FTA:<p>Inventor: &quot;We programmed the best surgeon’s techniques, based on consensus and physics, into the machine&quot;<p>Third Party: “While in a technical sense, semi-autonomous suturing is a ‘grand challenge’ problem of surgical robotics, clinically much suturing and bowel anastomosis is done by staplers which can do the whole thing in seconds,” he wrote in an email. “Clearly the task they chose does not justify the elaborate equipment they used.”<p>So, they used machine learning to perform a limited part of a surgical procedure, but with freedom of motion and adapting to tissue changes.<p>At the end of the article they talk about self-driving cars and how we have lane-assist and the next level is taking over.  The inventor likens this technology to current lane-assist technology, but it seems more involved than that.<p>Personally I do not want any machine learning consensus algorithm with control over a surgical procedure in my body.  I think the DaVinci type systems (tele-operation, but without autonomy) are awesome -- they allow superhuman precision in delicate surgical tasks.<p>However, until AGI is a solved problem I do not want an automated algorithm making decisions with a knife to my organs.<p>Let the automation algorithm highlight portions of the screen or anticipate the next viewpoint, but keep it away from the controls.