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As I understand the daVinci device is not really a robot in the sense that it works autonomously. It’s a precision waldo setup with a surgeon in control.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4941968/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/live/robotic-surgery...
For the kidney surgery seems to be significantly better then non robotic https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9741158/
As I understand the daVinci device is not really a robot in the sense that it works autonomously. It’s a precision waldo setup with a surgeon in control.
With enough training data it should be possible to make fully automated AI surgeon bots that outperform human operators. Who wants to sign up for the private beta?
* "Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless."**
It's the man and the machine together as a super-organism.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed
Disclaimer: I played with a Da Vinci prototype sewing grapes but I'm definitely no surgeon. My hands shake more than someone with Parkinson's. I cannot fathom subsequent generations of refinements in steadier hands with surgical experience. Clarke's third law applies here. Although, I wonder before how long AI and mechatronics will receive credit for simple veterinary surgeries as a testbed on the path to a truly miraculous, sci-fi "surgical chamber".
I really don't like these kinds of headlines. The medical professionals are the real heros here. If the da Vinci system had just come out and this was some new capability I would understand. In this case the headline should say "surgical staff saves life of inoperable patient using standard surgical quality of care and using device that has been available on the.market for 15 years". It's one thing to say "new Invent…
The hero talk is really cringy. Other than that, it's not going to be long until we don't need anyone controlling it and for us to find it barbaric that we used to expose ourselves to factors like "trembling hands" or other such nonsense inside our guts.
And I'm sure we'll get to autonomous surgery at some stage, but we can't even get autonomous driving right, and I feel like surgery is even more precise and potentially dynamic.
I really don't like these kinds of headlines. The medical professionals are the real heros here. If the da Vinci system had just come out and this was some new capability I would understand. In this case the headline should say "surgical staff saves life of inoperable patient using standard surgical quality of care and using device that has been available on the.market for 15 years". It's one thing to say "new Invent…
The hero talk is really cringy. Other than that, it's not going to be long until we don't need anyone controlling it and for us to find it barbaric that we used to expose ourselves to factors like "trembling hands" or other such nonsense inside our guts.
We’re realistically (many) decades away from this in the earliest case. AI is cool, but literally giving one a scalpel and allowing it to excise a tumor is so far beyond both what our present technology and regulatory safeguards will realistically facilitate within most of the lifetime of anyone alive.
I do admire your optimism, but I can’t help but think it’s a little misplaced. We have collectively billions of miles driven for self-driving cars and they still can’t reliably distinguish a red light in suboptimal conditions. And somehow a machine is going to slice us open and perform a surgery than even our most skilled surgeons are not reliably performing (let alone generating training data for). Not to mention the human body is an insanely complex, variable, and messy environment where even little mistakes can be life ending.
I understand that exponential growth in AI is difficult to comprehend. But fully autonomous surgery is just likely not on the bingo sheet for this century. It’s several orders of magnitude more complex and high stakes than just about every other task AI can take on.
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I think someone going above and beyond to literally save another's life, despite incredible odds, is the definition of a hero. What's cringe about that? There are two sides to this coin. It's the classic do we want to keep a human in the loop, or not. By your same point we could argue that robots are more efficient killing machines, so let's make autonomous killing robots. Back to surgery, there are lots of reasons y…
> so let's make autonomous killing robots. I think that this is not ethics or something that stops us from doing that, but rather the poor state of robotics. The second we can, we will have autonomous killing robots à la Terminator (but better because they are not really optimal by looking like us)
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I agree. Ethics haven't stopped weapons manufacturers from making increasingly deadly weapons, so I doubt it'd stop when the tech for killer robots is possible.
Yes they have (source - Geneva Convention and our subsequent following of it)
It is always an afterthought and depending on who wins, the horrors of war that fall outside the "that's ok" category are either completely ignored, or someone is waving a finger, or there is a trial which finishes or not with actual punishments.
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For the kidney surgery seems to be significantly better then non robotic https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9741158/
That's a single surgeon study, far from compelling evidence
From a patient point of view it is a big difference. Hospital stay is really expensive even if you have insurance. Hospitals charge like 10000$ per day and copayment foe hospital stay is usually hundreds of dollars.
Of course, it means that hospitals can process more patients and generate more profit, but it also reduces surgery wait times, which is critical for a patient with a tumor, because the longer your wait, the more likely for the tumor to spread
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That's a single surgeon study, far from compelling evidence
Actually, it is compelling. All things being equal you give an experienced surgeon an advanced tool and get 30% reduction in hospital stay along with less damage to your kidney function From a patient point of view it is a big difference. Hospital stay is really expensive even if you have insurance. Hospitals charge like 10000$ per day and copayment foe hospital stay is usually hundreds of dollars. Of course, it mean…
That's the rub, what I'm highlighting. We all just automatically assume the robot is better because it's a robot. The proof is in the pudding.