An AI robot performed dental surgery on a human for the first time in the world
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We choose our dentist very carefully. What if the dentist was an AI-controlled robot? In the United States, for the first time in history, such a technological miracle crawled into a patient’s mouth and ground his tooth, preparing it for a crown. The media called the volunteer (his name is not revealed) a “desperate kamikaze,” but they admit that the future has arrived.
The robot dentist was made by the company Perceptive from the US city of Boston. The main character is Dr. Chris Ciriello, who is now basking in the spotlight and spouting trite phrases about an “amazing breakthrough.”
The whole procedure looked like this. The patient’s mouth was digitalized, i.e. a complete 3D model of all his teeth was created using a scanner. Such things exist in good Russian clinics and are based on CT scanning.
Then the dentist (he hasn’t been fired yet) and the patient discuss the treatment plan, and then the robot comes in and says, “Move over, leather guy, it’s my time.”
No, of course, he doesn’t come and say something like that. Externally, the robot looks like a CNC machine, only it is not programmed by a doctor, but by AI.
The grinding of the tooth for the future crown took 15 minutes instead of two hours, Dr. Ciriello the Nightingale adds. But he does not say why the robot sped up so much. The two-hour time limit also raises some questions. Of course, teeth are different, and some people need two hours to grind, others three, and others it is as simple as trimming them. But let us assume that this patient had a tooth for exactly two hours.
The company claims the robot is capable of working in any conditions. For example, in a car that is rapidly going over bumps. It is not known why teeth are treated in such an extreme way, but perhaps this is a useful option. Let’s say you have a toothache on the plane, “go through that door, next to the bathroom,” says the flight attendant, for a minute, and you come out with a new filling.
The robot has not yet been approved by doctors, so it is still far from being introduced into clinical practice. And the cost… The detailed Ciriello, of course, did not say a word about how much the toy would cost, but, presumably, it is not cheap.
Scientists say that in the next 10 years, AI and robots will emerge from experimental laboratories and take over doctors’ chairs. Surgery is generally considered an unplowed field for AI: a person, they say, is blind, his hand shakes with a scalpel, or he is a machine.
But one thing is worrying. Here’s how AI advocate Dr. Walsh sees it: a person wakes up after surgery, contacts a chatbot, and it answers everything. Why bother the nurse? So the goal is not to bother the nurse, or what? What if the patient is scared (and he is)? What if he says “the car wasn’t taught this”?
No, after all, a good doctor, even if he is not very intelligent, is better…
