How to achieve trustworthy artificial intelligence for health

Abstract

Artificial intelligence holds great promise in terms of beneficial, accurate and effective preventive and curative interventions. At the same time, there is also awareness of potential risks and harm that may be caused by unregulated developments of artificial intelligence. Guiding principles are being developed around the world to foster trustworthy development and application of artificial intelligence systems. These guidelines can support developers and governing authorities when making decisions about the use of artificial intelligence. The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence set up by the European Commission launched the report Ethical guidelines for trustworthy artificial intelligence in 2019. The report aims to contribute to reflections and the discussion on the ethics of artificial intelligence technologies also beyond the countries of the European Union (EU). In this paper, we use the global health sector as a case and argue that the EU's guidance leaves too much room for local, contextualized discretion for it to foster trustworthy artificial intelligence globally. We point to the urgency of shared globalized efforts to safeguard against the potential harms of artificial intelligence technologies in health care.

Artificial intelligence for clinical decision support in neurology

“…An AI programme can provide a decision or prediction after learning patterns from data, but the interpretation and real-world implementation of AI models requires human expertise. Humans ultimately must decide how AI models should be integrated into clinical practice ( Bærøe et al , 2020 ; Reddy et al , 2020 ).…”

Artificial intelligence in health care: laying the Foundation for Responsible, sustainable, and inclusive innovation in low- and middle-income countries

“…For example, the use of AI-based health applications could medicalize certain problems that may be more effectively addressed through poverty reduction, health education, promotion and prevention programs. Consequently, there is also the risk that the budget for AI might divert overall health and social budget and resources [41]. An increasing dependence on AI may also lead to an erosion of clinical skills, critical thinking skills, as well as local practice skills, such as community health practices [15,32].…”

Artificial intelligence in hospitals: providing a status quo of ethical considerations in academia to guide future research

“…For example, the European Union has developed the “European Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI” defining its recommendations for trustworthy AI and key requirements for safety and for societal and environmental well-being (EU 2020 ). Furthermore, the World Health Organization has explained ethical challenges for the “global development and implementation of artificial intelligence systems in healthcare” (Bærøe et al 2020 , p. 261) and continually proposes suggestions for the ethical development and usage of AI. Besides global observations of AI within healthcare, research is equally concerned with deriving ethical principles, guidelines, and frameworks.…”