An AI-powered robot was able to remove a gall bladder from a dead pig in what researchers claim is the first realistic surgery by a machine with almost no human intervention. The robot is powered by a two-tier AI system trained on 17 hours of video encompassing 16,000 motions made in operations by human surgeons. When put to work, the first layer of the AI system watches video from an endoscope monitoring the surgery and issues plain-language instructions, such as “clip the second duct”, while the second AI layer turns each instruction into three-dimensional tool motions. In all, the gall bladder surgery required 17 separate tasks. The robotic system performed the operation eight times, achieving 100 per cent success in all of the tasks. “Current surgical robotic technology has made some procedures less invasive, but complication rates haven’t really dropped from previous laparoscopic [keyhole] surgeries [by human surgeons],” says team member Axel Krieger at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. “This made us look into what is the next generation of robotic systems that can help patients and surgeons.”

Full report : An AI system trained on videos of operations successfully guided a robot to carry out gall bladder surgery on a dead pig, with minimal human assistance.