Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

The AI life cycle: a holistic approach to creating ethical AI for health decisions

The ethical impact of AI algorithms in healthcare should be assessed at each phase, from data creation to model deployment, so that their use narrows rather than widens inequalities.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Overview of a reimagined AI life cycle.

References

  1. Challen, R. et al. BMJ Qual. Saf. 28, 231–237 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Goldstein, B. A., Navar, A. M., Pencina, M. J. & Ioannidis, J. P. A. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 24, 198–208 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Bozkurt, S. et al. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 27, 1878–1884 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Gordon, M. L. et al. Preprint at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2202.02950 (2022)

  5. Corbett-Davies S. & Goel S. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.00023 (2018).

  6. Pfohl, S. R., Foryciarz, A. & Shah, N. H. J. Biomed. Inform. 113, 103621 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Röösli, E., Bozkurt, S. & Hernandez-Boussard, T. Sci. Data. 9, 24 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Futoma, J. et al. Lancet Digit. Health. 2, e489–e492 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Obermeyer, Z., Powers, B., Vogeli, C. & Science 366, 447–453 (2019).

  10. Sujan, M. et al. BMJ Health Care Inform. 26, e100081 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Nsoesie, E. O. JAMA Netw. Open 1, e182658 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Research reported in this publication was supported by the Agency for Health Research & Quality under award no. R01HS027434; the Ethics, Society, and Technology Hub at Stanford University; and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation under grant number 10848 The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

T.H.B. and K.D.B. conceptualized the Comment, M.Y.N. and S.K. wrote the initial draft and contributed equally, and all authors edited and critically revised the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tina Hernandez-Boussard.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ng, M.Y., Kapur, S., Blizinsky, K.D. et al. The AI life cycle: a holistic approach to creating ethical AI for health decisions. Nat Med 28, 2247–2249 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01993-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01993-y

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research