A surgical robot operating on a dead pig
Juo-Tung University Chen / Johns Hopkins
A robot powered by AI was able to remove a gallbladder from a deadly pig in what researchers claim to be the first realistic surgery of a machine without human intervention.
The robot is powered by a two -level AI system formed over 17 hours of video encompassing 16,000 requests made in operations by human surgeons. When put to work, the first layer of the AI system watches the video from an endoscope monitoring surgery and emits instructions in simple language, such as “clip the second gualin”, while the second layer Ai transforms each instruction into three -dimensional tool movements.
In all, gallbladder surgery required 17 distinct tasks. The robotic system has carried out the operation eight times, obtaining 100% success in all tasks.
“Current surgical robotic technology has made certain procedures less invasive, but the complications rates have not really dropped from the previous laparoscopic [keyhole] surgery [by human surgeons]”Explains the member of the Axel Krieger team at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.” This has made us examine the next generation of robotic systems that can help patients and surgeons. “
“The study really highlights the art of the possible with AI and surgical robotics,” explains Danail Stoyanov at the University College in London. “Incredible progress in computer vision for surgical videos with the availability of robotic platforms open for research can demonstrate surgical automation.”
But many challenges remain to make the system practical in clinical use, underlines Stoyanov.
On the one hand, while the robot finished the task with 100%success, it had to self-coring six times per case. For example, this could mean that a clip designed to grasp an artery missed its grip on the first try.
“There were many cases where he had to self-corrigence, but all of this was entirely independent,” explains Krieger. “He would correctly identify the initial error, then repair himself.” The robot also had to ask a human to modify one of his surgical instruments for another, which means that a level of human intervention was necessary.
Ferdinando Rodriguez Y Baena at Imperial College London is enthusiastic about the growing potential of robotic surgery. “The future is brilliant – and firmly firmly,” he says. “Although to achieve this safely in humans, the regulations will have to follow suit, which remains an important open challenge in our sector.”
The next step, says Krieger, is to let a robot operate independently on a living animal, where breathing and bleeding could complicate things.
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