People have long been fascinated by robots. Way before the term was coined in a 1920 play or Isaac Asimov popularized it, there were stories about machines that acted like living things. The droids of Star Wars universe are famed for the likeability and pluck. However, there is still the specter that some of those
In the July 7, 2017, “Artificial Intelligence” issue of Science, we were intrigued by a short piece in the “Insights” section on “Artificial Intelligence in Research” that discussed the future use of autonomous robots in surgery. Surgeonless surgery would “allow[] work around the clock with higher productivity, accuracy, and efficiency as well as shorter