Across industries, businesses are expanding their use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. AI isn't just for the tech giants like Meta and Google anymore; logistics firms leverage AI to streamline operations, advertisers use AI to target specific markets and even your online bank uses AI to power its automated customer service experience. For these companies, dealing with ethical risks and operational challenges related to AI is inevitable – but how should they prepare to face them? Poorly executed AI products can violate individual privacy and in the extreme, even weaken our social and political systems. In the U.S., an algorithm used to predict likelihood of future crime was revealed to be biased against Black Americans, reinforcing racial discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to better patient care while creating cost-efficiencies that would be impossible without it. But it could also worsen racial disparities, have profit outweighing patient care, or simply lead to mistakes that a human wouldn't make. In other news at the intersection of health care and technology: video games, virtual reality for nursing home patients and ways to identify bacteria's genetic makeup. Artificial intelligence can make diagnoses from digitized images such as mammograms and diabetic retinal scans. More sophisticated interventions might also be possible someday: algorithms that guide robots through surgery, for example, or even help restore motor control in paralyzed patients.