How much can potential jurors tell us about liability for medical artificial intelligence?

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly entering medical practice, whether for risk prediction, diagnosis, or treatment recommendation. But a persistent question keeps arising: What happens when things go wrong? When patients are injured, and AI was involved, who will be liable and how? Liability is likely to influence the behavior of physicians who decide whether to follow AI advice, hospitals that implement AI tools for physician use, and developers who create those tools in the first place. If physicians are shielded from liability (typically medical malpractice liability) when they use AI tools, even if patient injury results, they are more likely to rely on these tools, even if the AI recommendations are counterintuitive. On the other hand, if physicians face liability from deviating from standard practice, whether an AI recommends something different or not, the adoption of AI is likely to be slower, and counterintuitive rejections-even correct ones-are likely to be rejected. In this issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Tobia et al. (1) offer an important empiric look at this question, which has significant implications as to whether and when AI will come into clinical use.