The first WHO report on AI in healthcare is a mixed bag of horror and delight
There’s good news and bad
The good news
The report focuses a lot of attention on cutting through hype to give analysis on the present capabilities of AI in the healthcare sector. And, according to the report, the most common use for AI in healthcare is as a diagnostic aid.
Per the report:
The WHO anticipates this will soon change.
Per the report, the WHO expects AI to improve nearly every aspect of healthcare from diagnostic accuracy to improved record-keeping. And there’s even hope it could lead to drastically improved outcomes for patients presenting with stroke, heart attack, or other illnesses where early diagnosis is crucial.
Furthermore, AI is a data-based technology. The WHO believes the onset of machine learning technologies in healthcare could help predict the spread of disease and possibly even prevent epidemics in the future.
It’s obvious from the report that the WHO is optimistic for the future of AI in healthcare. However, the report also details numerous challenges and risks associated with the wide-scale implementation of AI technologies into the healthcare system.
The bad news
The report recognizes efforts on behalf of numerous nations to codify the use of AI in healthcare, but it also notes that current policies and regulations aren’t enough to protect patients and the public at large.
Specifically, the report outlines several areas where AI could make things worse. These include modern day concerns such as handing care of the elderly over to inhuman automated systems. And they also include future concerns: what happens when a human doctor disagrees with a black box AI system? If we can’t explain why an AI made a decision, can we defend it if its diagnosis when it matters?
And the report also spends a significant portion of its pages discussing the privacy implications for the full implementation of AI into healthcare.
Per the report:
In other words: Even when everything is transparent, how can anyone be sure patients are giving informed consent when it comes to their medical information? When you consider the circumstances many patients are in when a doctor asks them to consent to a procedure, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the intricacies of how artificial intelligence operates matters more than than what their doctor is recommending.
You can read the entire WHO reporthere.
Story byTristan Greene
Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns:(show all)Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns: He/him
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