I was delighted to be asked to give the annual Christmas lecture to the Nottingham Medico Chirurgical society last night, in the medical school of the famous Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham. Founded in 1828 Nottingham Med-Chi, as they like to call themselves, is one of the oldest such societies in the UK. It was a great audience, with a healthy mix of children and very eminent medics who together kept me on my toes when it came to questions and answers.
In my talk I focus on the current strong convergence of biology and robotics, but in reflecting and speaking with the medics afterwards I was struck that the next big convergence in robotics (perhaps the next wave after biology) will be with medicine. As our understanding of the human body and its astonishingly complex processes and mechanisms deepens, then - in a sense - medicine becomes more like ultra precision engineering. And as robotics moves toward artificial life, then engineering robots becomes far removed from mechanical and electrical engineering and more like bio-medical engineering. For a good example look at the BRL's Ecobot III, with all of its plumbing and bio-chemistry. Hence the convergence I predict.
Postscript: the Notts Med-Chi society is very firmly in the 21st C: I discovered my Christmas lecture can be downloaded as a podcast on iTunes.
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