THE potential to make use of artificial intelligence (AI) within the medical assessment of terminally unwell patients was the topic of an in depth debate on amendments within the House of Lords last week.
The former Conservative minister Baroness Coffey, who’s a Roman Catholic, was keen to press for clarity on the impact of “evolution in medicine”.
She said: “I have no idea to what extent the Government have faith in the usage of AI within the diagnosis of lifespans. A latest evolution in government is that AI is now beginning to handle consultations.”
She desired to know more concerning the “consideration of artificial intelligence in relation to the practicality and operability” of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill “if it were to develop into law”.
The Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Revd Richard Jackson, thanked Baroness Coffey for “raising an important issue”. His concern was that “we distinguish between AI tools and the more dangerous artificial general intelligence, or superintelligence. . . To exclude the usage of AI altogether might deprive patients who’re considering assisted dying of precious diagnostic assistance and care at a really vulnerable time.”
But he was clear that “it might not be acceptable for a general-purpose artificial intelligence, still to be developed, to be a part of the decision-making process. . .
“Were this Bill to pass, it might be vital that decisions about assisted dying required the mix of intelligence, wisdom, and love — as defined by Thomas Aquinas as ‘to will the great of the opposite’. These are distinctive and uniquely human qualities. However sophisticated AI becomes, it may possibly never replace human interaction and judgment — and it shouldn’t achieve this.”
Lord Deben, one other Roman Catholic and former Conservative minister, picked up on Bishop Jackson’s Thomist reference. “There is a remarkable book called Why Aquinas Matters Now, which is well price reading within the context of this particular Bill.”
Earlier in the talk, a former Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Lord Harries, spoke on the importance of human interaction, and a “commonsense view that after all all of us agree that it’s a lot better to have face-to-face interviews”.
“It would”, he said, “be much safer to have a Bill through which it’s specified that interviews must be head to head.”
The point having been made, Baroness Coffey withdrew her proposed amendment on AI.
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