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Artificial intelligence has enormous potential consequences for health care, with major concerns regarding patient privacy and data security.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) will require enormous changes in order for Australia’s health care system and workforce to keep pace, according to a Perspective article published in The Medical Journal of Australia today.
Professor Enrico Coiera and his colleagues, Professor Karin Verspoor and Dr David Hansen, write that Australia is currently unprepared for AI and its potential consequences.
“There is currently no national framework for an AI-ready workforce, overall regulation of safety, industry development, or targeted research investment,” the authors write.
Australia’s clinical trials sector is also at risk from increased international competition, they write.
“Australia’s $1.4 billion clinical trials sector will face stiff international competition from those who use AI to identify, enrol and monitor patients more effectively and at a lower cost,” the authors write.
“Further, AI requires local customisation to support local practices and reflect diverse populations or health service differences.
“Without local capability, paying to modify clinical AI will likely become a huge burden on our health system.
“Critically, using AI requires retraining of the workforce, retooling health services, and transforming workflows. The health system is already resource-constrained, and such changes will not happen without strategic investment.”
Suggested roadmap
The Perspective cites a newly developed roadmap for AI in health care for Australia.
Produced by the Australian Alliance for AI in Healthcare (AAAiH), and led by Professor Coiera, the group has called on the Australian Government to develop clear plans and regulations for AI.
“The highest community priority identified was for health care AI to be safe for patients and developed and used ethically,” the authors wrote.
The AAAiH has described itself as a national collective of 100 organisations including academia, industry, peak bodies, and health services providers.
Government asks for regulatory options
The Australian Government is currently seeking views on appropriate ways to regulate AI in Australia.
The Department of Industry began a consultation period on 1 June 2023 seeking feedback on ways to enforce the “safe and responsible use of AI”.
In announcing the consultation period, Minister for Industry and Science, the Hon Ed Husic MP, acknowledged the difficulties of balancing the safe and responsible use of AI.
“The upside is massive, whether it’s fighting superbugs with new AI-developed antibiotics or preventing online fraud,” Minister Husic said.
“But as I have been saying for many years, there needs to be appropriate safeguards to ensure the safe and responsible use of AI.
“We’ve made a good start, thanks to the [Australian] Government’s $41 million investment in AI for industry and our strong advocacy in this space.”
Consultations close on 26 July 2023.
Call for greater regulation
Calls for greater regulation are intensifying, including from within the AI community, with the creator of the chatbot ChatGPT recently asking lawmakers in the United States to regulate AI.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, appeared before a US Senate committee on Tuesday 16 May calling for a new agency to license AI companies.
“I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong,” Mr Altman said.
“We want to be vocal about that. We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”
EU and US take action
The European Union and the US have agreed to develop a voluntary code of conduct on artificial intelligence, after a meeting of the recent EU–US Trade and Technology Council (TTC).
“We feel the fierce urgency of now, particularly when it comes to generative AI,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.
“One of the things we focused our conversation on today is how we can use the TTC to help advance, at least in the near term, voluntary codes of conduct that need to be open to a wide universe of countries so that we can mitigate some of the potential downsides and amplify the upsides of this extraordinary technology.”
Read the Perspective in today’s Medical Journal of Australia
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