Importance of ethics in artificial intelligence

Photo: Jason Goodman

It is safe to say that artificial intelligence is constantly developing and it is here to stay. AI can be found in many different areas of our everyday life, including healthcare. However, with the more frequent implementation of AI in healthcare, a few concerns have been noted by patients and doctors as well. The issue of ethics usually comes first. There are a few key steps that need to be undertaken in order to ensure that all of the ethical aspects are well-covered when it comes to the implementation of AI in healthcare.

Why is it important for AI to know ethics?

AI might seem like an odd feature for healthcare for many. Although numerous health centers have already begun utilizing the power of AI and other digital services, people mainly question ethics and how AI knows what is right and what is wrong. It is well-known that we humans have something known as a moral compass. However, AI does not operate like this. So, first of all, how do we then define ethics within AI if it does not contain any kind of moral compass?

Basically, when we say ethics in AI, we mean that the built-in ethics ensure that the AI initiatives of the organization or entity maintain human dignity and do not cause harm in any way. Fairness, anti-weaponization, and liability all fall under the category of ethics. Essentially, the human expert team dedicated to working on an AI that is implemented in healthcare, or any other industry for that matter, has to ensure that the AI follows these ethics and does not cause any harm or discrimination when collecting data of any kind.

The people working on AI and its implementation into a healthcare system have to proactively mitigate these risks or they will face significant backlash from clinicians, patients, and policymakers. We can see that there have been instances where bias in society is reflected in historical health data. Therefore, if this is not corrected during the implementation, can cause AI systems to make biased decisions. This is why the importance of ethics in AI is so essential.

How can we minimize bias and properly implement AI?

In order to be able to minimize bias, firms working on AI technologies that use NLP engines or machine learning, or both, need to ensure that the choices they make, the data they collect, as well as the composition of their data science teams, all contribute to minimizing bias. What can exactly be done to achieve this? Well, let's take a closer look.

Making the AI transparent, explainable, and fair means having a team of trusted experts who will work on this AI throughout the implementation process and after that as well. AI decisions regarding individuals need to be continuously tested for skewed results or biases. Furthermore, making sure that non-technical people can understand why AI systems arrive at certain conclusions is also very important.

In addition to this, AI needs to ensure the privacy of patients and all of their data. For example, user privacy and data rights should be used to inform users about how data are collected, stored, used, and protected through clear privacy statements. AI also needs to be accountable. It cannot be a simple machine that works outside of this term. A team of humans working behind each AI needs to form a point of contact where questions can be asked, directly or through a trusted partner network.

Being safe, secure, and sustainable are additional qualities that ensure that AI works according to certain ethics.

Ethics for AI? What should and can be done for the future implementation

To be able to achieve healthy development of all AI-driven technologies, the adoption of ethical AI principles is essential. When it comes down to it, what is the most basic definition of ethics? “Ethics are moral principles that govern a person’s behavior” is one definition that very accurately explains what ethics really mean.

Another question that arises is, if we cannot govern the behaviors of things that we build and create, such as AI, how can we ever hope that it will act according to our established definition of ethics? So, ethics need to be the very foundation of every innovation including AI technologies. The human team in charge of an AI has to work on the "ethics issues" right from the start. The essential thing to do is proper implementation. During this process, the AI needs to be taught how to act, converse, and collect data based only on statistics and not any biases.

The advantages of using AI in healthcare

So, now that we have explained a little bit about the importance of ethics in AI, we should also mention why AI is so valuable for healthcare systems and why it is well worth implementing in health clinics. AI-equipped with modern technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing or NLP for short, can greatly increase the outreach of health clinics, improve communication with patients, and allow patients to have easier and faster access to the healthcare services they need.

Various digital tools and services can improve how clinics offer their services to their patients and patients can be comfortable from the comfort of their own homes, without having to go through various agents and call centers, get in touch with their desired healthcare professionals and have a stress-free healthcare journey.