Vitaltech-How much responsibility do they have?

Use this forum to discuss the March 2018 Book of the Month, "Final Notice" by Van Fleisher.
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dtb
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Re: Vitaltech-How much responsibility do they have?

Post by dtb »

If we as a society have decided that gun manufacturers are not responsible for the actions of those with guns, then I don't think a maker of a medical device should be either.
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Shrabastee Chakraborty
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Post by Shrabastee Chakraborty »

I agree with what you mentioned about the concerns showed by VitalTech and the measures they had taken/considered, but I still feel like they should have been more responsible, given the nature of the few of the outcomes their product unleashed.
The 'Final Notice' feature felt a little creepy to me. Of course that is my perspective, but I would not want my watch to suddenly hand me a more or less accurate death sentence. In my opinion, it would put additional stress in the patient's mind, which might just accelerate the process. But then again, a mere 'go visit your physician' notification would not elicit the urgent response required in these cases. And in no way can the 'Final Notice' feature be considered equivalent to a doctor's diagnosis (though it is the logic ised in the book in favour of the feature), simoly because it seems too 'final' and ominous, while a doctor might be truthful yet comforting in divulging the truth to the patient.
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Post by FilmStar »

I do think they deserve a little responsibility for presenting an app that can give you definite results in your death. But it's no different than a doctor telling you and you are to automatically be referred to a doctor and the FBI if you have depression.
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Post by Jackie Holycross »

As I was reading the book, I could not believe Vital Tech was continuing to use this feature after the first killings. Then I read the part comparing it to a doctor telling a patient the same news and I changed my mind. Getting a notification of eminent death is already happening and without the feeling of a 'free pass to go kill someone' element. I think some of the modifications they discussed would make it less of a shock and allow the person time to deal with the truth.
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Post by Mildred Tabitha »

Users wouldn't take the option to see a doctor as seriously as the final notice because the notice had more weight. I mean, if you had a week to live, even if the doctor treated you, there was no guarantee that seeing a doctor would extend the life of that particular individual past the said week.
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Post by Lu_rire »

Although Vitaltech has some responsibility, they are not the criminals or the guilty in this story. Their main cross to bear is as creators of the watch. However their original intentions in creating the watch were good and one cannot only villify them without considering that.
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Post by shidawn »

I really felt like VitalTech didn't take the Final Notice killings seriously. While I don't think that they can be to blame for the killings, I do think that they should have taken things a little more seriously. Yes, I realize it would have completely destroyed the plot of the story, but I felt like there should have been a recall of the watches, and they should have held off on giving out more until they could discover why so many people were committing violent acts once they got their Final Notices.

I felt like at one point, the author hinted that there was a link between the watch and the violence, and I thought that we would eventually learn about that link. We never got that. It seemed like the number of violent acts were too disproportionate to the number of people who had the watch for there to be no link between the two. I thought we might find out that some element in the watches was leaking into people's bloodstreams, causing them to be violent and die faster (or something like that).
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Post by [Valerie Allen] »

As with any manufacture, VitalTech certainly hold a weight of responsiblity, whereas, I believe that they should have stuck with the alert with the hope that users take a Final Notice just as seriously as they would equivalent to a doctor's diagnosis. In other words, do not take the Final Notice for granted, granted it's guareented to work properly.
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Post by CinWin »

In the real world, VitalTech would have been totally responsible. If the story would have made the watch say "See your Doctor Immediately" it would have affected the story line. It makes a much better read if it says the ominous "Final Notice".
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Post by CheyenneR »

VitalTech is only responsible as far as creating the device. What people choose to do after receiving their final notice is completely on them. I feel that is different from a doctor telling you because the subjects in the book all felt that the notice was the 100% end all. The writing style leads me to believe that many of the final notice patients wouldn't have received the news from a doctor so badly. A "humans make more mistakes than machines" mentality.
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Post by Mallory Porshnev »

I don't think users would take the alert to see a doctor as seriously. However, the book mentioned a few times how Vital Tech wasn't really to blame because doctors tell people all the time that they are going to die soon and they are not blamed for people's actions afterwards. Everyone needs to take responsibility for his or her own actions in life.
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Post by chupke07 »

They seem concerned with their part in the deaths of people, but I don't think that they are responsible for the actions of the people who receive the final notice. We can not blame the doctor if they tell a terminal patient they will die and they go kill someone, so why would we blame a technology that does that?
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Post by Jillpillbooknerd »

I liked the feature of the Final Notice and I liked that they gave an option for 10, 20, or 30 days. For me personally, if I got a notice that just said "See your doctor soon" that would not have the same impact and I would honestly probably ignore it. I also feel like VitalTech did as much as they could and were very conscientious in their testing of the watch.
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Post by Jennifer Fernandez »

They are not responsible for the decisions people made.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. - H.P. Lovecraft :techie-studyinggray:
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Post by Mindy Conahye »

I think they should be held responsible to a degree. Being told you're going to die from a watch is impersonal and there isn't someone around to gauge how the individual is handling the news. At least in a doctor's office, there's a human there. Add in a lot of the people weren't telling anyone that they received their final notice. Vince didn't even tell Trudi about the watch he got from the doctor when he received it. I think telling people they need to get in touch with their doctor as soon as possible and a 911 notice on the watch would be better than telling them it is their final notice. They would still have time to situate things. There could even be a disclaimer that they agree to contact the doctor as soon as some notice would appear alerting them to seek medical attention.
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