WHO issues guidelines on AI in health

ARTIFICIAL Intelligence (AI) holds great promise for improving the delivery of health care and medicine worldwide, but only if ethics and human rights are put at the heart of its design, deployment and use.

This is according to new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines published yesterday.

The report, Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health, is the result of two years of consultations held by a panel of international experts appointed by the WHO.

“Like all new technology, artificial intelligence holds enormous potential for improving the health of millions of people around the world, but like all technology it can also be misused and cause harm,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO.

“This important new report provides a valuable guide for countries on how to maximise the benefits of AI while minimising its risks and avoiding its pitfalls.”

The WHO provides the following principles as the basis for AI regulation and governance:

Protecting human autonomy: In the context of health care, this means that humans should remain in control of health-care systems and medical decisions.

Promoting human well-being and safety and the public interest. The designers of AI technologies should satisfy regulatory requirements for safety, accuracy and efficacy for well-defined use cases or indications.

Ensuring transparency, explicability and intelligibility. Transparency requires that sufficient information be published or documented before the design or deployment of an

AI technology.

Fostering responsibility and accountability. Although AI technologies perform specific tasks, it is the responsibility of stakeholders to ensure that they are used under appropriate conditions and by appropriately trained people.

Ensuring inclusiveness and equity. Inclusiveness requires that AI for health be designed to encourage the widest possible equitable use and access, irrespective of age, sex, gender, income, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability or other characteristics protected under human rights codes.

Promoting AI that is responsive and sustainable. Designers, developers and users should continually and transparently assess AI applications during actual use to determine whether AI responds adequately and appropriately to expectations and requirements.