Humanoid Robots Controlled By Surgeons Did World

Humanoid Robots Controlled By Surgeons Did World-First Operation On Live Pigs (arstechnica.com) 12 An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment -- but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots' movements in a new example of human-robot teamups. The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots. The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5 feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas. The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5 feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas. Pig Destroyer (Score:3) Will this be part of Grand Theft Auto VI? Even if only with the deluxe edition, sounds like it would make a great minigame. This was already done autonomously (Score:4, Interesting) A different group showed that the whole transplant can be done autonomously with no human involvement. Reference: https://hub.jhu.edu/2025/07/09... [jhu.edu] Re: (Score:2) This may be so, but if I were going under the knife I'd want a real human using telepresence rather than a fully autonomous AI. Machines aren't conceptually nimble enough yet when it comes to outliers and unexpected complications. Re: This was already done autonomously (Score:3) Unprecedented? Really? (Score:1) A remote (2400km away) surgery intervention has already been made in March 2026 in Europe on a human patient, as indicated in this Re: (Score:3) 2012 [wikipedia.org] 2023 [wikipedia.org] 2001 [nature.com] 1980s [imperial.ac.uk] I'm sure they have an innovation here, but it's not clear what, having been filtered through layers of scientific journalism. So ... (Score:1) They kept out that last detail (pig) (Score:2) ...after all the bots were done high-fiving each other The real takeaway here is the software gap... (Score:2) If the robot is capable of performing the surgery with a human controlling it, then the gap is simply software to a fully autonomous robot surgeon. Re: (Score:2) At that point decent emergency healthcare in remote locations like the upper Andes, remote mining camps, container ships, and antarctic research stations becomes possible. Parachute the robot surgeon in to the site, set up the mobile operating theater, and carve away. For that matter, it would make sense to send one along on lunar and deep space missions, both as surgeons and general fetch-and-steps. Robots have been doing that for years (Score:2) Did somebody place a melon on this robot and call it 'human'?