Ethical and regulatory challenges of large language models in medicine (23 April 2024)

Summary

The rapid growth of interest in and use of large language models (LLMs) across various industries is raising some crucial and profound ethical concerns, especially in the field of healthcare. This Lancet article highlights ethical concerns from the perspectives of users, developers and regulators. It focuses on data privacy and rights of use, data provenance, intellectual property contamination, broad applications and plasticity of LLMs. The authors argue that a comprehensive framework and mitigating strategies will be vital to ensure LLMs are responsibly integrated into medical practice, ensuring alignment with ethical principles and safeguarding against potential societal risks.