Prepare Yourselves, Robots Will Soon Replace Doctors In Healthcare

At the company’s big event this year, Apple introduced us to a handful of new features designed for the next generation smartwatch that is ready to function as your new fitness guru. Not only has the new software got better workout integration and access to a bunch of apps that help keep us fit, the Apple Watch can now synchronize information directly with the latest gym equipment, making sure that there is no disparity in data between the two devices. As we move headfast into a new generation of urban elites who are obsessed with their health and quality of life, a lot of the biggest tech companies are doing their best to cash in on the latest trend in popular opinion. Apple’s watchOS 4.0 is a direct competition to Fitbit’s own line of health-conscious smartwatches, those these are hardly the only companies trying to bring healthcare to your palms and wrists.

In April 2017, the Wired Magazine covered a next generation of personal healthcare robots that make use of artificial intelligence techniques to take over the job of your domestic nurse, performing such functions as reminding you of your medication, coaching patients on the challenges of dealing with chronic illness and communicating with healthcare professionals to help track patient progress. The robots, referred to as the Mabu Personal Healthcare Companion from Catalia Health, are part of the company’s new project on using innovative techniques to increase patient engagement. The idea of having an all-time domestic robot to care for your health may sound creepy at first, but when you really think about it, it is a much more convenient and cost-friendly option for senior citizens who live alone and are in need of minor full-time medical attention. Mabu is not a replacement for your family physician, nor can it supplement the idea of submitting to regular health checkups at a hospital. It can, however, make the concept of healthcare more interesting and accessible, making it possible to constantly care for a patient even when a doctor is not around.

In fact, in September 2016, surgeons at the Oxford University John Radcliffe Hospital used a remotely controlled robotic surgeon called Robotic Retinal Dissection Device (R2D2) to remove a membrane 100th of a millimetre thick from the retina of the right eye of Revd Dr. William Beaver, successfully curing his blindness and resurrecting his ability to see normally. This was the first time a robot had been used to conduct an operation of the eye in medical history.

“Robotics and AI are removing the human constraints and physical limitations on surgery and placement of innovative medicines. With ultra-high resolution robotic assistance, we can now consider the optimal site to place stem cells in the eye, brain, heart to drive regeneration. Or where to place cellular anti-cancer therapies to kill cancers. In the future, AI will further remove the speed, complexity and precision limitations inherent in a human being driving the robotic arm.Of course, human judgment is essential for the critical decision making but we should be able to rapidly automate the procedure. Automation should provide a higher quality of care, broader access and lower cost for patients.” Ajan Reginald CEO of Celixir.

Clearly, robots can do more than just serve as the medical errand boy. After gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration in 2000, robots have been used widely in the performance of surgeries that require additional precision. The robots aren’t autonomous, of course, there is a human mind, a surgeon controlling its actions from close by. The kind of surgery these robots are most widely used for is called minimally invasive surgery, where, instead of making large incisions, robotic arms are used to perform miniaturized cuts that are no more than a quarter-inch long. At its current stage, these robots aren’t completely sentient and cannot perform surgeries without human assistance. They do, however, make use of a certain amount of artificial intelligence to make the job easier for a human surgeon.


Apart from conventional medicine, robots are also finding application in other branches of healthcare, such as psychology. Recently, psychology experts and artificial intelligence enthusiasts at the Stanford University of California got together to develop a chatbot that could function as your own cognitive behavioral therapist for just $39 a month. The chatbot, known as Woebot, makes use of artificial intelligence algorithms to track your mood and understand your psyche over time through regular conversations, which it then uses to make productive conversation and offer helpful tips to help reduce depression, anxiety and other psychological problems one can develop staying in a crowded city and living the listless modern life.

“Of course, machines will not always get it right. But like autopilots in aircraft, and the driverless cars that are just around the corner, medical robots do not need to be perfect, they just have to be better than humans.” - Medical Experts, The Conversation

Using robots, especially sentient robots, in the realm of healthcare and medicine comes with obvious ethical questions. Would you willingly surrender yourself, in a potentially life-threatening situation, to the hands of an autonomous intelligence that is one glitch away from going full skynet and finishing you completely? Can a robot guarantee the exact amount of expertise or human care that we expect to receive from our doctors? More importantly, will a robot ever be truly equipped to handle questions of life and death from a moral perspective? As we progress into a new era of technological advancement that pushes the boundaries of ethics and conventional morality, we will have one simple choice to make: are we prepared to let go of traditional humanity in favor of an advanced scientific lifestyle?

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