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A human in the loop in surgery automation

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 3, pages 368–369 (2021)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Medical robots are expected to improve healthcare delivery and reduce costs. Robots are devoid of human shortcomings such as fatigue or momentary attention lapses, and can enhance practitioners’ capabilities in performing tasks, including surgeries. As robots’ perception, decision-making and autonomy increase, the role of humans will change, even decrease, and other issues relating to cybersecurity and privacy will become more significant1. The complex interplay between increasingly autonomous surgical robots, medical practitioners and support staff will soon complicate the understanding of how to allocate responsibility if something goes wrong. In this Correspondence, we argue that while the role of human performance in medical robot surgeries may decrease as robotic technology increases, the role of human oversight will increase.

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Affiliations

  1. eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Pranav Khanna, Hadassah Drukarch & Bart H. M. Custers

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  1. Eduard Fosch-Villaronga
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  2. Pranav Khanna
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  3. Hadassah Drukarch
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  4. Bart H. M. Custers
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Correspondence to Eduard Fosch-Villaronga.

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Fosch-Villaronga, E., Khanna, P., Drukarch, H. et al. A human in the loop in surgery automation. Nat Mach Intell 3, 368–369 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00349-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00349-4

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