In other words these expert systems would be students, skilled at acquiring knowledge. Most people would agree that doctors have high IQ's and highly developed skill and that the field requires intellectual work. If we can understand better to what extent robot doctors can replace human doctors this might enable us to generalize to other kinds of work. The comparisons were run with a limited area of specialization, complex cases of meningitis. However, there is nothing to prevent this from applying to all kinds of medical diagnosis.
Tests indicate a high level of diagnostic agreement between the system and human experts.
Again, robots surpass the capabilities of humans because of their highly accurate, tremor-free placements. Drilling in the skull is one application for which robots have been used. This technique was pioneered by Dr. Yik San Kwo, an electrical engineer at Memorial Medical Center in Southern California. The precision of even an assembly line robot can be high. His teleoperated robot surgeon can make incisions, perform surgery and sew up a wound.