Abstract
BackgroundArtificial intelligence (AI), with its seemingly limitless power, holds the promise to truly revolutionize patient healthcare. However, the discourse carried out in public does not always correlate with the actual impact. Thus, we aimed to obtain both an overview of how French health professionals perceive the arrival of AI in daily practice and the perception of the other actors involved in AI to have an overall understanding of this issue.MethodsForty French stakeholders with diverse backgrounds were interviewed in Paris between October 2017 and June 2018 and their contributions analyzed using the grounded theory method (GTM).ResultsThe interviews showed that the various actors involved all see AI as a myth to be debunked. However, their views differed. French healthcare professionals, who are strategically placed in the adoption of AI tools, were focused on providing the best and safest care for their patients. Contrary to popular belief, they are not always seeing the use of these tools in their practice. For healthcare industrial partners, AI is a true breakthrough but legal difficulties to access individual health data could hamper its development. Institutional players are aware that they will have to play a significant role concerning the regulation of the use of these tools. From an external point of view, individuals without a conflict of interest have significant concerns about the sustainability of the balance between health, social justice, and freedom. Health researchers specialized in AI have a more pragmatic point of view and hope for a better transition from research to practice.ConclusionAlthough some hyperbole has taken over the discourse on AI in healthcare, diverse opinions and points of view have emerged among French stakeholders. The development of AI tools in healthcare will be satisfactory for everyone only by initiating a collaborative effort between all those involved. It is thus time to also consider the opinion of patients and, together, address the remaining questions, such as that of responsibility.
Highlights
Extremely divergent ideas and points of view confront each other when the burning topic of Artificial intelligence (AI) is discussed
Among them were: 2 ethicists, 1 retired public health physician, 2 public health researchers working on confidentiality issues, 1 representative of patients, 1 lawyer, 1 researcher in automation in aeronautics working on the comparative advantages of using AI
While a certain level of hyperbole seems to have taken over the discussion of AI in healthcare, we found that diverse considerations and knowledge have emerged among each category of stakeholder
Summary
Extremely divergent ideas and points of view confront each other when the burning topic of AI is discussed. AI is a discipline for which the applications fall into two categories: (1) the attempt to reproduce the capabilities of the human mind and 2) the creation of tools to carry out tasks which today need a human action. AI can be understood as a concept, i.e. a general and abstract idea that the human mind makes of a concrete or abstract object of thought that enables it to associate the various perceptions that it has of that object. It was during the Dartmouth Conference (in 1956) that John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky invented AI, as a discipline and as a concept [3]. We aimed to obtain both an overview of how French health professionals perceive the arrival of AI in daily prac‐ tice and the perception of the other actors involved in AI to have an overall understanding of this issue
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