      Artificial Intelligence, and its many implementations, is growing in our world. With the 
many ways it could advantageously improve our societies, it is no wonder that researchers have 
been studying the possibilities. In the One Hundred Year Study of Artificial Intelligence, the 
panel was largely optimistic about where artificial intelligence in the healthcare field was 
headed; however, there are some concerns about AIs consequences that seemed to have only 
been briefly touched upon. As beneficial as AI could be in healthcare, concerns of privacy and 
negative impacts of doctors and other medical professionals relying on this technology need to 
be looked at further. Challenging this study, AI could be more of a hindrance than a help when it 
comes to certain healthcare technologies.

	Looking at the many implementations of AI in healthcare, the panel argues that AI could 
be used for many different things including automated image interpretation which could cut 
down on diagnosis time and help with accuracy. However, Komorowski and Celi (2017) bring 
up that this could lead to overdiagnosis; the detection of an actual disease that, if it had 
remained undetected, would not have affected a persons life. This could lead to patient 
anxiety, the harm from further testing and unnecessary treatment, and the opportunity cost of 
wasted time on the part of both patient and provider and healthcare resources that could be better 
used to treat or prevent genuine illness (p. 2). It is consequences like these where the idea of the 
technology is to be helpful, but unforeseeable costs pop up and create more harm than should.

      Privacy is a huge concern in our society. Especially with protecting individuals medical 
records and information, it is essential that individuals rights according to HIPAA are 
maintained when creating AI technologies in healthcare. The regard that the study panel seems to 
have for privacy protection, like for HIPAA, is concerning. By downplaying these types of 
policies, they write, Unfortunately,  there are many remaining barriers to rapid innovation. 
HIPAA  requirements for protecting patient privacy create legal barriers to the flow of patient 
data to applications that could utilize AI technologies (p. 27). The rhetoric they use here 
insinuates that these protections are in the way of creating these important technologies. Rather, 
there should be equal emphasis on the importance of both matters. Besides these policies, there is 
also concern with privacy when these technologies are being utilized. These technological 
developments pose challenges for a consent model of data collection, and may lead to an 
increase in data privacy risks ... For example, decision-making machines may be used to 
engender or manipulate the trust of the user, and would be an all seeing, all remembering in-
house guests, that would collect personal data via numerous sensors (Gardner, 2016). The issue 
of privacy is not just about keeping individuals information private. It is also about making sure 
people are aware of the aspects of allowing their information to be used and what that means for 
them and their privacy.

      Overall, AI could be very useful in the healthcare field. However, the negative 
consequences of AI technology and privacy concerns could do more harm than it should. As 
much as the panel wants to get this AI technology out and into healthcare fields, more attention 
needs to be paid to how things like privacy could be impacted and the possible negative 
consequences produced by these technologies.
      
      

      
References

Gardner, S. (2016, Oct 19). Artificial Intelligence Poses Data Privacy Challenges. Retrieved 
      from https://www.bna.com/artificial-intelligence-poses-n57982079158/
Komorowski, M. A., & Celi, L. (2017). Will Artificial Intelligence Contribute to Overuse in 
      Healthcare?*. Critical Care Medicine, 45(5), 912-913.

