No need for surgeons when you already have AI-boosted robots on hand! Researchers from John Hopkins and Stanford Universities have developed an AI training model for robots capable of performing surgeries. This model ingests videos of robotic arms piloted by humans performing surgery, explains the Washington Post.
When AI invites itself into the operating room
Robots have been found in operating rooms for years, they can reach areas of the body that are very difficult for a surgeon's hand, and of course their hands never shake. These robots are guided by the surgeon, who always remains in control. The researchers' robots swap the human brain for artificial intelligence...
These AI robots have learned to handle needles, tie threads and suture wounds autonomously. Better still, these robots don’t just imitate gestures: they are also able to correct their mistakes without human intervention, for example by picking up a needle that has just fallen.
The researchers are already testing their technology on animal cadavers. Next step… humans? Not so fast. They will need to get the green light from health authorities (the FDA in the United States). Skeptics also fear that these AI models are not truly “intelligent”: they simply reproduce gestures already seen.
The diversity of human anatomy and pathologies is such that new situations are not uncommon in operating rooms. What will happen in the case of a surgical emergency for which the model has not been trained? At the very least, human supervision seems a bare minimum.
This is not to say that we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The need for surgery is immense, just look at the lines waiting to get an operation. But like the accidents caused by self-driving cars, even a single botched AI surgery could lead to widespread distrust of these technologies.
Source: Washington Post
0 Comments