Abstract
BackgroundHealthcare is a rapidly expanding area of application for Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although there is considerable excitement about its potential, there are also substantial concerns about the negative impacts of these technologies. Since screening and diagnostic AI tools now have the potential to fundamentally change the healthcare landscape, it is important to understand how these tools are being represented to the public via the media.MethodsUsing a framing theory approach, we analysed how screening and diagnostic AI was represented in the media and the frequency with which media articles addressed the benefits and the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSIs) of screening and diagnostic AI.ResultsAll the media articles coded (n = 136) fit into at least one of three frames: social progress (n = 131), economic development (n = 59), and alternative perspectives (n = 9). Most of the articles were positively framed, with 135 of the articles discussing benefits of screening and diagnostic AI, and only 9 articles discussing the ethical, legal, and social implications.ConclusionsWe found that media reporting of screening and diagnostic AI predominantly framed the technology as a source of social progress and economic development. Screening and diagnostic AI may be represented more positively in the mass media than AI in general. This represents an opportunity for health journalists to provide publics with deeper analysis of the ethical, legal, and social implications of screening and diagnostic AI, and to do so now before these technologies become firmly embedded in everyday healthcare delivery.
Highlights
Healthcare is a rapidly expanding area of application for Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Of the remaining 367 articles, 56 articles were removed because they did not address the use of AI for screening or diagnosis
A further 63 mentioned AI used for screening or diagnosis in passing but did not discuss it
Summary
Healthcare is a rapidly expanding area of application for Artificial Intelligence (AI). Screening and diagnostic AI augments, or in some cases potentially replaces, clinical skills and practices that have traditionally been central to medical identity and professional responsibility [3] These technologies seem likely, in future, to determine or at least influence the pathways of care that open and close to patients. Given these clinically and professionally important roles and impacts, the use of AI for screening and diagnosis is arguably of special significance. We present a systematic analysis of media coverage of AI for screening and diagnosis, to understand the ways in which these technologies are being framed, especially for the general public. This analysis was informed by an interest in the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSIs) of these technologies, an issue to which we turn
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