I don’t know that I would volunteer to be the test subject here. On the other hand, it would stop that uncomfortable feeling from being that close to a person’s face who you don’t know. “Beep boop, I really wanted to be a sculptor. Oh well. Beep boop!”
I’ve been wanting this for years! The article describes the robot as being much faster, which is great, but I think the three big advantages would be 1) no transmission of disease between dentist and patient, 2) you could position the patient face down so that all the liquids and debris drains out of the mouth to a collection basin rather than into the patient’s airway, and 3) any use of nitrous oxide anaesthetic can’t affect the dentist.
I’m intrigued that a Boston-based company went all the way to Colombia to test its machine, but I assume there’s some sort of explanation for that.
Much less expensive and much less red tape to early-test a medical device in humans outside of the US before doing it here once it’s reasonably certain it works as expected. Not that it’s unsafe when tested outside the US, as it will have undergone animal testing for safety and efficacy.
Robot surgeries are at least 25 years old, this is just the first dental one.
Does it give you a toothbrush and other free samples afterward?
Yes, it must. It’s a lesser-known Law of Robotics. All robots must fight cavities.
This isn’t just a robot surgery; it’s a fully-autonomous robot surgery. Previous “surgical robots” were just doing what a human surgeon told them to do.
I didn’t know robots had dental problems.
Does it use Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics to ensure gentle dentistry?
Does it ask banal questions that you can’t possibly answer with it working on your mouth, like “heard any good algorithms lately?”
That’s all I got.
Cleaning can be painful with the wrong dental hygienist.
I’m leery of letting a robot scrape plaque from under my gum line and teeth.