The Next Challenge for Data Protection Law: AI Revolution in Automated Scientific Research

Abstract

A considerable amount of literature has been published on autonomous vehicles, robotics in healthcare, the danger of losing jobs and human control as a result of automation. However, there has been relatively little discussion about how AI might change scientific research. AI-assisted scientific research is already offering a significant boost in the process of scientific discovery. Not surprisingly, this radical change in scientific research will have significant consequences. Firstly, if the research process becomes automated, it may be conducted by anyone, which puts citizen science in a new context. As developments in hardware and software made personal computers feasible for individual use, automated research may have a similar effect on science in the future. Secondly, unlike researchers, AI and neural networks cannot explain their thinking yet. The fully automated research expands the ‘black box’, this makes the oversight and ethical review problematic in systems opaque to outside scrutiny. Automated research raises many further questions about regulation, safety, funding and patentability. This chapter will focus on the issues connected with privacy and data protection, from the EU GDPR point of view.

Keywords: AI, data protection, scientific research, GDPR, health data