Patients, for a start.
There is the assumption of course, is that if there’s one thing cyborgs won’t have to do, it’s go to the dentist. The exception to that (because there’s always one) is taking into account the series Alien: Earth. Not for its merit (there is none), but because when something has surpassed 100 million hours of total viewing, it’s gotta be worth mentioning somewhere.
Even if it’s simply how astounding that is, given its crapspecularity. The Alien franchise burst out of its own chest too long ago now for the expansion of its established universe with a prequel to matter; and an identity crisis cannot be a complete shock in anything that’s 46 years old. Disney seems to feel shooting a cosplay convention near the fog machine on an iPhone somehow maintains its relevance.
If Alien: Earth remains on your not-seen list (recommended) what’s worth noting is the bad state of the hybrids’ teeth. These are creatures with synthetic bodies and the downloaded conscience of a child. The dental aesthetics are keyboards lolling and lounging and not lollapaloozing, at the Ruined Piano Sanctuary.
Were logic applied (which it can’t) a kid is going to hold dental care in the same part of the brain a Pomeranian stores algebra. As a genre, sci-fi dictates the suspension of disbelief (albeit exponentially less so) and there is absolutely nothing impossible, unrealistic or fantastical about a child-mind not brushing, flossing and booking six-monthly check-ups.
That thought could be the only interesting thing to come from an entire series that black-holes $US31 million an episode; second season confirmed. To conflate commissioned episodes with any quality is to deem Fifty Shades of Grey an English classic. It’s film adaptations have grossed more than $US1 billion: gross in any language.
Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley, made the decision in what’s considered by some (me) as his great sci-fi mistake, that to add to the disturbingly villainous nature of hybrids, they need ordinary, human-grade bad teeth. He figured there is more horror in the thought of the brutal, tearing damage caused to the living by the antithesis of razor teeth; highlighted by the bizarrely unsettling nature of a human smile carrying out such atrocities. (Clearly he doesn’t watch enough of his homeland politics.) $US250 million has been spent making the first series and you can imagine the dental work that could be done with that.
Certainly, a lot of that money was spent on technology. The oral health industry is much the same, and with decidedly better outcomes. Such is the achievement of credible multi-million-dollar advances in dentistry over decades, AI is now a colleague.
It will be soon be commonplace for practices to use naturally-sounding AI with patients to manage appointments, and handle administration with minimal human supervision. Speech-recognition tools will record notes as procedures take place, allowing dentists and their teams to completely focus on the patient. It’s progress that brings a change in rhythm rather than a revolution. A once smattering of digital tools are now one connected system of automated tasks.
Dental care has been reshaped.
It’s a sawtooth waveform of physics, chemistry and engineering with deep resonance into the interdisciplinary field of designing metal, ceramic, polymer and nano materials; all merging with robotics, advanced imaging and artificial intelligence. No longer are they developing in isolation; and it’s this harmonic overlap of constructive interference that has dentistry becoming more and more efficient, and more and more precise.
Given the general experience over the last four decades, the idea of anything becoming more and more efficient and more and more precise, is loaded. For most, it’s culminated in an efficient idiocracy with piece-by-piece precision in the taking of freedom and individuality. We’ve learned that the heavy compromise for efficiency is an existence both with, and until “compu’er says no”. It’s a premise and a promise that’s lost the hook that caught us so many times: that faster, better system that never is because all the people get moved out.
Either there’s no space for them, or they take up too much space. Whichever; it’s the human side of daily interaction diminished. A whole lot of trust in so many things, on so many levels and through so many wormholes, goes with it.
Existentialism isn’t existential enough.
We’ve seen the sci-fi slant of when robots go wrong, and we don’t want any of it anywhere near our mouth. We’re still ten years from fully autonomous cars. How do we reconcile that? Hyped-series hybrids with crappy teeth is confusing enough: not entirely human, yet with equal risk of gum disease and decay.
There is high value in finding non-invasive ways to ensure and maintain good dental health. It’s the sine soundwave of physical and psychological wellbeing.
Emerging technologies and their applications within the dental sciences are impressive. From diagnostics and treatment planning, to prosthetics and regenerative dentistry, it’s significantly preventative, as well as streamlined therapeutic. It’s 21st century, future time travelling. Complex predictions, mapping and repetitive organising tasks are taken care of by robotics and AI to make space for clinical reasoning, reassurance and face-to-face connection.
That’s what stays human. Because the human stays.
