This article is a follow-up to my piece last week, Data Sets, Fraud, and the Future. Let's say a minor religion emerges in Ohio. Its basis is a story about a miraculous tree growing in an arid desert. The only problem is, if the members of this Church bothered to check, they would discover the exact place where the tree supposedly grew was no desert. Instead, it was an ocean.

Right off the bat, here is a scene from the near-future: AI takes a look at John Jones' medical records, does instant collating, and comes up with a disease diagnosis. Via Zoom, the doctor's AI assistant slaps on a diagnosis, and an hour later, two bottles of medical drugs arrive at Jones' door. One problem: the data set assembled by AI is preposterous. Jones' so-called symptoms don't add up to a disease. Only in another data set, held by the CDC, do the symptoms require a disease-label.