A human in the loop in surgery automation

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe 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. Levels of automation define the

robot’s progressive ability to perform particular functions independently. Yang et al. proposed a generic six-layered model for medical robots’ autonomy levels depicting a spectrum ranging

from no autonomy (level 0) to full autonomy (level 5) to bridge this gap1. The effort is a step towards clarity, but the model needs detailing on how it applies to specific types of medical

robots. Medical robots’ embodiment and capabilities differ vastly across surgical, physically/socially assistive or serviceable contexts, and the involved human–robot interaction is also

distinctive2. Socially assistive robots, for instance, interact with users socially, performing a task for the user, but physical contact with the user is minimal. In contrast, physically

assistive robots (for example, lower-limb exoskeletons), work towards a seamless integration with the user’s movement, and surgical robots are collaborative robots that extend the surgeon’s

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checkout ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support REFERENCES * Yang, G. Z. et al. _Sci. Robot._ 2, eaam8638

(2017). Article  Google Scholar  * Fosch-Villaronga, E. _Robots, Healthcare, and the Law: Regulating Automation in Personal Care Conclusions_ (Routledge, 2019). * Shademan, A. et al. _Sci.

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Syst._ 119, 77–91 (2019). Article  Google Scholar  * Amodei, D. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06565 (2016). * Shah, S. B., Hariharan, U., Bhargava, A. K., Rawal, S. K. &

Chawdhary, A. A. _Trends Anaesth. Crit. Care_ 14, 21–29 (2017). Article  Google Scholar  * Johnson, D. G. _J. Bus. Ethics_ 127, 707–715 (2015). Article  Google Scholar  * Jamjoom, A. A. B.,

Jamjoom, A. M. A. & Marcus, H. J. _Nat. Mach. Intell._ 2, 194–196 (2020). Article  Google Scholar  Download references AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * eLaw Center for Law

and Digital Technologies, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Pranav Khanna, Hadassah Drukarch & Bart H. M. Custers Authors * Eduard Fosch-Villaronga View

author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Pranav Khanna View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar *

Hadassah Drukarch View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Bart H. M. Custers View author publications You can also search for this author

inPubMed Google Scholar CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Eduard Fosch-Villaronga. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE 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 Download citation *

Published: 10 May 2021 * Issue Date: May 2021 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00349-4 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

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