AI in the Health & Life Sciences & the Medicus L(ex) Machina: Setterwalls Life Sciences Report (2019)

Research output: Other contributionNet publication - Internet publicationResearch

Lawyers might sometimes feel like “party crashers” when entering high-tech events and start-up scenes to ask critical questions. But without a doubt, digitalisation and AI raise fundamental societal, philosophical and legal questions. It appears therefore more important than ever to stress the significance of law and lawyers in this area. This also includes the realisation that competent legal advice is not only about identifying legal road-blocks to tell high-tech developers and clients what they cannot do under the current legal regime. Rather, we need skilled legal expertise to find creative solutions that may help to avoid problems further down the road, thereby helping to achieve sustainability, fairness, due process and competitiveness in the sector. And we need appropriate and internationally enforceable legal frameworks to promote the promises and regulate the perils of the amazing technological possibilities.

Probably the most important areas in which challenges and legal issues are frequently debated concern (1) the ethics of algorithmic decision-making, (2) the cybersecurity of AI systems, (3) the transparency and accountability of complex and opaque algorithmic decision-making, (4) the protection of privacy, particularly with regard to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), (5) questions concerning intellectual property rights, competition law and data ownership, (6) inequality, bias and discrimination resulting from AI applications, (7) quality assurance for both data and AI-driven decision-making, (8) the usability and interoperability of data, (9) liability, and (10) trust. This contribution goes through a few legal issues selected from this broad list.
Original languageEnglish
Publication dateMay 2019
PublisherSetterwalls (Law Firm)
Publication statusPublished - May 2019
SeriesLife Sciences Report

    Research areas

  • Faculty of Law - law, artificial intelligence, Machine learning, regulation, health sciences

ID: 224044877