]

> No I'd expect that I'd be watching what they do

ugh
I've always wished to be somewhere else
when medical stuff is happening to my bod

> wouldn't feel too happy about letting loose little machines
> with drills in my mouth unless I could keep an eye on them...

you ever read "Diamond Age"?? (I think that was the title)

> at least until AI becomes superior to human intelligence.
> On a good day I figure that's quite a way off; on a bad day,
> when I read about politicians or religious fundamentalists,
> I feel AI might not have so far to go after all.

hehe
I have a chatterbot on my RIT website...
prompt *used* to say "Talk with an artificial intelligence"
not many folks used it
then I changed the prompt to read
"chat with an Artificial Stoopid"
and more folks began using it
<grin/>

jeffs