Clinicians Risk Becoming "Liability Sinks" for Artificial Intelligence

The benefits of AI in healthcare will only be realised if we consider the whole clinical context and the AI’s role in it. The current, standard model of AI-supported decision-making in healthcare risks reducing the clinician's role to a mere ‘sense check’ on the AI, whilst at the same time leaving them to be held legally accountable for decisions made using AI. This model means that clinicians risk becoming “liability sinks”, unfairly absorbing liability for the consequences of an AI’s recommendation without having sufficient understanding or practical control over how those recommendations were reached. Furthermore, this could have an impact on the “second victim” experience of clinicians. It also means that clinicians are less able to do what they are best at, specifically exercising sensitivity to patient preferences in a shared clinician-patient decision-making process. There are alternatives to this model that can have a more positive impact on clinicians and patients alike.