Diagnostic Decisions by Machine

A data-processing machine, programmed to simulate what is postulated to be the operation of a physician's mind when he makes a diagnostic decision, interprets patients' medical histories with such discrimination that it identifies the patient's disease as often as does a physician who interprets the same data. Although the diagnostic decisions made by the machine could not be distinguished from those made by the physician, it cannot be said that the machine is an analog of the human mind, which remains a black box of unknown operation.