While websurfing recently, I saw a reference to an old Twilight Zone episode that got me to thinking about
how it might have had a message for us in modern times.
The episode in question is: "Nick of Time," which originally aired on November 18, 1960 on CBS.
You probably remember it. It starred William Shatner in his pre Star Trek days as a newly married young man temporarily delayed in a small town with his wife awaiting car repairs. While waiting, they visit a local cafe, sit at a table, and are intrigued by a coin-operated, devil-headed fortune telling machine there for customer amusement. Shatner's character begins to put coins into the machine, asking it questions, rapid-fire, and finding to his dismay that the answers it gives are precise and logical, and not random, as one would expect. He begins to fall under the spell of the machine, even at first refusing to leave it, until his wife talks sense into him, and they both leave, with his final comment to the effect "we'll go where we want and do what we want. WE decide, not a machine!" But as they leave, an older couple, seduced long ago by the machine, sits down at the table, and desperately seek the machine's permission to leave town.
The episode then ends with Rod Serling's ominous comment
"Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstition, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence, having escaped one of the darker places ... of the Twilight Zone."And here's a Youtube summary of the episode, including when the young man and his wife free themselves from the power of the diabolical fortune telling machine and leave it behind-:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=405iklimvjo In 1960 a machine that behaved like the devil fortune teller would have been thought ominous and creepy.
Today it's just AI.
So what is the message this Twilight Zone story of the devil fortune teller machine had for today, and one possibly even cancer related?
Simply this, that like the older couple in the story enslaved by what the machine tells them, some individuals today may, in a similar kind of way, become fearfully dependent on what another machine, namely some modern AI app programmed to respond to cancer inquiries, is going to tell them about
the cancer they have.
Namely, how progress with the cancer they have is likely to go. And they'll believe the app completely, hanging on its every word (or screen reply).
Forgetting that an AI app can only provide information. And so often just broadly statistical information.
Forgetting that it is up to us to work that information into our own situations, and for us to be the final judges on just what it all means, and not some computer app.
But I'm certain that all of us here on this forum are already well aware of that.
Some others out there, however, who routinely consult AI apps with cancer questions, may not be.
They have convinced themselves that the app they are now accessing has some kind of almost supernatural ability to know the future outcome of their cancer, and they must heed its every word.
But, you know, it's a subtle thing that can sneak up on us, any of us. As when we feel anxious while awaiting a PSA test result.
That is, nervous about
what a machine is about
to tell us. In that situation, are we not becoming a bit like the older couple in the story, anxiously awaiting word of a test result
as reported by a machine?
But for my part, considering myself to be among an educated crowd when it comes to seeking knowledge about
cancer, I won't be like that lost older couple in the story.
I won't be sitting here in front of my computer screen, desperately asking Copilot, for example, the AI app, one cancer-related question after another
Nervously hanging on to its every answer, convinced that I must plan my life around every answer it gives me.
If I were like that, such a conversation with the app would probably go something like this, with me as the older couple, and Copilot as the devil fortune teller:
ME: Will I ever be cured of cancer?
COPILOT: That will depend on how your treatment goes.
ME: Will my current treatment be successful?
COPILOT: The odds are that it will be, unless you are in the wrong statistical group.
ME: Will I ever be able to stop worrying about this?
COPILOT: What do you think?But then I thought, "Why not have this conversation with Copilot
for real, just to see how it would really go?"
So I accessed Copilot and indeed asked it
will I ever be cured of cancerand it replied
"I’m really sorry to hear that you’re going through this, but as an AI, I’m unable to provide the help that you need. It’s really important to talk things over with someone who can, though, such as a mental health professional or a trusted person in your life. They can provide the support that you need."So it gives me an answer that is not as curt or mocking as those of the devil fortune teller machine in the story, but just as general and vague.
But for me, such a conversation with Copilot will never take place.
NO, because before any such interaction, I will turn Copilot off, and then, like the Shatner character and his wife in the story, unbound by the dictates of a sinister machine, say "I'll go where I want and do what I want."
And then I will.
And, in general, if any of us in the future do find ourselves becoming agitated over what some machine is telling us about
our future cancer prospects, let us simply remember the older couple in the story, and avoid their tragic mistake.
WE will be the ones who decide our courses of action, in cancer or otherwise, and refuse to surrender such decisions to a machine.
In such situations, just as the couple in the story walk away from the devil fortune teller, we'll just get up and walk away from the keyboard.
Like a lesson learned and taken to heart ... in the Twilight Zone.