Autonomous robots: a new reality in healthcare? A project by European Association of Urology-Young Academic Urologist group.

Abstract

Artificial intelligence appears as a potential revolution in the general process of medical training, disease diagnosis and treatment. A novel disruptive technology of the 21st century will be 'learner' robots from artificial intelligence systems able to use all the combination of the available knowledge in medical repositories to give the best standard of care. The autonomy level of robots depends on three factors: the complexity of the task; the environment in which the robot operates, and the required level of human-robot interaction. Autonomous robots in healthcare may be classified in delivery, nurse, and surgical robots. The increasing capability of robots to perform independent actions and complex tasks raises responsibility and accountability issues in a wide variety of application domains. Ethical analyses of these issues are underway and are mostly oriented toward the development of ethical policies requiring a law frame on robotic autonomous behaviors. Autonomous robots have the potential to improve current medical practice offering a more secure, reliable, and reproducible medicine. Many advancements are required for these new technologies to be fully integrated. Furthermore, the ethical implications of these technologies are yet to be evaluated.