Since the 1960's the human race has been developing technology and making faster, more efficient, safer robotic systems. The development of technology has been snowballing and new technologies are being discovered every day. In the 1960's humans were looking at how technology could improve the world we live in and be used in almost every situation. Many people blame the Sci-Fi television show, "Star Trek" for the sudden spurt in technology evolution, predicting devices such as the mobile phone, tablet computers, touch screen technology, video conference calls and headgear devices. In the 1982 the CD was invented and made commercially available to the public. This is when technology started to snowballed.
Below is a photo an illustration from the 1982 series of futuristic children's book's, "World of Tomorrow" by Neil Ardley. The illustration depicts a person who has been seriously injured, who is being operated on by a robotic surgeon. Below is the text that goes along with the illustration.
Here you can see an operation taking place in a hospital of the future. The patient has had a terrible accident and lost an arm. However, the arm has been recovered and robot surgeons are reattaching it to its owner.
The operation is very intricate. Tiny nerve endings and blood vessels have to be fixed to each other. The robots work tirelessly and with great precision and speed to repair the damage. They can operate on very small parts of the body, using needle-thin laser beams to cut through and also to seal the tissues together. Human surgeons check the robots via television and make sure that the patient remains in good condition.
After the operation the patient will receive special care to speed recovery. As well as good nursing, this may include radio or electrical treatment to make the nerves, bones and skin grow quickly so that the patient's arm soon regains its normal use.
Treatment to induce tissues to grow could be very valuable in the hospital of the future. It could help burn victims to recover very quickly by encouraging new skin to grow over their burns. Even more important, it may help to cure paralyzed people. The treatment would cause new nerves and muscles to grow and replace the dead nerves and muscles producing the paralysis.
It's even possible that such treatment could make missing organs and maybe even limbs grow again, much as our hair and nails continue to grow after cutting them. One day surgeons may be able to remove a diseased part of the body and provide a framework on which the patient grows a new part!
What I find interesting about this subject is that just as Star Trek had done, Neil Ardley has predicted or at least set the grounds of what is currently being used as a robotic surgeon. Below is a photo of the "Da Vinci SI", a surgery robot that has sparked much controversy to how quick technology has progressed and to the point where we are putting our lives in the hands of a robotic system.
The Da Vinci Si
The Da Vinci Si has two separate but connected sections:
The Tower, which is positioned directly above the patient during surgery. It has four robot arms - Three which can hold a multitude of diferent surgical instruments, and the fourth holds the system's 3D cameras. These arms are controlled by a computer that actually replicates the movement of the operating surgeon.
The console is where the surgeon sits and operates the robot's controls while looking into a stereoscopic monitor that provides a magnified, high definition 3D views of the surgical site. The surgeon manipulates the robot's four arms by maundering two master controls that provide fingertip precision of movement.
The surgeon also operates a foot switch that provides additional options, such as the ability to switch between two diferent energy sources. Touch pads allow the surgeon to easily adjust video, audio and system settings.
The company that has developed this machine is called Intuitive Surgical. The Da Vinci Si was created in 1999 and now being used in many countries. A report from Intuitive surgical itself in September 2012 indicated that more than 20 hospitals in the UK and Ireland already have these machines. These including: St Mary's and St George's and Guy's in London and units in such regions as Glenfield Hospital and Manchester Hospital.
Below is the news article, from the Daily Mail I chose to base my research around. The reason i chose this is article is because of the way that the Daily Mail chose to report it. The goto they chose to accompany the article depicts a human-like robotic hand holding a scalpel delicately between it's thumb and index finger. This is quite strange as this is nothing like the actual robots used in surgery.
It seems as though they have chosen to depict the robot like this to spark controversy on purpose as they know that there are many people who are scared of robots and fear for how far they have developed. The idea of a human-like robot (aka. Humanoid robot) scares many people.
The main issues that the news article states are:
- There are surgeons that are not getting the correct training to use the machines.
- There are currently no regulations to having them safety checked by the MHRA.
- Robot surgery may not be any better than regular surgery.
- Robotic surgery costs more than regular surgery.
- Robotic surgeries have gone wrong in the past.
- There aren't enough statistics to prove that robotic surgery is better.
Surgeons without correct training
Since January last year there have been 500 reports of problems with the Intuitive Surgical's devices.
The leading problem reported was that an electrical current could jump from the robot into the patients body, causing serious injury. This may be related to surgeons cleaning off their tools by scrapping instruments against each other. The instruments have a protective plastic tip covers on them and it was noted that scrapping them together led to tears or holes in the cover that led to electrical arcing which in turn led to injuries to patients.
Another rare problem that was reported was that a surgeon could accidentally cut through an artery because they cannot feel it's firmness.
The makers require surgeons to do 20 operations under supervision before they can work by themselves. Unfortunately in the UK there are no official standards of checking how proficient a surgeon is on the Da Vinci Si and surgeons can be too keen to use them.
The equipment is far too expensive to run training at the Royal College of Surgeons.
Statistics
In Britain there is no available database to collate any of the problems seen in the U.S. due to the fact that official body is taking responsibility for overseeing the safety of this technology or monitoring it's effectiveness.
Unlike in the U.S. where it's known that 367,000 procedures in 2012 involved these robots, we don't even know how many operations were performed this way in the UK yet.
We only know that the robots are used in over 20 hospitals across the UK and Ireland.
One of the earlier tests to show positive outcomes from robotic surgery , in journal Urology, in 2002, looked at 30 patients who underwent the same operation as well as another 30 who underwent the same operation but with traditional surgery. The outcome showed the same general outcomes, but the patients who underwent robotic surgery went home earlier and with less pain. It isn't enough strong evidence to prove that robotic surgery is an improvement.
The Cost Of Using Robots In Surgery
A Da Vinci robot costs around 2.3 million pounds. On top of this, there are annual servicing costs of 100,000 pounds.
With such high costs it doesn't make sense using robots in surgery with such a small difference in positive outcomes.
Intuititive Surgical
The California based company is facing 26 lawsuits from patients and according to a recent review by Bloomberg News the robotic devices have been linked to 70 reported deaths since 2009.
Many companies and hospitals, are trying to promote this high tech robotic system. Some are offering a hands on demo to show how safe they are and be able to take your photo with one.
Robots Replacing Humans In The Workplace
Many people worry that robots will also take jobs, as they have done before. Robots are used to make products as they can be programmed to make the same movements over and over again. Recently the self-checkout was introduced into almost every major supermarket, which has made it easier to serve more customers, with only one member of staff supervising. The sudden burst in technology development has definitely contributed to the recent high rate of unemployment across the world. There are people who worry that soon the robots won't need to be supervised in tasks such as surgery and customer support, which will leave there to be no use for humans to work.
The 1982 book outlined the many jobs that it claimed were supposed to be made obsolete by technology by the 21st century. Like nearly all predictions for the future, there's some they got right, some they got wrong, and there's a lot that's open to interpretation.
The book said that these jobs would be taken over by robots:
Grocery Cashier
Farm Workers
Dry Cleaners
Small Real Estate Brokers
Door-to-door Salespeople
Toll Booth Operator
Bank Clerks
Traditional Telephone Operators
Typists
Secretaries
Art Room Staff
File Clerk
Librarians
Warehouse Inventoryperson
Warehouse packers
Machine Loaders
Machinists
Robots in Pop Culture
As mentioned before, pop culture has had a large influence on the development of technology. Below is an interesting diagram that shows how pieces of fiction have influenced technology throughout the years and made certain pieces of technology a reality.
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The fear of robots is known as technophobia. It is the fear of advanced technology or complex devices. The younger generation have been brought up in a world with technology surrounding them so are more comfortable using them and open to new technologies, whereas an older generation of humans are uncomfortable around computers and robots because they find it hard to understand how to use them and fear that they are too smart. Pop culture has a large influence on what we think of robots and has given many people a negative impression. This may be a leading reason as to why many people are against robotic surgery taking place.
Pop culture has lead us to believe that humanoid robots should be feared. If developed, they would be stronger than humans, maybe faster, be able to perform tasks with much more precision, but the biggest fear among humans about robots is that they could become self aware. Self aware meaning that they knew they were robots and that we are humans and that the sole purpose of their being is perform a task for us. This would obviously annoy the average human and want some sort of revenge, thus the fear of killer robots. here are just a few films which have been based around the idea of humanoid robots.
2001: A Space odyssey (1968)
H.A.L 9000 is the robot that is used to control the spaceship in this film. H.A.L 9000 malfunctions during the film and the protagonists decide to shut him down, unfortunately because of how advanced this robot is it reads the lips of the protagonists as they are discussing how to shut him down, and decides to kill the astronauts in various ways in order to complete what he was programmed to do during the space voyage.
The Terminator series
The whole plot of terminator is based around the idea that robots will become so evolved that there will be a war between humans and robots. Although the protagonist is a "good" robot, there are plenty of evil killer robots throughout.
I-robot
Based on the 3 rules of robotics created by Isaac Asimov, an American science fiction author, I-robot tells the story of a world almost entirely run by robots. The 3 rules state:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Unfortunately a new set of robots are controlled by a mainframe that becomes self-aware and begins to try and kill all human life.
Wall-E
Although Wall-E is an animated film, it brings a serious message with it. The image above shows the humans that had to leave earth on a space ship and became so used to having everything done for them by robots that all they do is sit in chairs on computers and eat and drink. One of the morals of this story is that we shouldn't let technology be such a huge part of our life. We need to experience real life more, or we could end up just like them.
