As AI assumes an expanding range of functions in clinical care, questions about responsibility for patient harm are becoming more urgent. Existing liability frameworks were not designed for technologies in which physicians, developers and deploying organizations exercise different degrees of authority and control.
The American Medical Association is working to ensure that accountability keeps pace with advances in clinical AI. Our approach is grounded in the principle that responsibility should reflect each party's authority, access to information and ability to prevent or mitigate harm.
Download Issue Brief: Liability for Clinical AI (PDF).
Establishing clear responsibilities
The AMA Center for Digital Health and AI is advancing an approach to accountability that recognizes the distinct, and sometimes overlapping, responsibilities of those who develop, deploy and use clinical AI.
- Physicians are responsible for the clinical judgment they can meaningfully exercise.
- Developers are responsible for the systems they build and the risks within their control.
- Deployers are responsible for where and how AI is put to work.
Patients must also retain meaningful avenues for accountability and appropriate remedies when harm occurs.
Advancing the conversation
This issue brief is the first contribution to a broader program of work on liability for clinical AI. It identifies pressing questions and sets out priorities for collaboration across medicine, technology, law and policy.
The Center will work with physicians, patients, developers, healthcare organizations, insurers, legal experts and policymakers to advance practical approaches to accountability, including as AI systems assume increasingly autonomous clinical functions.
Our goal is to help establish the conditions under which innovation can be translated into better patient care, with clinical authority and accountability remaining aligned.
AMA Center for Digital Health and AI
The AMA Center for Digital Health and AI builds partnerships with regulators, policymakers and technology leaders to shape benchmarks for safe and effective use of AI and other digital tools in medicine. Learn more about the center.
