AI Dental: responsible innovation in healthcare

Our Ethics and Human Values in Technology research team has prepared a series of collaborative workshops with an AI healthcare startup AID. During the workshops, we discussed their product called AI:Dental and its possible implications on users, patients, provision of healthcare and human rights in general. 

Together we identified stakeholder groups directly and indirectly affected by the system in order to find how to best communicate the ways in which AI:Dental works to ensure their trust and compliance. We also discussed possible ethical issues related to building an inclusive dataset while simultaneously ensuring patient’s understanding and consent. 

AI in healthcare in general has far reaching but not always visible implications on human rights and therefore we decided to assess AI:Dental also from this point of view. We used Human Rights, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment along with the Assessment List for Trustworthy AI. The outcomes will be very helpful later on when coming up with possible mitigation measures to risks that have arisen during the process.

By conducting these assessments, negative impacts can be minimized and trustworthiness of using AI in healthcare increased. However, such assessment is not a one-off action and, as always, we recommend being vigilant not only during the whole development stage but also think of risks and their consequences in the later stages.