Q&A: Why it's time to put our faith in the robots

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 16 Jul 2009 at 15:06

Renowned futurologist professor Peter Cochrane says it's time to replace human surgeons with robots

Professor Peter Cochrane has spent the best part of his career peering into the future. In the 1990s, he led the 600-strong research department at BT Laboratories. He has subsequently helped create two start-up companies, including Cochrane Associates, a "virtualised global operation" that specialises in future trends analysis.

Speaking exclusively to PC Pro, the Royal Academy of Engineering fellow explained why it's time for humans to place more faith in the ability of machines.

Q How advanced has machine intelligence become?

A Back in 2006, the internet was the same size as a human brain in terms of processing power and storage. Every six years, the internet gets a thousand times bigger. By 2012, the internet will be a thousand times bigger than any brain.

When we start to see machines becoming creative, people start to get worried. The first public one of these was Garry Kasparov being whopped by Big Blue. Now machines have started to invent things and design machines and evolve solutions, it's a different kind of game.

Q What kind of things are machines "inventing"?

A There are interesting developments in what you might call 3D fax machines or a home-manufacturing unit. You're talking about something the size of an HP printer, where you put in some plastic and manufacture what you want. Just recently I've seen a metal version of that. I can see that we may be moving to a world where the garage holds the design details of components for your car, and if something goes wrong they manufacture something on the spot.

Q Should we be prepared to hand over more specialist tasks to machines?

Human beings do not have the visual acuity and dexterity to do a lot of brain surgery or eye surgery, and gradually the machines are moving in

A It's an interesting development that, on the machine side, we no longer have the visual acuity or the manual dexterity to do a lot of the construction work for electronics. If you look at the human side, you find robotics moving into surgery for the self-same reason. Human beings do not have the visual acuity and dexterity to do a lot of brain surgery or eye surgery, and gradually the machines are moving in.

Q But don't people still prefer to be treated by human doctors?

A I always say to people if you're going to have a hip replacement, would you like a man to do it, a woman to do it or would you like a machine to do it? Most people want a man or a woman, and that's a big mistake because human beings make lousy machinists. When they bore out the bone to put the mandril in, it's very sloppy; they last about three years. If a machine does it, it's so precise it will last about 15 years.

It's kind of interesting that you'll go to the chemist, buy a strip of pills, and imbibe those tablets without a thought. All those pills were made and packaged by a machine and there was no human involved. If the pills kill you the drugs company is liable, but the machine did it. The probability of a machine making a mistake or doing something silly is a hundred times smaller than that of a human being making a mistake.

Q Won't the press go mad when the robo-surgeon kills its first patient?

A The biggest inhibitor of progress now is us. We can do almost anything, but we drag our feet getting these things in place. The acid test will be when we confront some patients and say "look, the only hope we can give you is that this robot will attempt corrective surgery, and by the way, no human being can do it".