Surgery on humans by robots could be a decade away after success in pig trials

Automated surgery could be tested on humans within a decade, researchers have claimed after an AI-trained robot armed with tools to cut, clip and grab soft tissue successfully removed gall bladders without human help.

- Robert Booth UK technology editor

The robot-surgeons were schooled on video footage of human medics conducting operations using organs taken from dead pigs. In an apparent research breakthrough, eight operations were conducted on pig organs with a 100% success rate by a team led by experts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The Royal College of Surgeons said it was "an exciting development that shows great promise". John McGrath, an expert on robotic surgery in the UK, called the results "impressive" and "novel", saying they "takes us further into the world of autonomy".

The development opens up the possibility of replicating, en masse, the skills of the best surgeons.

The technology is rooted in the same type of computerised neural networks that underpin widely used artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini.