Raw LLM Responses

AI shows an immense promise in the field of healthcare. At surface level, it could vastly improve health outcomes by ensuring that the most specific treatment is presented to the patient. It allows the provider to synthesize all pieces of information and be given a patient-specific plan that would, in theory, provide the best possible care for that patient. There are inherent issues with the implication of AI in healthcare specifically, though. Diminished privacy, social determinants of health, lack of justice, and lack of non-maleficence are a few ways in which AI could be harmful for the healthcare population. First of all, any time that computers and automatic systems are in place introduces the concern that there will be a breach in privacy. With any system comes the threat of hackers getting the information and leaking protected, personal information of patients. This is a large concern due to HIPAA. Patients expect privacy. They should never have to worry about a third-party system leaking their information. Not only are data leaks a concern, but if AI is constantly learning how to be smarter and better, it is assumed that it is using patient’s information to do so. Next, if AI is to be implemented in healthcare, it must be assured that all patients will have equal equitable access to the services. There needs to be specific processes for all races and backgrounds in order to best serve patients. If this is solely based from one subset of the population, it will introduce new healthcare barriers. We also need to ensure that this is affordable and covered by insurance in order to make it accessible. Lastly, we must ensure that no ethical principles are being broken during the implementation of AI into healthcare. Justice is needed to ensure fairness to all whom benefit from AI in healthcare. Non-maleficence is to do no harm. This is concerning when dealing AI because medicine has been built on physicians who study endlessly in order to provide the best care for patients. While AI might factually think that a treatment is “best” for a patient, it is important to consider that no two patients are the same. We must take into consideration the entire mind, body, and spirit of a patient in order to best treat them. With all of this said, I believe that AI may have a significant future in medicine, but it is equally as important to make sure that it is done the right way.