Jim Hu, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, has removed more than 600 cancerous prostates with the help of a robot called the da Vinci HD Surgical System.  He says that robotic assistance allows him to overcome the limitations of human doctors, allowing smaller incisions and less blood loss.

But can robots replace surgeons?

“Unless they develop artificial intelligence that can recognize variations in human anatomy, physicians will always be needed,” Hu says. “But who knows? If you had told me when I was in medical school in the ’90s that I would be using a robot to make incisions one day, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

But can we trust robots?   Sadly the answer is no.

Robotic Surgeons Take Over at a Hospital Near You