To test their AI-powered hand, the team asked intact and amputee participants to manipulate fragile objects: pick up a paper cup and drink from it, or take an egg from a plate and put it down somewhere else. Without the AI, they could succeed roughly one or two times in 10 attempts. With the AI assistant turned on, their success rate jumped to 80 or 90 percent. The AI also decreased the participants\u2019 cognitive burden, meaning they had to focus less on making the hand work.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re still a long way away from seamlessly integrating machines with the human body.<\/p>\n
Into the wild<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next step is to really take this system into the real world and have someone use it in their home setting,\u201d Trout says. So far, the performance of the AI bionic hand was assessed under controlled laboratory conditions, working with settings and objects the team specifically chose or designed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make a caveat here that this hand is not as dexterous or easy to control as a natural, intact limb,\u201d George cautions. He thinks that every little increment that we make in prosthetics is allowing amputees to do more tasks in their daily life. Still, to get to the Star Wars or Cyberpunk technology level where bionic prostheses are just as good or better than natural limbs, we\u2019re going to need more than just incremental changes.<\/p>\n
Trout says we\u2019re almost there as far as robotics go. \u201cThese prostheses are really dexterous, with high degrees of freedom,\u201d Trout says, \u201cbut there\u2019s no good way to control them.\u201d This in part comes down to the challenge of getting the information in and out of users themselves. \u201cSkin surface electromyography is very noisy, so improving this interface with things like internal electromyography or using neural implants can really improve the algorithms we already have,\u201d Trout argued. This is why the team is currently working on neural interface technologies and looking for industry partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to combine all these approaches in one device,\u201d George says. \u201cWe want to build an AI-powered robotic hand with a neural interface working with a company that would take it to the market in larger clinical trials.\u201d<\/p>\n