AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare by improving disease diagnosis, finding better ways to treat patients, and bringing care to more people.
But AI technologies also have the potential to have negative health effects, according to health experts from the UK, US, Australia, Costa Rica and Malaysia. stated in a study published in BMJ Global Health.
What are the risks of artificial intelligence pointed out by experts?
Risks associated with medicine and the healthcare industry include the potential for AI errors to harm patients, as well as data privacy and security issues. One example of reported harm is the use of an AI-driven pulse oximeter that in experiments overestimated blood oxygen levels in darker-skinned patients, mismanaging their hypoxia. AI can harm the health of millions of people through the social determinants of health through the control and manipulation of people, the use of lethal autonomous weapons, and the mental health effects of mass unemployment if AI-based systems lay off large numbers of workers. Threats also stem from the job losses that will accompany the widespread adoption of AI technology, with estimates ranging from tens to hundreds of millions over the next decade. “We don’t know how society will react psychologically and emotionally to a world in which work is unavailable and the impact on the physical health of members of society,” the expert group said. “With the exponential growth of research and development in the field of artificial intelligence, the window of opportunity to avoid serious and potentially existential harm is shrinking,” the study states. They warned that “effective regulation of the development and use of artificial intelligence is necessary to avoid harm”. They stressed that “until such regulation is in place, the development of self-improving artificial general intelligence should be banned”, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
Read the Latest World News Today on The Eastern Herald.
