Augmented intelligence should be good for medicine, if medicine is to remain good for us

Abstract

Throughout history, the medical community has failed to address health disparities. Augmented intelligence (AI) is poised to cement these structural inequities permanently. The need to establish a triage process that ensures fair and equitable access to medical care, and to consider all patient populations equally researchable, should not overshadow the need to learn how best to exploit AI for furthering medical fairness and equity despite resource limitations. Open discussion of the shortcomings of medical AI, approaching medical AI development, testing, and implementation from a critical ethical perspective, constant testing and analysis of AI outputs, and human oversight in the loop constitute only the first part of ensuring augmented intelligence tools are equitably robust and free of bias.