Artificial intelligence and robots like us (surgeons) for people like you (patients): toward a new human–robot‑surgery shared experience. What is the moral and legal status of robots and surgeons in the operating room?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an interdisciplinary mathematical topic with algorithms allowing machines to execute pseudo-cognitive activities. AI has a huge impact on medical production. AI can classify pathologies and can predict treatment recommendations. It can be a diagnostic and decisionmaking tool. Like humans, artificial intelligence builds a shared history through the repetition of interactions. Errors, mismatches, and relational reparations similarly mark these interactions. As a result, a relational memory is formed, and actions are produced in response to the relational experiences. The article of Bouthors et al. [1] describes a step-bystep simulation teaching to improve the student’s memory as in artificial intelligence. In contrast to AI, robots today are simple executors of our commands. The robots’ function is related to their sensor and developmental level. The sensor and developmental stage of the robots affect how they work. Their acceptance in various contexts is related to the “like-me” aspect of robots; for example, the guide tour robot in museums, the robot assisting sales, or the robot receptionist, and now the Robot “like-me as a surgeon.” The interaction in orthopaedic surgery is by definition, cursory and bound to the specific domain of bone cutting [2] or sculpting [3] for the knee, reaming for the hip [4], screwing [5], or simply positioning [6]. However, AI and robotics are not for the surgeon’s benefit but for the patient’s benefit. Lonner et al. [7] propose an “intelligence application” that integrates through a management platform a dialog between care and clinical data obtained from the smartphone of the patient and the data of a commercial robotic knee system. In envisaging the future of human–robot relationship, this article establishes the first form of intersubjectivity to share experiences between humans and machines. Future robots should gradually develop into autonomous collaborating agents rather than mere executors of our explicit commands [8]. The current special issue provides a broad introduction with a condensed overview of artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics, as well as additional comments on future possibilities in orthopaedic surgery. Increased interest over time in robots Unicompartmental arthroplasty The early robots were used for unicompartmental arthroplasty (UKA). Early research on unicompartmental arthroplasty revealed that 100% of the robotically performed group had improved tibiofemoral alignment in the coronal plane within 2° of the desired position compared to only 40% of the manual group [9]. During UKA, robots’ technology also improves the position [10] of implants and the possibility of reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament [11] when it is absent. Much of the published robotic literature is on * partial knee arthroplast