Robotic Nation Evidence

Robot makes medical history

From the article:

"Gliding into the operating room for the first time to assist a surgeon, Penelope wasn't nervous. Unlike other novice medical assistants scrubbing in, 'she' felt nothing at all. That's because Penelope is a robot, a machine that recently made medical history by becoming the first to act as an independent surgical aide during an operation.

During a June procedure at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to remove a benign tumor from a patient's forearm, Penelope responded to voice commands from a surgeon, handing over clamps, forceps and other instruments with her magnetized mechanical arm. Watching with digital cameras, the robot retrieved the instruments when the surgeon placed them down."

My mother was in the hospital last week, and it is very interesting to think of Penelope in the conext of a modern hospital. A hospital is teaming with people, like bees in a hive. And each person's role is highly specialized. There is one person who takes temperatures and BP, another who dispenses medicine, another that delivers trays of food, another that picks up trays of food, one who takes blood, one who monitors the IV, one to clean the bathroom, another to change the sheets.... It is absolutely amazing.

Most of these people are highly paid. The economic pressure to eliminate all of these jobs and replace them with robots is immense. Penelope is an early harbinger of the things to come. See Robotic Nation for details. See also The birth of the robotic hospital.