The Esper Hand, a prosthesis developed by New York-based human augmentation startup Esper Bionics, is included in TIME magazine’s list of the best inventions of 2022. The self-learning prosthetic hand powered by artificial intelligence (AI) was named a groundbreaking invention in the accessibility category and will appear on the magazine’s cover.
Each of the 200 contenders were evaluated on key factors such as originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.
“Esper Bionics’ prosthetic hand is the first AI-powered, cloud-based robotic prosthetic that gets smarter over time, TIME wrote. “The lightweight device has up to 24 wearable sensors that detect and process muscle activity and brain impulses; machine learning from Esper’s platform enables the hand to act more ‘intuitively’ over time.”
The device uses machine learning algorithms to learn user behavior, predict the wearer’s intended movements, and change grips intuitively.
“Seeing the Esper Hand on the cover of TIME representing the whole list of groundbreaking inventions is a great honor for the Esper team and a great responsibility to keep pace. This achievement shows our whole team and the world that we have been moving in the right direction,” said Dima Gazda, MD, Esper Bionics’ CEO and co-founder.
