Can artificial intelligence cause medical errors? This MIT researcher shows it can.
Could a misspelled word cause a medical crisis? Maybe, if your medical records are being analyzed by an artificial intelligence system. One little typo, or even the use of an unusual word, can cause a medical AI to conclude there’s nothing wrong with somebody who might actually be quite sick. It’s a real danger, now that hospitals worldwide are deploying systems that use AI software like ChatGPT to assist in diagnosing illnesses. The potential benefits are huge; AIs can be excellent at spotting potential health problems that a human physician might miss. But new research from Marzyeh Ghassemi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and principal investigator at MIT Jameel Clinic, also finds that these AI tools are often remarkably easy to mislead, in ways that could do serious harm.
