Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University have trained a robotic surgical system to perform tasks as well as human doctors using AI and imitation learning.

By analyzing hundreds of surgical procedure videos, they taught the robot to manipulate a needle, lift tissue, and suture.

The system, using the da Vinci Surgical System, not only performed these tasks competently but could also correct its own mistakes, like picking up a dropped needle.

This breakthrough could accelerate the development of autonomous surgery, making procedures more precise and accessible, with reduced medical errors, New Atlas has reported.

While fully autonomous surgeries are still years away, this approach could transform robot-assisted surgery by eliminating the need for time-consuming, hand-coded programming for each task.

Written by B.C. Begley