Disruptive technology will transform what we think of as robotic surgery in under ten years.

What is currently described as 'robotic surgery' will undergo a transformation as rapid as the transformation from Kodak film cameras to digital cameras, from Nokia phones to iPhones, from listening to music on tape to CD then to digital downloading, and the transformation that is shortly to come from petrol cars into electric cars. We are only at the very infancy of what is currently termed robotic surgery, but in reality, is in fact just computer-assisted, instrument-controlled surgery. This article will describe the current state of robotic surgery and will then go on to look at why we will hardly recognize the surgical world in ten years' time, as novel, disruptive technology transforms our specialty.