The automated pathologist.

Machines are our friends—they let us quickly deposit a check, zip through a highway toll, or check into a flight— until they take our jobs. The jobs that go first are those that can be automated with simple logic. In the clinical laboratory, machines move specimens into other machines that mix and measure to give results. The pathologist has remained at the top of the ladder, secure by her years of experience and ability to deftly scan a slide and pick out a suspicious-looking cell. No machine could do that. Or could it?