The Liability Battle Over Medical AI Is Coming
As medical AI advances, lawmakers and health leaders face a crucial question: Who is liable when the technology fails?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly capable of acting independently in healthcare, prompting hospitals and technology companies to grapple with a crucial question: who is liable when things go awry? Brian Anderson, CEO of the Coalition for Health AI, has highlighted the growing tension between hospitals and the firms developing some of the world's most advanced AI models as the technology becomes more autonomous.
"There's a standoff right now going on with a lot of health systems and the frontier labs about who's going to be responsible and control the agents," Anderson stated at Newsweek's AI Health Summit in New York.
In most U.S. states, Anderson emphasized, healthcare providers remain accountable when something goes wrong while utilizing an AI tool. "They are the liable party should something go wrong with a patient," Anderson clarified. "And the same stands true in the instance of using AI tools." However, responsibility becomes murkier when AI agents become more autonomous and clinicians may not understand why the AI made a particular decision.
"The health systems we're talking to right now are deeply concerned about the use of agents in high-risk use cases," Anderson noted. Physician organizations, including the American Medical Association, are also debating where responsibility should lie. The AMA contends that accountability should align with the party best positioned to grasp an AI tool's risks and prevent or mitigate harm, rather than automatically placing the burden entirely on physicians.
Hospitals are particularly apprehensive that AI agents might "go rogue" and act outside their controlled systems, potentially exposing patients' sensitive health information. When something goes wrong, Anderson queried, "who's the responsible party?" "Right now, it's the health system." As AI systems become more autonomous, responsibility may begin to shift.
Anderson pointed to Utah, which is contemplating shared liability, and cited Doctronic, a company testing AI-assisted prescription renewals in the state and has secured malpractice insurance. "I think that might be a signal that we might start seeing more and more technology companies appreciating that there is going to be some shared liability in this space, particularly in the more semi-autonomous use cases," Anderson remarked.
Nevertheless, for hospitals, questions over responsibility persist as AI systems become more autonomous. "This is the rub for a lot of the health systems," Anderson concluded. "They appreciate that there is real risk."
Written by urgent.news from Newsweek's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
