The Bot is Up!
The Precautionary Principle and the HOT-Bot Framework in AI-assisted Surgery
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55613/jeet.v36i1.207Keywords:
artificial intelligence, robotic surgical procedures, decision-making, medical ethics, incidental findingsAbstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) in surgery is no longer theoretical; it is practice, and innovation in this area continues. Leveraging the precautionary principle, we pose the HOT-Bot framework as a guardrail that (for now) keeps AI-assisted surgery from advancing to fully autonomous robotic surgery; a surgeon-in-the-loop remains ethically necessary for patient safety. Using fictional cases, two dilemmas are explored: 1) an AI-assisted surgical robot fails to detect a malignant incidental finding; 2) networked AI-assisted surgical robots collaborating in live-time with nefarious motives. In tandem, risk mitigation for robot uncertainty is explored, as well as the legal complexity of cross-border networked robots. The HOT-BOT framework is an ethics-based scaffold, not a set of engineering solutions.
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