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When AI Botches Your Medical Diagnosis, Who's To Blame? (qz.com)
Robert Hart has posed an interested question in his report on Quartz: When artificial intelligence botches your medical diagnosis, who's to blame? Do you blame the AI, designer or organization? It's just one of many questions popping up and starting to be seriously pondered by experts as artificial intelligence and automation continue to become more entwined into our daily lives. From the report: The prospect of being diagnosed by an AI might feel foreign and impersonal at first, but what if you were told that a robot physician was more likely to give you a correct diagnosis? Medical error is currently the third leading cause of death in the U.S., and as many as one in six patients in the British NHS receive incorrect diagnoses. With statistics like these, it's unsurprising that researchers at Johns Hopkins University believe diagnostic errors to be "the next frontier for patient safety." Of course, there are downsides. AI raises profound questions regarding medical responsibility. Usually when something goes wrong, it is a fairly straightforward matter to determine blame. A misdiagnosis, for instance, would likely be the responsibility of the presiding physician. A faulty machine or medical device that harms a patient would likely see the manufacturer or operator held to account. What would this mean for an AI?
So the computer produces a list of possible diagnosis. This list I understand is called a "differential diagnosis" and may have as few as 2 or 3 items or as many as several hundred.
I would expect that this diagnosis list, as well as a management plan, to be then put in the hands of a human. After a series of tests I would expect the AI to be consulted again if necessary.
In today's world and probably the near future, say the next decade, I doubt that medicine will become "autodoc" "robotic physician" the holographic "Doctor" or some "magic cryokit" There will be a human with a powerful tool to aid in diagnosis of the patient.
Now, what will happen in 50 years, that is to be seen.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
They're not even a real country anyway....
But to be more serious, this is going to become a serious problem soon. Whether it's cars or medical diagnosis or some other AI application. I think promoters of AI underestimate just how outraged the public will be when someone is "killed by an evil robot." Human error we can understand and sometimes condemn. But I think there's the potential for a lot more backlash even for minor incidents with AI -- and even if they likely wouldn't have been preventable by a human doctor/driver/whatever. At that point, it won't matter that the stats say it actually saves more lives overall, if the error or the death is egregious enough.
A misdiagnosis by a human physician can only be analyzed and argued about. A misdiagnosis by an AI physician can be forensically investigated. It can even be perfectly reenacted, both with the same and different inputs. That would allow, for example, a determination of whether the fault was a design flaw or a problem with the supplied inputs.
This would allow for very precise determination of responsibility. Today, if the patient omits some medically relevant detail and a misdiagnosis occurs, the human physician can only argue that he could have possibly come to a different conclusion with the additional information. With an AI, we can feed the updated parameters to it and actually see whether the result would or would not have been different. If the result would have in fact been different and correct, then the fault lies with the patient, or possible whomever was responsible for collecting the input data. If the result would not have changed, then there is a possible design flaw for which the developer/manufacturer may be held liable.
In my mind, this can only mean an improvement from where things currently stand.
The one with the deepest pocket is the one to blame. If others have any resources the ambulance chasers will go after them too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'm sorry, I just don't believe that medical error is the third greatest cause of death.That's just stupid. Nobody in his right mind would ever go to a doctor if the odds were that high. Does anybody ever question the stats people toss around these days?
It's a stupid question that illustrates a misunderstanding about what diagnosis is.
If a fortune teller fails to predict you're going to get hit by a bus tomorrow, who's to blame, her, her crystal ball or it's manufacturer?
Physicians misdiagnose patients all the time because diagnosis depends on a variety of imperfect information and very often cannot be done accurately. That is nobody's fault.
Physicians also misdiagnose patients all the time because they aren't very good at keeping up with new developments in medicine or are otherwise negligent. That's their fault.
An AI could be wrong for the first reason. If so, nobody is at fault. If the AI is wrong because of a manufacturing defect, the manufacturer is at fault, or the supervising physician is, if they insist on being in that position.
If we could all just stop looking for the whipping-boy every time something goes wrong, that would be great.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
If only there was some organization that provides a safety net in case something like this happens. In exchange for a small fee (whether through taxes or however else it's implemented), patients get economically protected should a misdiagnosis causes problems.
Maybe the safety net could be called "insurance". Perhaps it may be possible to do a for-profit organization under this concept.
If the AI turns out to be more accurate, then that would make insurance payouts less frequent.
If you want to minimize problems, you can have the AI provide the most likely issues, and a competent human doctor make sure that the diagnosis is sane.