Lawmakers and regulators in Washington are starting to puzzle over how to regulate artificial intelligence in healthcare — and the AI industry thinks there’s a good chance they’ll mess it up. “It’s an incredibly daunting problem,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco. “There’s a risk we come in with guns blazing and overregulate.” Already, AI’s impact on healthcare is widespread. The Food and Drug Administration has approved 692 AI products.
counted a 185% surge in the number of organizations disclosing AI lobbying activities in 2023. The trade group TechNet has launched a $25-million initiative, including TV ad buys, to educate viewers on the benefits of artificial intelligence. “It is very hard to know how to smartly regulate AI since we are so early in the invention phase of the technology,” Bob Kocher, a partner with venture capital firm Venrock who previously served in the Obama administration, said in an email.