Kamala Harris calls out insurers on AI

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Nov 01, 2023 View in browser   By Shawn Zeller, Daniel Payne, Evan Peng and Erin Schumaker WORLD VIEW Harris talked tough about AI regulation in London today. | Getty Images “Let us be clear, there are additional threats that also demand our action. Threats that are currently causing harm, and which to many people also feel existential." Vice President Kamala Harris Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the Biden administration’s concerns about unsafe AI used by hospitals and other medical facilities and warned insurers about AI-driven decisions that harm patients during remarks today at the U.S. embassy in London. "When a senior is kicked off his health care plan because of a faulty AI algorithm, is that not existential for him?" she asked. Why it matters: Harris is in the U.K. for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s AI Safety Summit. Harris said that the international community should “consider and address the full spectrum of AI risk threats to humanity as a whole as well as threats to individuals, communities, to our institutions, and to our most vulnerable populations.” And Harris made several new announcements meant to emphasize Washington’s commitment to promoting safe AI, POLITICO's Vincent Manancourt, Eugene Daniels and Brendan Bordelon reported. She said the Biden administration will launch a new U.S. AI Safety Institute, which will partner with similar organizations now being developed in countries like the United Kingdom, and she touted the more than $200 million in AI-safety funding the White House has secured from 10 major philanthropic groups. In a summit communiqué published Wednesday, the U.S. signed the 27-country Bletchley Park Declaration on AI. The document focuses solely on so-called frontier AI, or the latest version of the technology that has become popular via digital services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. At the same time: Harris said governments need to help AI fulfill its promise: "AI has the potential to do profound good, to develop powerful new medicines to treat and even cure the diseases that have for generations plagued humanity." What's next? Harris said the U.S. would establish a national safety reporting program to reassure patients about AI dangers in hospitals and medical facilities.   GO INSIDE THE CAPITOL DOME: From the outset, POLITICO has been your eyes and ears on Capitol Hill, providing the most thorough Congress coverage — from political characters and emerging leaders to leadership squabbles and policy nuggets during committee markups and hearings. We're stepping up our game to ensure you’re fully informed on every key detail inside the Capitol Dome, all day, every day. Start your day with Playbook AM, refuel at midday with our Playbook PM halftime report and enrich your evening discussions with Huddle. Plus, stay updated with real-time buzz all day through our brand new Inside Congress Live feature. Learn more and subscribe here.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Shenandoah National Park, Va. | Shawn Zeller This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Workers worry that AI will replace them. But there’s opportunity in the new tech too. A study from the U.K.’s Oxford Internet Institute says those skilled at working with artificial intelligence can boost their pay by 40 percent. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Evan Peng at epeng@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Next week, Future Pulse will cover the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit, one of the most important global health events of the year. We’ll report on the policy, politics and trends impacting the future of health care at Milken from Nov. 6-8. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Lauren Gardner talks with POLITICO health care reporter Daniel Payne about artificial intelligence's rapid expansion into health care with little government regulation, potentially putting patients at risk for misdiagnoses, bias and privacy violations. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast TECH MAZE The U.N.'s Guterres wants nations to collaborate on AI regulation. | Paul White/AP Photo U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres makes the case that nations must work together to set rules governing artificial intelligence — and he’s appointed an advisory board to make some recommendations. The 39 members include several with health care expertise: — Dr. Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer at Clalit Health Services in Israel Balicer heads Israel’s largest health care organization at Clalit, which cares for more than half of Israel’s population, and he’s responsible for the implementation of AI. — Amandeep Sing Gill, Guterres’ envoy on technology Before working for the UN, Gill was CEO of the International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative, a foundation- and university-backed group supporting research on AI’s use in health care. — Craig Ramlal, head of the control systems group at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Ramlal was the principal investigator for developing ventilators and robotic and decontamination systems alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Health and researchers from the University of Florida to mitigate the risk of Covid-19. — Sharad Sharma, co-founder of the iSPIRT Foundation, a nonprofit technology think tank Sharma’s iSPIRT Foundation is responsible for Health Stack, which aims to build digital health infrastructure in India. — Yi Zeng, professor and director of the Brain-Inspired Cognitive Intelligence Lab, Chinese Academy of Sciences Yi serves as an expert for the UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on the Ethics of AI and the WHO Expert Group on AI Ethics and Governance for Health. The advisory board will focus on all forms of artificial intelligence. Its roles include analyzing the risks and challenges related to the technology and investigating how AI can help meet the U.N.’s sustainable development goals. Most important, it will work to develop potential new forms of international AI governance, POLITICO’s Mark Scott reports. Why it matters: Artificial intelligence is already transforming health care. Doctors rely on AI to interpret tests, diagnose diseases and provide behavioral therapy, as Daniel has reported. But government regulators haven’t decided how much vetting the new technology needs. What’s next? Guterres wants a report from the board by the end of the year and recommendations next summer.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO APP: Stay in the know with the POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS – DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     FOLLOW THE MONEY Investors have sought AI stocks this year. | Getty Images Advanced artificial intelligence is diverting the money flow in digital health, a new survey from investment firm GSR Ventures found. The online survey, conducted in September, drew from more than 40 participants from various firms around the globe. It found: — 87 percent of respondents said advanced AI, like chatbots, has influenced their investment strategies. — Nearly half of those polled said the clinician shortage and burnout in the health care industry are the problems most ripe for startups to target. — Most respondents pegged health care data and analytics as the health care sector they believe will be most affected by AI. — Nearly two-thirds of investors expected to make the same or more health tech investments in 2023 compared with 2022, but most also expected lower valuations of private digital health companies in 2023 compared with 2022. Why it matters: “Digital health investors are a small, but highly influential community driving the innovations that will transform how care is delivered and managed, and blockbuster new therapies that are discovered,” said GSR Ventures partner Sunny Kumar in a release. “That means investors hold a prescient view of the changes we will see in healthcare in the coming years.”   Follow us on Twitter Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker Evan Peng @thepngfile   Follow us

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