Assessing Bias in Medical AI

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are increasingly deployed in critical societal functions such as finance, media and healthcare. Along with their deployment come increasing reports of their failure when viewed through the lens of ethical principles such as fairness, democracy and equal opportunity. As a result, research into fair algorithms and mitigation of bias in data and algorithms, has surged in recent years. However, while it might seem clear what fairness entails, and how to achieve it, in some applications, established concepts do not translate directly to other domains. In this work, we consider healthcare specifically, illustrating limitations and challenges of fair models within medical applications and give recommendations for the development of AI in healthcare.