Alaap B. Shah, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, authored an article in Lawline, titled “What Are the Risks of Using Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare?” Audrey Davis, Associate in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, helped to prepare and advised on the article.
This article was prepared in advance of Mr. Shah’s August 27, 2019 webinar, titled “Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Legal and Ethical Issues,” hosted by Lawline. The course will prepare attorneys to understand the landscape of legal and ethical issues related to AI in healthcare. The program will also help attorneys learn how to navigate risks associated with the development, implementation and use of AI in healthcare. For more information and to register for the webinar, please visit Lawline.com.
Following is an excerpt:
In recent years, technology companies, developers, investors, and others have turned their attention to Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). Although little consensus exists regarding its definition, AI solutions generally leverage powerful computing algorithms to analyze data and produce outputs that mimic human intelligence at greater speed and scale than humanly possible. The speed at which companies have been able to develop and implement AI is due, in part, to a lack of laws and regulations governing its development and use. Yet without much legal guidance, companies are assuming great risk by adopting AI at such a rapid clip.
This brings us to a fundamental question about whether humans can trust something that cannot be fully understood. AI solutions, in many ways, constitute “black boxes.” These black boxes provide us with little insight about what goes on inside the box in the form of traceability or accountability. While the promise of AI is tempting, the unknown is perilous.
