LONDON, KOMPAS.com – Artificial intelligence or AI can endanger the health of millions of people and pose an existential threat to humanity.
This was conveyed by doctors and public health experts when they called for a halt to the development of artificial general intelligence until it was completely regulated.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize healthcare by improving disease diagnosis, finding better ways to treat patients and expanding care to more people.
Also read: Europe Teases AI Chatbot Rules, Regulations Can Become Global Standards
However, the development of artificial intelligence also has the potential to have a negative impact on health.
This was agreed upon by health experts from the UK, US, Australia, Costa Rica and Malaysia in the journal BMJ Global Health.
The risks associated with drugs and healthcare include the potential for AI to harm patients, privacy and data security concerns, and the use of AI in ways that exacerbate social and health inequalities.
One example of harm, they say, is the use of AI-based pulse oximeters that overestimate blood oxygen levels in patients with darker skin, rendering their hypoxia poorly treatable.
But they also warn of the broader global threat AI poses to human health and even human existence.
AI can harm the health of millions of people through the social determinants of health through the control and manipulation of people, the use of lethal autonomous weapons, and the mental health effects of mass unemployment if AI-based systems displace large numbers of workers.
“When combined with the rapidly increasing ability to distort or depict reality with deep falsehoods, AI-driven information systems can further undermine democracy,” experts say.
Also read: The Father of Artificial Intelligence: AI Could Present a More Urgent Threat Than Climate Change
“AI can precipitate a general collapse of trust or by encouraging social division and conflict, with subsequent public health impacts,” he added.
Threats also arise from the job losses that will accompany the widespread deployment of AI technologies, with estimates ranging from tens to hundreds of millions over the next decade.
“While there will be many benefits from ending repetitive, harmful and unpleasant work, we already know that unemployment is strongly associated with poor health outcomes and behaviors,” the group said.
Also read: Faced with the sophistication of AI, Hollywood scriptwriters are starting to worry
Separately, in the UK, a coalition of health experts, independent fact-checkers and medical charities called for the government’s upcoming online safety law to be changed to take action against health misinformation.
Get updates featured news and breaking news every day from Kompas.com. Let’s join the Telegram group “Kompas.com News Update”, how to click the link https://t.me/kompascomupdate, then join. You must first install the Telegram application on your cellphone.