Progress in Education

Intelligent, sentient, machines have been a staple of science fiction since Isaac Asimov began writing about robots in 1939. His robots were for the most part benign because they were programmed to obey the Three Laws of Robotics, but most science fiction is not so rosy.

Sci-fi artificial life that is smarter, faster, and stronger than human beings is often shown as something to be dreaded (see, for example, Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica). In the real world we see glimmerings of this dystopian future in killer drones, sex with robots, and worries that more jobs will be lost than created by automation.

But surely there are positive applications for human-like machines in science, education, and medicine. SynDaver Labs uses

a library of polymers to craft synthetic cadavers that twitch and bleed like real suffering humans.

Hospitals and med schools use the fakes to teach anatomy and train surgeons, and the most lifelike model is the $95,000 SynDaver Patient. This exquisite corpse can be controlled wirelessly so practitioners can rehearse elaborate medical scenarios in which the patient goes into shock and even “dies.”

Unlike HBO's fantasy Westworld, an amusement park where human beings can torture, rape, and kill robots that look like humans, SynDaver's cadavers cannot think, feel, or remember anything.

At least we hope they can't.