Here's the topic for today - please share your thoughts in a comment!



NOTE: For the purpose of this discussion, I mean robots that don't have human handlers, that are operating automatically.

The first autonomous robotic surgery systems are being tested right now, and it looks promising in the sense that these can do surgeries far faster and with far fewer errors than a human could. The thing that I (and I think most people) are worried about is how stable is the system platform that the robot operates on; is it going to always do what it is supposed to and not break down at a terrible time? No machine is perfect and neither is any human; it's not reasonable to expect them to be foolproof, and if they do a better job than a human would that should be enough to justify using them. So I think that if they're proven safe to that standard or better, I would be comfortable having them operate on me for approved procedures.

A surgeon will normally have a bit of backup during an operation, the more dangerous it is the more people will be there.
I think the same thing would happen with an autonomous robot: either there will be humans there too or other autonomous robots, so mistakes and errors can be corrected and you don't get crazy surgery horror stories :)

Well hopefully with autonomous robot surgery the patient won't need circles and arrows drawn all over so the surgeon knows what side to operate on and there won't be someone asking the patient “what side are we doing today?” every five minutes.
Four eye surgeries in two years including one where the anesthesia didn't put me to sleep. I was really relaxed, but I was awake for the whole procedure.
You know you're not going to be able to replace nurses. Surgeons and anesthesiologists maybe but there'll probably still be a physician assistant and/or nurse in there.