10th National Bioethics Conference
A pre-conference training and peer engagement workshop
On
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare:
Learning together towards responsible AI
Being co-hosted by
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM),
Forum for Medical Ethics Society (FMES) and Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME), and Christian Medical College Vellore (CMC Vellore)
Date: Tuesday-Wednesday, January 28-29, 2025
Mode: In-person
Venue: Seminar Hall, Block-1, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, TN, India
Time: 0900 to 1730hrs
Contact no: (O) 044 - 2257 4929
Visit our websites: IITM-IEC : https://www.iitm.ac.in/the-institute/administration/institutional-ethics-committee
Registration: https://code.iitm.ac.in/code-programs/STP_Bioethics2025/
[Session plan] [Session faculty] [Session themes & synopses]
Overview: The two-day workshop is aimed at bringing together multidisciplinary players/stakeholders deeply engaged with health-AI for in-depth conversation to share knowledge, and to peer learn drawing upon each other’s experiences with focus on laws, and regulations which have bearing on development and deployment of responsible health-AI. It is also aimed at cross disciplinary engagement and creating networking opportunities across disciplines and sectors, an essential element of responsible and user-centred health-AI tools/interventions towards contributing to bettering the healthcare centre-staging care-receivers’ best interest.
The workshop comprises of fourteen sessions and covers about ten key thematics making the engagement multidisciplinary and comprehensive. The methods of conduct of the workshop are a mix of talks, moderated panel discussions, and in-depth discussions building upon show-casing of health-AI tools being developed and/or deployed in the areas of diagnostics, clinical care, and public health.
We expect about 100 individuals including session faculty and workshop participants coming together on this occasion.
Context and relevance: NITI Aayog, Government of India in its discussion paper towards developing a national strategy on AI dated 2018 adopted ‘AI for all’ (#AIforAll) motto. It states that the overarching goal of advancing AI is to, “… leverage AI for economic growth, social development and inclusive growth, and finally as a ‘Garage’ for emerging and developing economies”. In 2023, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) published, ‘Ethical Guidelines for Application of Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Research and Healthcare’. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 along with many other disparate policies which have bearing on activities related to AI development and deployment issued by different Ministries together shape the context in which AI development and deployment is taking place.
Against the backdrop of this broader context, the theme for the workshop is timely and relevant for more than one reason. These include the unique features of AI technology, which presents with unique opportunities and challenges; fast-paced growth; appears to be largely driven by commercial interest of the private players; the government’s interest in potential AI technologies offering to boost this space economically; the government’s aspiration to excel in this space to be a global leader; limited conversation on AI health technology and law-regulations-ethics-governance-policy matters. Furthermore, conspicuous by its absence is the conversation and engagement with the prospective users, both healthcare providers and people as key stakeholders, and as collaborators during the health-AI development and deployment.
In Indian context, AI health technologies are being developed and deployed. However, deeper, more grounded and informed discussions and debates amongst the diverse stakeholders relevant to AI health technology and allied spaces on the aforesaid matters are lacking. These aspects are closely intertwined adding complexity to these discussions. Such conversations and discourse would help towards making the AI health technology space law-regulation complying, ethically and scientifically sound, inclusive, transparent, and open for peer critique. Such conversations and spaces enabling them would lead health-AI tools/technology to be user-centred; and facilitate mid-stream corrections all through development, deployment, and beyond.
Goal: To bring together multidisciplinary players and stakeholders engaged in developing and deploying technologies in health research, healthcare delivery, public health, and health systems management using AI to learn together the matters related to laws, regulations, ethics, governance, and allied aspects; to draw upon experiences of working in these spaces; and to create a platform for multidisciplinary networking for sustained engagement beyond the workshop to strengthen health- AI development, deployment, and post-deployment.
Session faculty and the expected audience: Professionals from across the disciplinary training backgrounds — professionals from AI and related spaces; experts in law and regulations, ethics, policy, and governance; healthcare practitioners; experts from policy spaces; and end-users of health-AI technologies, such as care receivers, biomedical researchers, and healthcare practitioners — will comprise the audience.
Geographical scope: India-wide; academic and non-academic spaces; private and public entities. The attempt has been to get session faculty/resource persons from across India. Similarly, participation to the workshop will be open to interested individuals from across India.
Peer learning space breaking the barriers of disciplinary boundaries: Session faculty will bring to the table specific expertise to steer the thematic sessions. The audience is also expected to include those already engaged with the various aforesaid aspects of health-AI. This combination of session faculty and audience makes the proposed workshop a peer learning and multidisciplinary networking space, a much-advocated strategy globally to facilitate ‘responsible AI’.
Thematic scope: The workshop centre-stages regulatory and legal aspects of responsible health-AI development and deployment, holistically. This required designing sessions which allow learning across range of allied areas/aspects, such as ethics, human rights, governance, and policies as reflected in the Indian Medical Research Council’s Ethical Guidelines for Application of Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Research and Healthcare, 2023.
Against this backdrop, we have attempted to include about ten diverse thematics to cover in this peer learning workshop.
Modes of engagement/modes of workshop conduct: The workshop is designed enabling multiple methods of peer learning engagement through sessions spread over two days. These include presentation of health-AI tools, talks, panel conversations, and personal narratives of users of health-AI. Each session is designed to enable time for substantive discussion amongst the session faculty and the workshop participants.
