‘simMan’ is the registered name of a life-sized, computer-controlled mannequin designed for use by medical students as a training tool. Equipped with interactive technology that can generate automatic performance feedback, the surrogate human enables the simulation and treatment of various scenarios allowing students to practise without fear of risk to patients. The use of such mechanised learning devices has undoubted benefits, however to increase our reliance on a virtual world, replacing the idiosyncratic and multi-faceted reality of human life, poses a grave danger. (Christine Borland, born in 1965, lives and works in Scotland.)