The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence into clinical medicine, education, and other contexts raises concerns about the risks of this technology and who should be held responsible when AI causes preventable harm. Efforts to automate labor and decision-making have a complex history, connecting tests, forms, timers, meters, machines, and algorithms. This roundtable will discuss how automation technologies produce novel and sometimes unexpected risks, tend to reinforce existing social hierarchies, and disrupt lines of accountability for undesirable outcomes ranging from injuries to the misallocation of scarce resources. Based on these problems and the rhetoric around automation since the early-1900s, we will consider the extent to which the real and perceived dangers of AI are “new” or continuations of the longer-term trend of automation.
This roundtable consists of four historians and anthropologists of medicine and technology who have studied the practical applications and cultural meanings of automation from the twentieth century to the present. Andrew Lea, author of the book Digitizing Diagnosis (2023), has mapped the early history of computer-assisted diagnosis and is working on the history of software errors involving radiation therapy and electronic blood banks. Zeynel Gül studies the medical and legal uncertainty around the diagnosis and treatment of silicosis in present-day Turkey, documenting how depersonalized technologies and procedures invalidate the claims of sick workers. Tina Wei has investigated the history of workplace fatigue with particular attention to time-motion studies and the paper tools used to screen and to structure the labor force. Alex Parry works on home accidents and consumer product safety, showing how engineering fail-safes can simultaneously protect appliance users and lead some of these users to take unnecessary risks.
Altogether, this roundtable will help its participants reflect on the dynamic place of automation in the history of medicine and the continued push to make AI central to our work as educators, researchers, and clinicians.
Chair email:
[email protected]Learning Outcomes- Describe the historical continuities and discontinuities between artificial intelligence and earlier automation technologies, especially their effects on health and safety.
- Explain how automation technologies can contribute to undesirable outcomes including injuries and the misallocation of medical resources.
- Apply insights from history and medical anthropology to evaluate the role of automation technologies in present-day healthcare systems and academic institutions.
