Artificial intelligence is increasingly being mainstreamed into healthcare services, mainly due to promises that it would reduce challenges of health systems already largely under strain. AI’s stated ambition is to make health more effective, accessible and personalised. While AI may seem revolutionary for healthcare in theory, in practice it does not always live up to expectations.
AI hallucinations, exacerbated discrimination, privacy breaches, growing dependence of healthcare professionals or obstacles in accessing health reimbursement rights are few examples of how AI has affected the health and rights of patients.
“AI systems can reproduce discriminatory biases that impact their reliability for certain population groups. This can lead to diagnostic errors that particularly affect certain groups such as women, the elderly or ethnic minorities, and amplify already existing inequalities in access to care”’
To mark World Health Day, Soignons nos algos published an overview of AI use in healthcare, highlighting the limits of AI technologies for our health and rights. This report focuses on several uses of AI in healthcare:
- AI personal assistants for doctors
- Conversational agents used to obtain health information
- Diagnostic support technologies for healthcare professionals
- The impact of AI on the protection of personal data
- AI models used for the detection of social security fraud
This overview of AI uses in healthcare highlights the extent of the progress still to be made in terms of design, deployment, use and of these technologies. Given these challenges, we need to exercise extra caution and ensure legislative frameworks are in place to protect everyone’s rights and health!
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