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InnovationRx is your weekly digest of healthcare news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. T he public has been fascinated with robot takeovers since the publication of Frankenstein in the early 1800s (the monster wasn’t technically a robot, but it was a major influence on R.U.R., the original Czech play that coined the term “robot”). And these stories got science fiction thinking about what it might be like to use robotic technology to improve our own lives. In the 1970s, Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner got us excited about wanting to be super-powered Six Million Dollar Men and Bionic Women. But in the 1990s, Star Trek popularized the horror of becoming controlled by technology through being “assimilated” by the evil Borg. Now that technology is catching up to sci-fi and the era of human computer chip implants is upon us, the public is more on the side of Jean-Luc Picard than Jaime Summers when it comes to improving ourselves with technology. Only 13% of people thought computer chip implants that would allow people to process information more quickly and accurately would be a “good idea for society,” while a majority,56%, said it would be a “bad idea,” according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center. The remaining 31% were “not sure.” The survey polled more than 10,000 U.S. adults. The group was evenly spread on gene editing to reduce a risk of a baby developing serious health conditions, with 30% in favor,30% against and the rest not sure. Thirty-three percent of people polled thought robotic exoskeletons with built in AI to increase strength for manual labor in the vein of Iron Man were a good idea,24% were opposed and 42% of people were not sure. But there was one thing on which a majority of people agreed: the government needs to develop higher standards when it comes to evaluating these developing technologies instead of relying on existing frameworks. Though there was some division among party lines. Republicans were more likely to think the government will go too far in regulating these technologies, while Democrats were more likely to think the government wouldn’t go far enough. Another interesting takeaway is that people weren’t convinced that technology would make things better. When it comes to brain chip implants, only 24% of people thought it would lead to enhancements in people’s lives, while 42% thought it would be about the same and 31% thought it would be worse. Across all three categories, a minority of respondents thought things would get better through technology, while a majority sided with the same or worse. Video and photographs from the besieged port city of Mariupol in southeast Ukraine have seared images into the global consciousness of pregnant women evacuating a hospital bombed by Russian forces. Attacks on healthcare facilities, medical transport and patients are recognized as violations of international humanitarian law that has been codified in treaties and reaffirmed in U.
