Home Mathematics The Charge of AI Systems, Smart Robots, and Information Technologies in Healthcare: A Normative Look into the Future
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The Charge of AI Systems, Smart Robots, and Information Technologies in Healthcare: A Normative Look into the Future

  • Ugo Pagallo
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill
Explore this Subject How to publish with us
The De Gruyter Handbook on Law and Digital Technologies
This chapter is in the book The De Gruyter Handbook on Law and Digital Technologies

Abstract

The chapter examines four decades of moral and legal debate on opportunities and risks of technology in the healthcare sector—from the increasing use of ICTs in the 1980s to AI systems in the 2020s—by distinguishing uses and misuses, overuses and underuses of technology. The intention is to inspect how lawmakers have addressed the moral and legal challenges of ICTs, AI systems, and robots equipped with AI to cast light on what we should reasonably expect in the future. The analysis is not about cyborgs—either as humans progressively becoming more like machines, or AI systems becoming more like humans. Instead, the claim is that the short- and mid-term issues posed by technology in healthcare will shape the future of the field. The chapter scrutinizes current trends and regulations on prohibited uses of technology and their medical exceptions, development of standards, public policies, guidelines, and legal governance. How the law will address issues of bias and transparency, discrimination and surveillance, data privacy and high risks for the public at large is not only going to provide a set of legal precedents, but also conceptual building blocks for a world populated by AI doctors and robot nannies.

Abstract

The chapter examines four decades of moral and legal debate on opportunities and risks of technology in the healthcare sector—from the increasing use of ICTs in the 1980s to AI systems in the 2020s—by distinguishing uses and misuses, overuses and underuses of technology. The intention is to inspect how lawmakers have addressed the moral and legal challenges of ICTs, AI systems, and robots equipped with AI to cast light on what we should reasonably expect in the future. The analysis is not about cyborgs—either as humans progressively becoming more like machines, or AI systems becoming more like humans. Instead, the claim is that the short- and mid-term issues posed by technology in healthcare will shape the future of the field. The chapter scrutinizes current trends and regulations on prohibited uses of technology and their medical exceptions, development of standards, public policies, guidelines, and legal governance. How the law will address issues of bias and transparency, discrimination and surveillance, data privacy and high risks for the public at large is not only going to provide a set of legal precedents, but also conceptual building blocks for a world populated by AI doctors and robot nannies.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Authors’ Biographies IX
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Digital Technologies and Social Transformation
  6. Cyber-Humans and Robotics 7
  7. Online Disinformation: Regulatory Issues and Approaches in the European Legal Landscape 31
  8. Agile Governance: Japanese Approach to Governing Cyber-Physical Systems 53
  9. Blockchain and Access to Justice 75
  10. Data Protection, Privacy, and Unfalsifiable Predictions 95
  11. The WTO in the Digital Age of Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Global Trade Governance: Some Fundamental Considerations 123
  12. When EU Law Meets (Large) Language Models 147
  13. The Charge of AI Systems, Smart Robots, and Information Technologies in Healthcare: A Normative Look into the Future 173
  14. Part II: The Legal Framework
  15. Sovereign Powers and Digital Liberties 191
  16. Technology As Regulation: Tensions, Transitions, and Tectonic Shifts in Governance 211
  17. The Law of Data-Driven Trade 229
  18. From AI Risks to Legal and Ethical AI Governance: A Four-Dimension Framework 251
  19. Agents and Persons? AI Systems Acting in the World and the Limits of Legal Personality 279
  20. Regulation by Design: Reshaping the Relationship between Technology Development and Law 303
  21. AI in the Courtroom: The Right to a Human Judge? 327
  22. Regulating AI Autonomy: A Constitutional Framework for the Digital Era 353
  23. Part III: Key Normative Challenges
  24. The Social Classification of Robots by Perceived Race and Gender 383
  25. Mission Impossible? Artificial Intelligence, Space Debris, and the Legal Implications for Space Sustainability 417
  26. Fintech: A Renaissance moment for Finance and its Regulation? 445
  27. Data Protection as a Normative Problem 483
  28. Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability and Sustainability of Artificial Intelligence: The approach of the EU AI Act 503
  29. Research Data Governance in a Digital Age 525
  30. From AI Ethics Principles to Practices: A Teleological Methodology to Apply AI Ethics Principles in the Defense Domain 549
  31. Labor Law and Automated Systems in the EU 571
  32. Index
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111346632-009

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Authors’ Biographies IX
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Digital Technologies and Social Transformation
  6. Cyber-Humans and Robotics 7
  7. Online Disinformation: Regulatory Issues and Approaches in the European Legal Landscape 31
  8. Agile Governance: Japanese Approach to Governing Cyber-Physical Systems 53
  9. Blockchain and Access to Justice 75
  10. Data Protection, Privacy, and Unfalsifiable Predictions 95
  11. The WTO in the Digital Age of Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Global Trade Governance: Some Fundamental Considerations 123
  12. When EU Law Meets (Large) Language Models 147
  13. The Charge of AI Systems, Smart Robots, and Information Technologies in Healthcare: A Normative Look into the Future 173
  14. Part II: The Legal Framework
  15. Sovereign Powers and Digital Liberties 191
  16. Technology As Regulation: Tensions, Transitions, and Tectonic Shifts in Governance 211
  17. The Law of Data-Driven Trade 229
  18. From AI Risks to Legal and Ethical AI Governance: A Four-Dimension Framework 251
  19. Agents and Persons? AI Systems Acting in the World and the Limits of Legal Personality 279
  20. Regulation by Design: Reshaping the Relationship between Technology Development and Law 303
  21. AI in the Courtroom: The Right to a Human Judge? 327
  22. Regulating AI Autonomy: A Constitutional Framework for the Digital Era 353
  23. Part III: Key Normative Challenges
  24. The Social Classification of Robots by Perceived Race and Gender 383
  25. Mission Impossible? Artificial Intelligence, Space Debris, and the Legal Implications for Space Sustainability 417
  26. Fintech: A Renaissance moment for Finance and its Regulation? 445
  27. Data Protection as a Normative Problem 483
  28. Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability and Sustainability of Artificial Intelligence: The approach of the EU AI Act 503
  29. Research Data Governance in a Digital Age 525
  30. From AI Ethics Principles to Practices: A Teleological Methodology to Apply AI Ethics Principles in the Defense Domain 549
  31. Labor Law and Automated Systems in the EU 571
  32. Index
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 1.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111346632-009/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button