The availability of data is a condition for the development of AI. This is no different in the context of healthcare-related AI applications. Healthcare data are required in the research, development, and follow-up phases of AI. In fact, data collection is also necessary to establish evidence of compliance with legislation. Several legislative instruments, such as the Medical Devices Regulation and the AI Act, enacted data collection obligations to establish (evidence of) the safety of medical therapies, devices, and procedures. Increasingly, such health-related data are collected in the real world from individual data subjects. The relevant legal instruments therefore explicitly mention they shall be without prejudice to other legal acts, including the GDPR. Following an introduction to real-world data, evidence, and electronic health records, this chapter considers the use of AI for healthcare from the perspective of healthcare data. It discusses the role of data custodians, especially when confronted with a request to share healthcare data, as well as the impact of concepts such as data ownership, patient autonomy, informed consent, and privacy and data protection-enhancing techniques.

The chapter examines a classic subject of HRI, social robotics, and the law, such as the design, manufacture, and use of humanoid AI robots for healthcare. The aim is to illustrate a new set of legal challenges that are unique to these systems when displayed in outer space. Such challenges may require the adoption of new legal standards, in particular, either sui generis standards of space law, or stricter or more flexible standards for HRI in space missions, down to a new “principle of equality” between human standards and robotic standards in outer space. The chapter complements current discussions and initiatives on the development of standards for the use of humanoid AI robots in health law, consumer law, and cybersecurity by considering the realignment of terrestrial standards that we may thus expect with the increasing use of humanoid AI systems in space journeys. The assumption is that breathtaking advancements of AI and robotics, current trends on the privatization of the space, and the evolution of current regulatory frameworks, also but not only in space law, will put the development of these new legal standards in the spotlight.

This chapter offers lessons from engineering and other industries that promise developments in healthcare, and practical guidance for clinician-engineer partnerships. Section 1 provides guidance on how to establish a shared vocabulary and common understanding between engineers and clinicians of what terms such as AI and ML do and don’t mean. Section 2 identifies challenges clinician-engineering partnerships must overcome to deliver sustained value and ways to avoid common causes of failure. Section 3 provides specific advice on how to design projects to produce value at a series of stages rather than rely on the success of one, ambitious final model. Section 4 concludes by drawing on cautionary lessons from healthcare and other industries.

INTRODUCTION

• 1. In this chapter, I will first discuss the rise of robotics and AI in the healthcare sector and the concern of some scholars that this may lead to a dehumanisation of the physician-patient relationship (part 2). I will then elaborate on four potential existing legal safeguards against such dehumanisation: the fact that only qualified persons are allowed to provide healthcare (part 3) and the resulting liability of the physician if things go wrong (part 4); the right of the patient to receive information about his/her health condition and to give his/her prior informed consent under the Belgian Law on Patient Rights (part 5), and finally transparency and informed consent under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (part 6). I will conclude with an overview (part 7).

THE RISE OF ROBOTICS AND AI TO DEAL WITH INCREASING DEMANDS IN THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR

• 2. A recent publication commissioned by the European Parliament states that the health sector is facing increasing demands on services brought on by issues such as an ageing population, an increase of chronic diseases, budgetary constraints, and a shortage of qualified workers. Developments in the field of robotics and AI can provide countless opportunities for addressing these challenges, resulting in necessary and significant cost and time savings. These efficiency benefits are the result of the fact the work is done more efficiently, more quickly and at a lower cost than a human actor could do it. According to the same study, the application of robotics and AI could lead to improvements in fields such as medical diagnosis, surgical intervention, prevention and treatment of diseases, and support for rehabilitation and longterm care. They could also contribute to more effective and automated work management processes, while offering continuous training for healthcare workers. It is estimated that the market for AI in healthcare will reach around $6,6 billion by 2021 and $8 billion by 2022, with significant cost savings for healthcare systems. According to a recent French study, the health sector is internationally the second most impacted sector by robotics and AI after the telecommunications and technologies sector, but preceding the financial services and automotive sector.

Many ethical questions about our future with intelligent machines rest upon assumptions concerning the origins, development and ideal future of humanity and of the universe, and hence overlap considerably with many religious questions. First, could computers themselves become moral in any sense, and could different components of morality – whatever they are – be instantiated in a computer? Second, could computers enhance the moral functioning of humans? Do computers potentially have a role in narrowing the gap between moral aspiration and how morality is actually lived out? Third, if we develop machines comparable in intelligence to humans, how should we treat them? This question is especially acute for embodied robots and human-like androids. Fourthly, numerous moral issues arise as society changes such that artificial intelligence plays an increasingly significant role in making decisions, with implications for how human beings function socially and as individuals, treat each other and access resources.

AI films are present from the 1950s onwards, but really begin to gather pace from the 1980s and into the 1990s. From 2000s onwards, more and more AI films proliferate, as filmmakers respond to the development of AI technology in the real world. In this decade, Cynthia Braziel’s MIT robot Kismet recognises and responds to facial expressions. Robots are sent to hostile landscapes – the Nomad robot explores remote Antarctica and the Nasa rovers’ Spirit and Opportunity roam the surface of Mars.The Darpa Grand Challenge is launched in 2004 to promote autonomous vehicles, and, closer to home, iRobot’s Roomba successfully vacuums and avoids obstacles. AI technology is being used to explore space, to interact with humans, and to assist in the domestic sphere.

In AI ilm, several thematic strands are notable in this decade.The binary between human and artificial intelligence, which has been questioned and deconstructed in previous decades, is further collapsed, and the integration of AI technology in human life is acknowledge and explored.In The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, machines are allies and not just enemies; in Terminator 3, John Connor’s Terminator saviour is also, in the future, his killer.

This introductory chapter is divided into two main parts. The first outlines aspects of artificial intelligence that are explored in the films. It is not a history of artificial intelligence, but rather an outline of key elements of that history that fascinate filmmakers, such as how intelligence is defined, the Turing Test, the establishment of the field in the 1950s, The Chinese Room Experiment, the Physical Grounding Hypothesis, affective intelligence, ambient intelligence, distributed and multi-agent intelligence, consciousness upload, and the singularity.The second half of the chapter gives an overview of the main attitudes towards AI presented in film, including the typical technophobic fears about AI, and humanist, posthumanist and transhumanist stances. The various types of AI presented in film are then outlined: robot, digital and combinations of the two. The themes and tropes that recur in AI film are set out, including the AI as visual double of the human and the AI ‘reveal’; parallels and doubling between human and AI characters, and ways in which they intersect and hybridise.The representation of gender is explored, in terms of female characters in AI film, including female scientists, and the AI characters themselves, usually mirroring the patterns of representation of human characters. The importance of parent–child relationships is outlined, including humans acting as parents and families to artificial intelligence, and occasionally the other way around, and examining the theme of AI reproduction, via human, digital or other means.