Sacramento preps, Washington putters on AI

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Dec 07, 2023 View in browser   By Daniel Payne, Ruth Reader, Erin Schumaker and Evan Peng AROUND THE NATION Debates about AI are coming to the California state capitol. | AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli While Washington is mulling how, or whether, to regulate advanced artificial intelligence in health care, California is moving to fill the void. California lawmakers are prepping at least a dozen bills aimed at curbing what are widely seen as AI’s biggest threats to society, writes POLITICO’s Jeremy B. White from Sacramento. On the target list: AI in medicine that isn’t trained on data from a diverse pool of patients. When AI relies on biased inputs, it spits out biased guidance. “I hope we’re learning lessons from the advent of the Internet, where we didn’t act in a regulatory fashion in the way we needed to,” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Bay Area Democrat who chairs the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee and is reviving legislation that would safeguard against bias in artificial intelligence. Why it matters: There’s evidence that concern about biased AI is warranted. New York City is also trying to combat bias in AI with its Coalition to End Racism in Clinical Algorithms. It is lobbying health systems to stop using AI that the coalition says relies on data sets that underestimate Black individuals’ lung capacity and their ability to give birth vaginally after a cesarean section, while overestimating their muscle mass. And a new study from University of Florida researchers found algorithms designed to diagnose bacterial vaginosis in women delivered biased results. Asian women received disproportionate false-n`egative results and Hispanic women high numbers of false-positive results. Even so: California lawmakers’ proposals to regulate AI must overcome a formidable industry counteroffensive. Industry groups that have spent recent years battling on social media liability — tying up a bill to impose penalties for harms to kids in court — are preparing to play defense on AI. Their opposition stalled Bauer-Kahan’s bill last year. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Winchester, Conn. | Shawn Zeller/POLITICO This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. “If you turn away to make dinner or attempt suicide, it’s all the same to them,” MIT Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology Sherry Turkle said in her keynote address at Harvard’s recent Conference on AI & Democracy. Turkle was taking issue with the idea, promoted by some in health care, that chatbots can help lonely people. Rather, she said, the bots threaten “our capacity for empathy” because the empathy they offer is pretend. 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, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with POLITICO health care reporter Megan R. Wilson about Republican Mike Johnson's rise to House speaker and how he is likely to lean on leaders and aides for health care policy matters. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast INNOVATORS The Cleveland Clinic is seeking AI transparency. | AFP via Getty Images The Cleveland Clinic, one of the premier hospital systems in the world, has joined a new coalition of tech industry titans and universities seeking to promote an “open-source” approach to developing AI. Why so? Dr. Lara Jehi, Cleveland Clinic’s chief research information officer, said the clinic is involved in the new AI Alliance because an open-source approach, in which AI developers share tools freely for others to study or improve, will promote accountability and benefit patients. “We want to be ahead of the curve — and our patients deserve it,” she told Daniel. Heavy hitters: Cleveland Clinic has partnered with IBM, another founding member of the AI Alliance, on the intersection of health and technology for years. Other members include Facebook parent Meta, Intel, New York University and Dartmouth College. Government agencies, including the National Science Foundation and NASA, also back the alliance. “The motivation to join the alliance at this point is that we can work with the rest of the ecosystem,” Jehi said. WASHINGTON WATCH Republican Cassidy sees eye to eye with progressive Markey on Facebook's handling of child accounts. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images The top Republican on the Senate committee with responsibility for health care and one of the chamber’s leading progressives accuse Facebook’s parent company of collecting data about children in violation of federal law. The senators, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ranking member Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts, detailed their concerns and requested an explanation in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The senators cite an October lawsuit brought by 33 state attorneys general in federal district court in San Francisco that makes the same charge and also accuses Meta of designing addictive platforms that harm children’s mental health. A 1998 law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, requires websites that collect data about children to first receive their parents’ permission, with limited exceptions. Meta’s social media sites, Facebook and Instagram, require users to certify that they’re 13 or older to open an account. But the lawsuit and the senators say Meta knew children were lying and didn’t stop them. “Meta’s goal here is clear: To do everything in its power to avoid gaining actual knowledge — or, at least, create the perception that it never gained actual knowledge — that a user is a child,” the senators wrote. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Why it matters: Earlier this year, the White House and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said social media is harming kids’ mental health and asked Congress to pass new legislation to protect youth. In their letter, Cassidy and Markey said the revelations in the states’ lawsuit reinforced in their minds the need to tighten regulation of social media. The two senators have proposed to do that in a bill they’ve framed as an update to the 1998 law. What’s next? The senators have asked Zuckerberg to explain how it identifies and manages users under age 13 by Jan. 8.   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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