Robotics and the Internet of Bodies

That rare blend of lifelong academic and practical entrepreneur, Ernesto Rodriguez Leal has studied engineering, robotics, and management at Kings College, Hamburg University of Technology, Northern Institute of Technology and Tecnologico de Monterrey — but has also founded robotics and wearable health companies such as WeaRobot and Hoope.

He’s putting his experience to work building so-called Exponential Technologies—small, smart innovations that produce outsized changes in the world because of how they grow and scale. We caught up with him to discuss his current work, and what he’ll be discussing at Pandemonio in February.

Pandemonio: How will cheap sensors change medicine?

Ernesto: The performance of sensors is growing at an exponential rate, while their cost is also decreasing exponentially. For example, the cost per million transistors in the early 90's was about $200 USD, dropping to $0.06 USD by 2012. The democratization of these technologies allows its inclusion in everyday devices, such as mobile phones and wearable devices that have internet connectivity.

With such IOT devices—and the embedded sensors they contain—it is now possible to track biometric data such as heart rate, oxygen levels in blood, and physical activity, non-invasively. Add to this recent developments in skin electronics; harvesting energy from body thermodynamics; and new biocompatible materials. In the future, we’ll see implantable devices that will lead us towards a set of IoB (internet of body) technologies.

We can expect to use nanobots that flow through our body, able to transmit information such as body temperature, blood chemistry, biomarkers, insulin levels, arterial pressure, and flow wirelessly. And this will be interpreted by AI-based algorithms, which will in turn use all this bid data and its correlations to warn of possible diseases early on. These nanobots will also have other functions: Mimicing white blood cells to protect the human body from diseases; or perform swarm collaboration to intervene in case of trauma in order to regenerate the body.

P If we can detect many diseases cheaply — but only one of them will kill us — how do we avoid making medical programs bankrupt by curing things unnecessarily?

E Genetics and DNA decoding are becoming more accessible. Soon will be possible to identify disease predisposition and to correct any DNA errors that lead to disease.

We could one day witness the death of Death.

P How important is anthropomorphism in robotic design?

E Biomimetics has been a highly-used approach when it comes to robotics design, since nature has experimented with a wide range of improvements through evolution.

Biological processes, structures and systems are highly efficient, robust, and smart. But anthropomorphism in robotics design serves a purpose beyond just that of optimal performance. We expect robots to be our companions, and to relieve us from heavy, dangerous and repetitive tasks.

Such anthropomorphic robots, however, can be deceptive: Current technologies such as batteries and actuators are not able to mimic their biological counterparts, so their current capabilities don’t match the expectations we form based on the way they look.

Since technologies grow at an exponential rate, however, it is likely that robotics will evolve beyond anthropomorphism as we know it—because they’ll find optimal solutions more efficiently than nature has, at a faster rate of iteration.

P What’s the most interesting university research you’re tracking today?

E I have been following several pieces of ongoing research:

• Hugh Herr in Biomechatronics and Ed Boyden in Optogenetics from the MIT Media Lab.
• John A. Rodgers from Urbana Champaign on flexible electronics will revolutionize wearable technologies.
• The contributions of Jian S. Dai from King’s College London on metamorphic robots have pioneered mechanism design.

P When robots take our jobs, will we find new ones? Or enjoy more leisure time?

E Robots and Artificial Intelligence will automate processes, leading to the disappearance of many of our current jobs. When exponential technologies become democratized, humanity will experience abundance of goods and our involvement in “productive” activities will no longer be necessary.

Humans will enjoy more leisure time and be involved in creative activities that involve aesthetics, design, and arts that machines will hardly perform.