Troubleshooting tech vs. troubleshooting the human body

How we’re different 

Troubleshooting a computer seems like it should be very different than troubleshooting a human body – and it is.

The human body has so much going on that we haven’t the faintest clue about, despite centuries of scientific effort. Sometimes we can pin down the cause of a particular ailment; eg. if you’re a chainsmoker and you ended up with lung cancer, those things are likely to be related. In other cases, doctors can tell us what’s gone wrong, but not why. And still other times, the best doctors on the continent can’t agree on what’s even happening to you.

Unpredictable and undesirable things happen within the human body in a way that seems mysterious and spontaneous, and we’re baffled as to why. A tumour grows, an organ thickens, an allergy develops, all without any permission granted by the owner of the body. We see our minds as being at the mercy of our uncooperative physical form. We patch things up as best as we can, but there’s no undo button, no reversing the processes.

A computer, a smartphone, an app, a website – they may seem complicated. As technology, yes, they are. Compared to the human body, they’re refreshingly simple. Nearly everything that happens can be traced back to a specific instruction. Now, that instruction may be flawed or may have been incorrectly applied, but there was still a reason that it happened. Computers are deterministic, meaning that given the same input, you get the same output. Anyone who’s eaten the same meal often and been fine one time, but had a little tummy trouble the next, knows that the human body doesn’t work that way.

How we’re the same

There are also similarities. Whether (hu)man or machine, we usually notice symptoms first, rather than root causes. If your website is slow, it might be because of your server, your site’s plugins, or the amount of traffic it’s getting. If YOU feel slow, it might be because you’re fighting a virus, you’re overworked and stressed, your hormones are in flux, or you stayed up all night playing videogames. To treat the symptoms, we first need to establish the cause.

Troubleshooting either system also requires a trial-and-error approach, like trying an elimination diet to figure out what’s causing your IBS, or turning off the plugin on your WordPress site to see which one is causing the critical error. 

The challenge with troubleshooting the human body is more that there are too many variables to check for at once. Whereas most MacBooks will behave the same way given the same software, our varied genes, upbringings, lifestyles, and diets add so many layers of complication that we often can’t predict whether two very similar humans will have the same reaction to the same medication.

Is the gap closing?

But as we step into the era of AI and quantum computing, the tidy separation between “machine logic” and “biological mystery” begins to erode.

We already struggle to explain why large language models like ChatGPT make certain decisions. There’s no single line of code responsible that we can point to, no obvious bug to squish, just an unfathomably complex web of probabilities, patterns, and context. Correcting a problem may begin to feel more like medicine or therapy, inquiring and guiding rather than searching and destroying. Perhaps we’ll need training in better bedside manner for our improbable patients. 

Whether we’re debugging a website or healing a wound, troubleshooting requires curiousity, patience, and openness. We need to be willing to discover we are wrong, and find a new path forward. The result is a step towards greater ease for those of us who consider ourselves sentient – and more efficiency and effectiveness for those who don’t.