#072 The First Robotic Human Arm with Tyler Hayes of Atom Limbs

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Tyler Hayes is an obsessive genius building utopian technology. He is the CEO of Atom Limbs, a visionary startup creating robotic, mind-controlled prosthetic limbs. This artificial arm will be the first capable of a near full range of motion and will restore the basic sense of touch missing from today’s prosthetics.?

Tyler and I chat about how and why he decided to tackle this problem. We talk about the state of the prosthetic limb market today. And towards the end of our conversation, we do some wild speculating on the future possibilities of Atom Limbs.

Here’s what I learned from the?episode:

• There’s no such thing as an artificial arm…yet. Atom Limbs began by looking at existing academic projects that had never been commercialized and assembling the recipe.?
• How do you get great people on your team? Most great people want to work on the world’s greatest challenges.?
• The Atom Limb works via a noninvasive cuff of electrodes that sit on the skin. The arm is trained with machine learning. It’s controlled wirelessly.
• Four main technologies are incorporated into Atom Limbs: (1) breakthrough robotics, (2) noninvasive neural interfaces, (3) AI, (4) wearable tech.
• Atom Limbs has already started user testing the arm and are rapidly approaching clinical trials.?
• The Atom Limb can auto-level. So, if someone using the arm is drinking a glass of wine, the arm will keep the glass level.?
• The market is not as small as most might think. There are a hundred million people in the world who have limb loss.?
• People with limb loss are underserved by the market today. Many joke about their $200k myoelectric arms back at home in the closet.?
• There is potential for the creation of artificial spines in the future. This could help people who would otherwise be paraplegic or quadriplegic.?
• Hook arms today cost around $26,000, and myoelectric arms cost around $195,000. Atom Limbs is aiming to make a state-of-the-art arm for the same or lower cost as a hook arm.

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