Healthcare providers to join US plan to manage AI risks

Washington — Twenty-eight healthcare companies, including CVS Health, are signing US President Joe Biden’s voluntary commitments aimed at ensuring the safe development of artificial intelligence (AI), a White House official said on Thursday.

The commitments by healthcare providers and payers follow those of 15 leading AI companies, including Google, OpenAI and OpenAI partner Microsoft to develop AI models responsibly.

Biden’s government is pushing to set parameters around AI as it makes rapid gains in capability and popularity while regulation remains limited.

“The administration is pulling every lever it has to advance responsible AI in health-related fields,” the White House official said, adding AI carried enormous potential to benefit patients, doctors and hospital staff, if managed responsibly.

Biden issued an executive order on October 30 requiring developers of AI systems that pose risks to US national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the government before releasing them to the public.

Providers signing the commitments include Oscar, Curai, Devoted Health, Duke Health, Emory Healthcare and WellSpan Health, the White House official said in a statement.

“We must remain vigilant to realise the promise of AI for improving health outcomes,” the official said. “Without appropriate testing, risk mitigations and human oversight, AI-enabled tools used for clinical decisions can make errors that are costly at best — and dangerous at worst.”

Absent proper oversight, diagnoses by AI can be biased by gender or race, especially when AI is not trained on data representing the population it is being used treat, the official said.

The principles behind the administration plan call for companies to inform users whenever they receive content that is largely AI-generated and not reviewed or edited by people, and to monitor and address harms that applications might cause.

Companies that sign the commitments pledge to develop AI uses responsibly, including solutions that advance health equity, expand access to care, make care affordable, co-ordinate care to improve outcomes, reduce clinician burnout and otherwise improve the experience of patients. 

Reuters