Lifecycles, pipelines, and value chains: toward a focus on events in responsible artificial intelligence for health

Paper by Joseph Donia et al: “Process-oriented approaches to the responsible development, implementation, and oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) systems have proliferated in recent years. Variously referred to as lifecycles, pipelines, or value chains, these approaches demonstrate a common focus on systematically mapping key activities and normative considerations throughout the development and use of AI systems. At the same time, these approaches risk focusing on proximal activities of development and use at the expense of a focus on the events and value conflicts that shape how key decisions are made in practice. In this article we report on the results of an ‘embedded’ ethics research study focused on SPOTT– a ‘Smart Physiotherapy Tracking Technology’ employing AI and undergoing development and commercialization at an academic health sciences centre. Through interviews and focus groups with the development and commercialization team, patients, and policy and ethics experts, we suggest that a more expansive design and development lifecycle shaped by key events offers a more robust approach to normative analysis of digital health technologies, especially where those technologies’ actual uses are underspecified or in flux. We introduce five of these key events, outlining their implications for responsible design and governance of AI for health, and present a set of critical questions intended for others doing applied ethics and policy work. We briefly conclude with a reflection on the value of this approach for engaging with health AI ecosystems more broadly…(More)”.