Artificial Intelligence in the Medical System: Four Roles for Potential Transformation

11 Pages Posted: 18 Mar 2019 Last revised: 7 Jan 2020

Date Written: February 25, 2019

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) looks to transform the practice of medicine. As academics and policymakers alike turn to legal questions, including how to ensure high-quality performance by medical AI, a threshold issue involves what role AI will play in the larger medical system. This Article argues that AI can play at least four distinct roles in the medical system, each potentially transformative: pushing the frontiers of medical knowledge to increase the limits of medical performance, democratizing medical expertise by making specialist skills more available to non-specialists, automating drudgery within the medical system, and allocating scarce medical resources. Each role raises its own challenges, and an understanding of the four roles is necessary to identify and address major hurdles to the responsible development and deployment of medical AI.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, AI, Medicine, Health Law, FDA Law

Suggested Citation

Price II, William Nicholson, Artificial Intelligence in the Medical System: Four Roles for Potential Transformation (February 25, 2019). 21 Yale J.L. & Tech. Spec. Iss. 122 (2019), 18 Yale J. Health Pol'y L. & Ethics Spec. Iss. 122 (2019), U of Michigan Public Law Research Paper No. 631, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3341692

William Nicholson Price II (Contact Author)

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
United States

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