AI is revolutionizing healthcare by enhancing various aspects such as drug development, disease diagnosis, treatment, patient monitoring, and administrative tasks. Notable examples include Google’s Med-PaLM, Stanford’s CheXNet, and NVIDIA’s partnership with Hippocratic AI. In addition to the advancements by the private sector, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched S.A.R.A.H. (Smart AI Resource Assistant for Health) in April 2024. This digital health promoter prototype, powered by generative AI, features enhanced empathetic responses in eight languages.
While these innovations reduce human errors and enhance precision, they introduce new legal and ethical dilemmas—who is liable when an AI-driven system makes a medical error? The Legal framework for medical negligence in India is primarily governed by Consumer Protection Act, Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Bharati Nyaya Sanhita, PCPNDT, Clinical Establishment Act etc. While these laws address medical negligence caused by human professionals, they do not yet comprehensively cover AI-related liability issues.
Key Challenges in AI-Related Medical Negligence
- Liability Attribution: If an AI system misdiagnoses a patient or recommends incorrect treatment, should the liability rest with the doctor, hospital, software developer, or AI manufacturer?
- Standard of Care: How should courts determine the standard of care when AI recommendations differ from human expertise?
- Regulatory Gaps: India lacks specific legal guidelines for AI-driven medical malpractice, creating uncertainty in litigation.
- Bias and Errors: AI models can inherit biases from training data, potentially leading to racial, gender, or socioeconomic disparities in medical recommendations.
Legal reforms are needed to ensure fairness, accountability, and patient safety in cases of AI-related medical negligence. The future lies in a well-regulated AI-driven healthcare system that balances innovation with ethical responsibility.
