Computer Vision News - December 2021

34 Exclusive Interview you hope in our lifetime we will be able to attain? In my lifetime? Well, I am an old guy, but there are a number! If you could get a surgical robot that was able to be a really effective assistant, that would be one thing. Another would be where a robot could do tasks that currently you would expect a skilled resident to do. That is something I would really hope to see. Also, more on the engineering side, I would like the system to be able to look over a surgeon’s shoulder or another robot’s shoulder and be able to follow along what is being done, detecting when they are about to get into trouble and raising the alarm. How far are we from that? Oh, at least four Einsteins! [ he laughs ] I would not want to speculate. When I was a graduate student at the Stanford AI Lab – and that was 50 years ago – I remember we were beginning to do research on robotics, and we had a hand-eye project. People were already talking somewhatderisivelyabout theSummerVisionProject, where all of computer vision could be done in a summer, but we also had the notion with what we knew at the time that we could program a robot to assemble a chainsaw engine. That practical problem drove lots of research. Some of which led us to have a much better appreciation for manufacturing engineers and led to advances in understanding how to do programming to take advantage of sensing to make a precise, but not geometrically accurate robot able to do some of these tasks. That experience and many others since then have led me to be careful about predicting the future. Obviously, the past is much easier to predict! What advice would you give to a young student now, like you were at Stanford 50 years ago, who is starting his or her career and wants to have an impact? If you want to get into my field, there are a few things. You obviously need to develop deep knowledge in an area of computer science, which is itself becoming somewhat more specialized, but it is also very important to develop broader knowledge as well. We are dealing with systems that have mechanical components, electronic components, sensors, information,programming, human interfaces. Also, get yourself into an environment where you can work with end users. Ideally, a place where you can go into the operating room fairly frequently to talk to physicians and try to understand their problems. You do not need to go to medical school in my opinion. Youwill quickly “I have been focused primarily on developing a three-way partnership between humans, technology – machines, robots, sensors – and information, to improve surgery and interventional medicine.” Johns Hopkins University Working with former student Kevin Old’s head-and-neck robot that he developed as part of his PhD thesis.