Finding Alignment and Living with Artificial Intelligence
What a hospital ward taught me about AI, fear, and misleading reasoning
The remembrance of a scary moment early in my training
When I was a resident in internal medicine on a specialty service, I was supervised by a physician faculty member whom I looked up to and from whom I frequently sought guidance. It was our custom to be on the medical unit every early morning, and we were responsible for all the patients there. For several days, I noticed an unfamiliar face in a short white coat worn by interns and residents. This unknown person followed us around the unit and into the rooms while we interviewed and examined patients. I assumed the person was a resident in training from another unit, but I became increasingly suspicious. I asked the physician who supervised me and was in charge of the unit if he knew who this person was. My supervisor suddenly got very upset to the point of yelling at me. I was a little taken aback because I thought he was in charge and would know everything happening on the unit. He said this could be a very precarious and dangerous situation. The person could be anybody: a lunatic, a paranoid psychotic person with delusions. At that time, I had not trained in mental health or psychiatry, and it was very unnerving to me to think that somebody might have a paranoid delusional psychosis or that this person might have somehow gotten involved, disguised, and infiltrated our confidential setting.
