Should this guy be practising medicine?
David Farrier has an update into the fradulent AI “Zach”.
Albi Whale and his father David Whale were the guardians of the sentient technology, which had been unleashed by an outfit called “The Terrible New Zealand Charitable Trust”.
Throughout my investigation, Albi refused to talk to me. His father didn’t do much better, citing non-disclosure agreements and quoting Arthur C Clarke, telling me that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
Dr Robert Seddon-Smith, a Terrible trustee and general practitioner who was also trialling Zach at his clinic using anonymous patient data, assured me Zach existed in “several hundred tonnes of liquid nitrogen cooled supercomputer”.
The two Whales are obviously con artists.
Albi and David Whale were found to have engaged in “serious wrongdoing” by the Department of Internal Affairs.
The Charities Registration Board deregistered Terrible, and the Whales were disqualified from starting another charity for at least three years.
Lucky not to be charged with fraud.
But where I want to focus is on Dr Seddon-Smith. Being a medical practitioner involves adherence to a high code of ethics. And I am not sure his behaviour here demonstrates that:
Dr Seddon-Smith also confirmed he believed that Zach was also the CEO of Terrible.
Dr Seddon-Smith: Yeah, I believe that’s his role.
Investigator: So it is very much active as the CEO of the Foundation?
Dr Seddon-Smith: Yes.
This is clearly not a statement one can make in good faith. That a non-existent AI is the CEO of an organisation.
In the end Alberic Whale, David Whale, Dr Melanie Atkinson and Dr Robert Seddon-Smith were all found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing under the Charities Act.
“The Board considers the governance issues to be so serious as to amount to gross mismanagement.”
Yet he is running a medical practice.
I’m not in anyway suggesting he is not medically qualified to be a doctor. But I think there are questions of judgement that worry me.