For a critical appraisal of artificial intelligence in healthcare: the
problem of bias in mHealth.
Abstract
Artificial intelligence and big data are more and more used in medicine,
either in prevention, diagnosis or treatment, and are clearly modifying
the way medicine is thought and practiced. Some authors argue that the
use of artificial intelligence techniques to analyze big data would even
constitute a scientific revolution, in medicine as much as in other
scientific disciplines. Moreover, artificial intelligence techniques,
coupled with mobile health technologies, could furnish a personalized
medicine, adapted to the individuality of each patient. In this paper we
argue that this conception is largely a myth: what health professionals
and patients need is not more data, but data that are critically
appraised, especially to avoid bias. The validity of data and the
validity of inferences drawn from the data by algorithms are indeed a
major epistemic issue, though rarely addressed as such by health
professionals or philosophers of medicine. Considering the history of
epidemiology, specifically the formation of the concept of bias, we
propose three research priorities concerning the use of artificial
intelligence and big data in medicine.