"The biggest lesson that can be read from 70 years of AI research is that general methods that leverage computation are ultimately the most effective, and by a large margin." During the last seven decades, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has seen astonishing developments--recent AI systems have demonstrated impressive wide-ranging capabilities in areas spanning from mathematics to biology,4,14 and have the potential to influence large fractions of the U.S. economy.6

People's health is a serious business, where the tolerance for error should approach zero. This is certainly one reason that robotic assistance systems have found their way into more and more operating rooms worldwide in recent years, because robots and artificial intelligence can help doctors, nurses and care providers perform at their very best. The most commonly used surgical system using robotic engineering today is DaVinci, which allows doctors to conduct minimally invasive surgeries from a computer screen. DaVinci eliminates unintended movements, such as a tremble of the surgeon's hand. This surgical robot cannot be programmed, however.