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Russ Jacobsen's avatar

Fantastic summary, Chris. My oldest son is in year 1 of pre-med, and we often talk about the timeline to machines’ abilities to perform surgery, or any highly technical procedure currently performed by doctors, dentists, etc. His obvious concern is that he’ll enter the medical profession 8 years from now, and we will already see the proliferation of robot doctors and dentists. Truthfully, I think it’s inevitable. Just as we are only a handful of years away from saturation and preference (for safety reasons) for robo-taxis, likewise I can see the time when humans would prefer an AI powered robot surgeon performing their heart surgery over a sleep-deprived human. Question is, how far away is that? 10 years? 20 years?

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Christopher Eoyang's avatar

DaVinci is already a world leader in robotic assisted surgeries... https://www.facs.org/for-medical-professionals/news-publications/news-and-articles/bulletin/2023/may-2023-volume-108-issue-5/robotic-surgery-is-here-to-stay-and-so-are-surgeons/ I think the leverage of surgery means control / oversight by a human is likely to be preferred for a long time even if the procedures become safer / faster because of the robotic leverage. Your son might want to do a double major in medicine and robotics!

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Russ Jacobsen's avatar

I just mentioned the robotics double major to him, and he’s looking into it at his school. Thanks for sharing that article as well.

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Stevee's avatar

When will they make a Robocop?

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Christopher Eoyang's avatar

China will make them first, that's for sure

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