By Ronald Ssenvuma
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a call for better regulations over the use and potential misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare industry.
The Organisation’s Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus emphasises the importance of establishing safe and effective AI systems and fostering dialogue about using them as positive tools, bringing together developers, regulators, manufacturers, health workers, and patients.
“Artificial intelligence holds great promise for health, but also comes with serious challenges, including unethical data collection, cybersecurity threats and amplifying biases or misinformation,” said Dr Tedros.
He says with the increasing availability of healthcare data and rapid progress in analytic techniques, WHO recognizes the potential AI has, to enhance health outcomes but AI systems could potentially access sensitive personal information, necessitating robust legal and regulatory frameworks for safeguarding privacy, security, and integrity.
