Senator Mark Warner Calls For Greater Transparency From Google’s Healthcare AI

Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called for greater transparency about how Google is deploying AI in healthcare settings in a letter sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday. 

Google's healthcare AI chatbot, called Med-PaLM 2, is currently being tested in the field to execute tasks like answering medical questions and summarizing health data. 

“While artificial intelligence (AI) undoubtedly holds tremendous potential to improve patient care and health outcomes, I worry that premature deployment of unproven technology could lead to the erosion of trust in our medical professionals and institutions, the exacerbation of existing racial disparities in health outcomes, and an increased risk of diagnostic and care-delivery errors,” wrote Warner. 

Warner’s letter comes after researchers at Google said that the chatbot still has issues avoiding inaccurate information. 

In May, the World Health Organization called for “caution to be exercised in using artificial intelligence (AI) generated large language model tools (LLMs) to protect and promote human well-being, human safety, and autonomy, and preserve public health.”

Warner’s letter called on Google to enforce patient privacy and focus on the inclusion of ethical guardrails. It also included twelve questions for the company, ranging from the source of data used to train the chatbot to whether patients have the ability to opt out of AI being used in their care. 

“It is clear more work is needed to improve this technology as well as to ensure the health care community develops appropriate standards governing the deployment and use of AI,” wrote Warner.