this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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A robot trained on videos of surgeries performed a lengthy phase of a gallbladder removal without human help. The robot operated for the first time on a lifelike patient, and during the operation, responded to and learned from voice commands from the team—like a novice surgeon working with a mentor.

The robot performed unflappably across trials and with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real life medical emergencies.

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[–] nulluser@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago (4 children)

without human help

...

responded to and learned from voice commands from the team

🤨🤔

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 week ago

They should have specified "without physical human help."

[–] nevetsg@aussie.zone 8 points 1 week ago

I have seen enough ER to know that operating theatre staff work as a team. So I consider this would be a good thing.

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[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 36 points 1 week ago (5 children)

So... Judging by recent trends in AI, this will be used to devalue the labor of surgeons and be provided as the only option available to people who are not rich. People will die from what would get a human charged with neglegent homicide but, it will be covered up and, when it comes to light just how dangerous it is, nothing will happen because all of the regulatory agencies have been dismantled.

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Oh good it’s voice controlled. Because that technology works amazingly all the time.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Not fair. A robot can watch videos and perform surgery but when I do it I'm called a "monster" and "quack".

But seriously, this robot surgeon still needs a surgeon to chaperone so what's being gained or saved? It's just surgery with extra steps. This has the same execution as RoboTaxis (which also have a human onboard for emergencies) and those things are rightly being called a nightmare. What separates this from that?

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago

It can't sneeze

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[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I want that thing where a light "paints" over wounds and they heal.

[–] gezginorman@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 week ago

thank you for removing my gallbladder robot, but i had a brain tumor

[–] imTIREDnhungryboss@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

so this helps with costs right? right? 🥺🤔🤨

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It helps the capitalists' profit margins 😊😊😊

[–] imTIREDnhungryboss@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I know, I'm over here trying to light little fires LoL JK but yeah for sure never see reduced costs

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Oh I get it, trust. I'm sure we're both equally mad about it lol

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[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago (5 children)

So are we fully abandoning reason based robots?

Is the future gonna just be things that guess but just keep getting better at guessing?

I’m disappointed in the future.

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[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This was a new word for me, so I had to look it up: It's an... interesting choice of words to describe the success of a robot.
Of course a robot would perform the job unflappably, it is emotionless by design. I'm pretty sure it would go right ahead and murder the patient unflappably as well. The robot "keeping its cool" is not even a question.

That said, this does sound very impressive, even if I think there's some pretty crazy risks involved. Hopefully they have more respect for the problem then self-driving car companies.

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Really hope they tried it on a grape first at least.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago

Okay but why? No thank you.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

"OMG it was supposed to take out my LEFT kidney! I'm gonna die!!!!!!"

"Oops, the surgeon in the training video took out a Right kidney. Uhh... sorry."

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Naturally as this kind of thing moves into use on actual people it will be used on the wealthiest and most connected among us in equal measure to us lowly plebs right.....right?

[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Are you kidding!? It'll be rolled out to poor people first! (gotta iron out the last of the bugs somehow)

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[–] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

If we go by that logic, some worker from your supermarket should be able to do surgeries

Doctors have to learns this much so they can handle most really unusual stuff, not because they have to know this for a standard surgery.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

My son's surgeon told me about the evolution of one particular cardiac procedure. Most of the "good" doctors were laying many stitches in a tight fashion while the "lazy" doctors laid down fewer stitches a bit looser. Turns out that the patients of the "lazy" doctors had a better recovery rate so now that's the standard procedure.

Sometimes divergent behaviors can actually lead to better behavior. An AI surgeon that is "lazy" probably wouldn't exist and engineers would probably stamp out that behavior before it even got to the OR.

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's just one case of professional laziness in an entire ocean of medical horror stories caused by the same.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Or more likely they weren't actually being lazy, they knew they needed to leave room for swelling and healing. The surgeons that did tight stitches thought theirs was better because it looked better immediately after the surgery.

Surgeons are actually pretty well known for being arrogant, and claiming anyone who doesn't do their neat and tight stitching is lazy is completely on brand for people like that.

Eliminating room for error, not to say AI is flawless but that is the goal in most cases, is a good way to never learn anything new. I don't completely dislike this idea but I'm sure it will be driven towards cutting costs, not saving lives.

[–] jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i mean, you could just as easily say professors and university would stamp those habits out of human doctors, but, as we can see… they don’t.

just because an intelligence was engineered doesn’t mean it’s incapable of divergent behaviors, nor does it mean the ones it displays are of intrinsically lesser quality than those a human in the same scenario might exhibit. i don’t understand this POV you have because it’s the direct opposite of what most people complain about with machine learning tools… first they’re too non-deterministic to such a degree as to be useless, but now they’re so deterministic as to be entirely incapable of diverging their habits?

digressing over how i just kind of disagree with your overall premise (that’s okay that’s allowed on the internet and we can continue not hating each other!), i just kind of find this “contradiction,” if you can even call it that, pretty funny to see pop up out in the wild.

thanks for sharing the anecdote about the cardiac procedure, that’s quite interesting. if it isn’t too personal to ask, would you happen to know the specific procedure implicated here?

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[–] catty@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

so theoretically they could make sex bots and train them on.... so they perform 'unflappably'!

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[–] negativenull@piefed.world 4 points 1 week ago

SurgeonGPT?

How does the success rate compare

[–] realitista@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

It does until it doesn't

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

Hold on 3P0...you gotta little piece of human stuff stuck on your right end effector clamp top hinge pin. There, all good! Continue!

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