The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare was the topic of Session 3, Day 2 MedTech20. Key topics covered include:
The use of AI is rapidly advancing in many areas of healthcare, and is influencing the way patients are treated.
Healthcare data is doubling every 73 days, and AI has the ability to drive insights from the complex arrays of data.
Examples of AI applications include: the earlier detection of Alzheimer's Disease through the analysis of speech patterns; image analytics
(eg for melanoma).
Beneficence is the foundation of healthcare ie providing benefits to patients. New technologies need to show a benefit ie be safe and efficacious, and not just provide information.
Avoiding harm is a central ethical issue. The argument goes that if there's no therapy available then diagnosis may cause more harm than benefit ie if someone has an early diagnosis, without clinical symptoms, they will be living with the potential of disease for many years, without any benefits.
Other ethical considerations center around data privacy and sovereignty.
Thanks to the speakers: Terry Sweeney, Wendy Rogers, Annie Arnett