Two operations inside a surgical training center at the University of California San Diego ended the same way: a pig's gallbladder out, and a five-foot machine standing where a bedside assistant usually stands. The robot weighed 60 pounds. It held a laparoscopic instrument in each hand. It did not decide to do any of it.
That last detail is the one most likely to get lost. The machines were teleoperated, meaning a human surgeon sat at a console and moved their arms in real time. Engineers and surgeons at UC San Diego published the results in Nature, and Nature Medicine flagged the work in a research highlight three weeks later. Both procedures were performed on female pigs under general anesthesia, and neither had to be converted to conventional laparoscopy or open surgery.
