Elisha Otis, the creator of a brand-new elevator safety brake technology, displayed his invention at the 1853 World’s Fair by positioning an elevator directly over the heads of onlookers and then disconnecting the cords. The brand-new security brake engaged.
His trick contributed to the growth of confidence in an invention that resulted in the growth of modern cities all over the world.
Dr. Ricardo Leite, a Portuguese doctor, said, “From New York to Johannesburg, to Geneva, to Lisbon, this would have been impossible without the simple elevator that we probably enter every day without even thinking about it.”
Building trust in a novel technology that has the potential to transform the world had to begin somewhere.
Leite was speaking at a recent closed-door Geneva event that featured prominent members of Geneva’s diplomatic and international agency corps. The occasion was the inauguration of Health AI, the Global Agency for Responsible AI in Health.
Research Network. Amandeep Singh Gill, the UN Secretary General’s Tech Envoy, served as the network’s director.
Health AI has high plans to promote not only research but AI rollout through the formulation and uptake of cogent regulatory policies nationally and internationally after a year-long strategic rethink and after becoming a WHO implementing partner.
AI outpacing the capacity of medicine agencies
Following the pandemic, advances in new technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases are accelerating. And along with it, the rate of innovation in AI-powered digital health devices is accelerating.
In order to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered medical devices, national and regional health systems must develop evidence-based standards for review and approval that can assist good or exceptional technologies gain acceptance.
“The world is a very different place [than what we knew] in 2019,” said Leite. Not just because of machine learning and super intelligence, but also because of the connections between developments in artificial intelligence and other areas of the scientific revolution, such as quantum computing, biotechnology, and gene editing, we are in the midst of a scientific and technological revolution.
AI is already used in healthcare
In healthcare contexts, several AI technologies are already widely deployed. To diagnose tumors and other physiological anomalies in CT and MRI images, for instance, AI is now practically universally used.
Leite stated in an interview with Health Policy Watch that “most modern equipment is already using artificial intelligence, looking at millions of images to automatically interpret the image that comes out from a certain patient, providing a proposed interpretation.” The radiologist always validates the final report in a human-like manner. However, this is a very concrete illustration of what is currently effective in global health systems.
Worldwide standards jointly developed with WHO
Leite anticipates that Health AI will serve as the “bridge” between the normative standards established by the international organizations and their actual adoption and use by nations, even though WHO would naturally take the lead in the development of global guidelines on the use of AI in health in collaboration with partners in ITU and WIPO.
“The goal is to jointly develop these new standards with WHO. We estimate that it will take one to two years to complete.
Addressing disparities in the use of AI in the nation’s health
The ongoing, wide disparity in access to new health technologies of any kind, let alone those based on AI, between high- and low-income nations is another issue that Health AI seeks to address.
“This whole pandemic really demonstrated the fragility of our health systems and the tremendous inequalities around the world,” Leite emphasized.
Widespread access to crucial new AI technologies, which may be crucial in preventing the next pandemic, will also depend on ensuring IP agreements and arrangements with the commercial sector don’t exclude LMICs.
In order to close the global digital divide and provide opportunities, we must combat “digital colonization.”
José Barroso, board chair of the Vaccine Alliance, Gavi, another prominent speaker at the Geneva event, noted that ensuring that promising AI advances also receive R&D assistance from the public sector will help ensure that they may become “global public goods” available to all.
“Let’s call it the decoupling of serious risk, when it comes to global public goods,” Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister (2002-2004) and president of the European Commission (2004-2014), continued.
Leite believes that health AI can assist in determining a “fair price” for newly proven technologies as well as cost-reimbursement plans for use inside national health systems.
The first lesson we learned in medical school was to first do no harm, said Leite. It doesn’t include minimizing all dangers.
