A robot with artificial intelligence has been able to remove the gallbladder from a dead pig, which, according to researchers, is the first realistic surgery made by a machine without almost no human intervention.
The robot is powered by a two -level AI system, driven by 17 hours of video bringing together 16,000 movements carried out during surgical operations by human surgeons. Once put into service, the first level of the AI system views the video of an endoscope monitoring the intervention and gives instructions in clear language, such as “clipting the second conduct”, while the second level of AI transforms each instruction into three -dimensional tools.
In total, the operation of the gallbladder required 17 separate interventions. The robotic system has carried out the operation eight times, obtaining a success rate of 100 % for each of them.
“Current surgical robotic technology has made certain interventions less invasive, but the rate of complications have not really decreased compared to previous laparoscopic surgeries practiced by human surgeons”, explains Axel Krieger, member of the team of Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland. “” This led us to interest us at the next generation of robotic systems likely to help patients and surgeons. »»
Although the robot has completed the task with a success rate of 100 %, it had to take advantage six times per case. For example, this could mean that a clip designed to grasp an artery has missed the first time.
The next step is to let a robot operate independently on a living animal, where breathing and bleeding could complicate things.