is an EVIL one...

Wasn't this core technology discussed on Slashdot a number of years back? If you google "Seam Carving" you'll find some nice wikipedia articles that discuss content-aware image resizing. This may be a variant on the same technology, and i actually doubt that this is an early release of an April Fool's Day joke (no matter how Star Trek this technology seems).

So you seriously want your physician to prescribe you something he/she knows has no physiological effect, but tell you, or at least allow you to believe that it will work solely so that you can benefit from the placebo i.e. psychological effect?

Essentially what you are suggesting that physicians do is let their patients believe that sugar pills mixed with water work to cure disease X; or, at least, fail to re-educate patients with such notions.