Ethical and Legal Challenges of Artificial Intelligence-Driven Health Care

This chapter will map the ethical and legal challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI) in health care and suggest directions for resolving them. Section 1 will briefly clarify what AI is and Section 2 will give an idea of the trends and strategies in the United States (U.S.) and Europe, thereby tailoring the discussion to the ethical and legal debate of AI-driven health care. This will be followed in Section 3 by a discussion of four primary ethical challenges, namely (1) informed consent to use, (2) safety and transparency, (3) algorithmic fairness and biases, and (4) data privacy. Section 4 will then analyze five legal challenges in the U.S. and Europe: (1) safety and effectiveness, (2) liability, (3) data protection and privacy, (4) cybersecurity, and (5) intellectual property law. Finally, Section 5 will summarize the major conclusions and especially emphasize the importance of building an AI-driven health care system that is successful and promotes trust and the motto “Health AIs for All of Us”.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI), ethical challenges, U.S. and EU law, safety and effectiveness, data protection and privacy