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Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

arstechnica.com

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Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#131

Post by Calavar »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #60
Calavar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this myself in the past, but my opinion has shifted over time. If a surgeon needs to do X number of cases to become independently competent in a certain type of surgery and we want to graduate Y surgeons per year, then we need at least X * Y patients who require that kind of surgery every year. At a certain point increasing Y requires you to decrease X and that's going to cut into surgeon quality. Ove…

To summarise your view, more surgeons means not enough experience in a given surgery to maintain base levels of skill. I think this is wrong; you would need a significant increase, and the issue I was responding to was “shortage”. There’s no prospect of shortages when the pipeline has many more capable people than positions. Here in Australia, a quota system is used, which granted, can forecast wrong (we have a defic…

"Rare" is an overloaded word, so let me clarify: I asked one of my friends who's a general surgeon, and he estimates he does 1 to 2 open cholecystectomies or appendectomies per year. It falls in an unfortunate gray zone where the cases aren't frequent enough for you to build up skills, but they are frequent enough that you can't just forward all the cases on to one or two experienced surgeons in the area. (They would get incredibly backed up.) And sometimes a case starts laparoscopic and has to be converted to open partway through, so you can't always anticipate in advance that a senior surgeon will need to be available.

I agree that robotic surgery is not a solution for this. We haven't even got L5 long haul trucking yet, so full auto robotic surgery in the real world, as opposed to controlled environments, is probably decades away.

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#132

Post by constantcrying »

austinkhale wrote: post #7

If Waymo has taught me anything, it’s that people will eventually accept robotic surgeons. It won’t happen overnight but once the data shows overwhelming superiority, it’ll be adopted.

>If Waymo has taught me anything, it’s that people will eventually accept robotic surgeons.

I do no think that example is applicable at all. What I think people will be very tolerant of is robot assisted surgeries, which are happening right now and which will become better and more autonomous over time. What will have an extremely hard acceptance rate are robots performing unsupervised surgeries.

The future of surgery this research is suggesting is a robot devising a plan, which gets reviewed and modified by a surgeon, then the robot under the supervision of the surgeon starts implementing that plan. If complications arise beyond the robots ability to handle, the surgeon will intervene.

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#133

Post by constantcrying »

ikari_pl wrote: post #66
austinkhale wrote: post #7

If Waymo has taught me anything, it’s that people will eventually accept robotic surgeons. It won’t happen overnight but once the data shows overwhelming superiority, it’ll be adopted.

waymo only needs to operate in a 2D space and care about what's in front and on the sides of it. that's much simpler than three dimensional coordination. an "oops" in a car is not immediately life threatening either

>an "oops" in a car is not immediately life threatening either

There are enough "oops"'s that are life threatening though.

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#134

Post by hkt »

0_____0 wrote: post #125
hkt wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can automate training me not to recoil from the eye speculum I'd appreciate it, my pesky body does not like things getting too close. (Serious remark)

I think sedation may be an option (chemical automation, how about it?)

I was told it wasn't :(

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#135

Post by filoleg »

hkt wrote: post #134
0_____0 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think sedation may be an option (chemical automation, how about it?)

I was told it wasn't :(

Full anesthesia - yeah, not an option, you need to be awake. Something milder - it could be an option (depending on the state, maybe? not sure, mine was done in WA).

Neither me nor my friends (all of us who got lasik) asked for it, but my clinic gave me valium, and my friends’ clinic gave them xanax shortly before the procedure.

Tangential sidenote: that was nearly 8 years ago, and I am absolutely glad I got it done.

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#136

Post by tomhow »

andrepd wrote: post #19
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, the more time goes by, the more I prefer robot surgeons and assisted surgeons. The skill of these only improves and will reach a level where the most common robots exceed the 90th, and eventually 95th percentiles. Do we really want to be in a world where surgeon scarcity is a thing?

>The skill of these only improve Citation effing needed. It's taken as an axiom that these systems will keep on improving, even though there's no indication that this is the case.

> Citation effing needed

Please avoid internet tropes and fulmination on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#137

Post by tomhow »

ACCount36 wrote: post #32
andrepd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The skill of these only improve Citation effing needed. It's taken as an axiom that these systems will keep on improving, even though there's no indication that this is the case.

[flagged]

Please don't comment like this on HN. We need you to observe the guidelines, particularly these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#138

Post by matthewdgreen »

iExploder wrote: post #100
qgin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LASIK is essentially an automated surgery and 1-2 million people get it done every year. Nobody even seems to care that it’s an almost entirely automated process.

Not a doctor or an expert on this but as a patient I would say LASIK sounds less invasive than internal organ operations...

They're cutting into your eye!

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#139

Post by hkt »

filoleg wrote: post #135
hkt wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was told it wasn't :(

Full anesthesia - yeah, not an option, you need to be awake. Something milder - it could be an option (depending on the state, maybe? not sure, mine was done in WA). Neither me nor my friends (all of us who got lasik) asked for it, but my clinic gave me valium, and my friends’ clinic gave them xanax shortly before the procedure. Tangential sidenote: that was nearly 8 years ago, and I am absolutely glad I got it done.

Noted! I'm in the UK and nobody mentioned anything. Maybe I'll ask! I'd love to not have glasses even if it was just some of the time.

Re: Experimental surgery performed by AI-driven surgical robot

#140

Post by grantcas »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #50
rscho wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on your definition of 'surgery'. One could well imagine that transplanting your conscience into a new body might well be feasible before we get to live on Mars.

I am not remotely convinced that "transplanting consciousness" is a thing that is even possible At best we may eventually be able to copy a consciousness, but that isn't the same thing

[dead]
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