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Artificial intelligence is making critical health care decisions. The sheriff is MIA (Politico) [View all]
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/18/artificial-intelligence-health-care-fda-00141768Artificial intelligence is making critical health care decisions. The sheriff is MIA
Health care regulators say they need more people and more power to monitor the new tech.
By RUTH READER
02/18/2024 07:00 AM EST
Doctors are already using unregulated artificial intelligence tools such as note-taking virtual assistants and predictive software that helps them diagnose and treat diseases.
Government has slow-walked regulation of the fast-moving technology because the funding and staffing challenges facing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration in writing and enforcing rules are so vast. It’s unlikely they will catch up any time soon. That means the AI rollout in health care is becoming a high-stakes experiment in whether the private sector can help transform medicine safely without government watching.
-snip-
President Joe Biden in October promised a coordinated and fast response from his agencies to ensure AI safety and efficacy. But regulators like the FDA don’t have the resources they need to preside over technology that, by definition, is constantly changing.
“We’d need another doubling of size and last I looked the taxpayer is not very interested in doing that,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a conference in January and then reiterated the point at a recent meeting of FDA stakeholders.
-snip-
Health care regulators say they need more people and more power to monitor the new tech.
By RUTH READER
02/18/2024 07:00 AM EST
Doctors are already using unregulated artificial intelligence tools such as note-taking virtual assistants and predictive software that helps them diagnose and treat diseases.
Government has slow-walked regulation of the fast-moving technology because the funding and staffing challenges facing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration in writing and enforcing rules are so vast. It’s unlikely they will catch up any time soon. That means the AI rollout in health care is becoming a high-stakes experiment in whether the private sector can help transform medicine safely without government watching.
-snip-
President Joe Biden in October promised a coordinated and fast response from his agencies to ensure AI safety and efficacy. But regulators like the FDA don’t have the resources they need to preside over technology that, by definition, is constantly changing.
“We’d need another doubling of size and last I looked the taxpayer is not very interested in doing that,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a conference in January and then reiterated the point at a recent meeting of FDA stakeholders.
-snip-
Much more at the link.
The note-taking virtual assistants mentioned in the first paragraph use generative AI, which can both miss things and make things up. Supposedly doctors will review the notes and catch any problems, but real-world experiences with AI-generated text in other areas have shown how often errors aren't caught.