Study Finds Most People Want to Know if AI Is Used in Their Care

A new study published in JAMA Network Open shows that “most people want to be notified if AI is used in their care.” Michigan Medicine has the news.

Over 2,000 adults in the U.S. were polled across various demographics. They were asked to respond to the statement “it is important that I am notified about the use of AI in my healthcare.” Before responding, they were shown a video that “outlined potential scenarios of how artificial intelligence could be used, including in reading X-rays or other images or suggesting potential treatments.”

Nearly 63% of respondents answered that the statement was “very true” compared to only 4.8% who indicated that “notification was not important.”

The authors wrote that the findings suggest that “notification about AI will be necessary for ethical AI and should be a priority for organizations and policymakers. With this signal about the public’s preference for notification, the question for health systems and policymakers is not whether to notify patients but when and how. As health systems begin to establish governance for AI tools, multiple approaches to notification will be needed.” They also noted that female respondents expressed greater desire to be notified than male ones. White respondents also expressed greater desire than Black or African-American respondents, “suggesting that notification may be necessary but not sufficient.”