Ironshore - Ironshore From the Field – AI and the black box – who is liable when no one is at fault?

AI is already on its way to transforming healthcare delivery and improving patient outcomes. However, while AI, Machine Learning, and Robotics are all designed to reduce human error and increase the predictability of patient care, they also create new risks across the healthcare liability landscape. In a situation where a healthcare provider uses AI to treat a patient who has a less than a desired outcome (or even simply an unanticipated one), we anticipate liability suits against those healthcare providers, healthcare systems, AI software companies, and robotic device manufacturers. In this post, we will consider what happens when lawsuits get ahead of science, insurance considerations in this new liability landscape, and possible modifications to legal doctrine to address this new science. What makes AI so compelling is its use of predictive, learning algorithms (Machine Learning) to improve the precision of the practice of medicine.