Surveying public attitudes towards the use of surgery robots in Europe

Current surgical robots are an extension of surgeons’ arms and are essential to supporting doctors autonomously in crucial moments of surgery. A growing part of the literature has expanded the knowledge on these medical devices’ legal and regulatory aspects, such as safety, control, responsibility, performance, and cost. Between 2015 and 2019, a Special Eurobarometer conducted by the EU indicated that people were uncomfortable with robots caring for older adults or performing surgery on them. Despite these findings, surgery automation has advanced silently in recent years, and many hospitals currently include robot-assisted surgeries. Given the apparent disconnect between surgical technology advancements and the general public perception of robots and autonomous systems, we survey the European public attitudes toward surgery automation in this article. Our questionnaire generally sought to re-evaluate and measure surgical robots’ general acceptability and understand and analyze people’s thoughts on autonomous surgery robots. The survey also included critical questions for future policy-making, such as bestowing separate identities to surgery robots and liability allocation mechanisms. The study results differed slightly from previous similar data and denoted a more positive outlook concerning surgery automation.