Science has taken a step closer to automated surgery after self-guiding robot repaired a pig’s bowel. The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot or STAR robot can be preprogrammed for length and number of stitches and functions by “reading” fluorescent markers in the tissue. Surgeons hope this could be the first step to reducing clinical errors and saving more lives, though opponents claim it is impossible to trust a machine. A team led by Dr David Deamer at University College London used an algorithm called DeepMind to train the robot, which was able to repair itself when its arm got stuck.
Science has taken a step closer to automated surgery after self-guiding robot repaired a pig’s bowel. The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot or STAR robot can be preprogrammed for length and number of stitches and functions by “reading” fluorescent markers in the tissue. Surgeons hope this could be the first step to reducing clinical errors and saving more lives, though opponents claim it is impossible to trust a machine. “This study suggests autonomous robots can do quite complex processes competently”, said Dr Peter Kim of the Children's National Medical Center in Washington.