Artificial Professional Advice

Abstract

What does it mean to give professional advice, and how do things change when various forms of technology, such as decision-support software or predictive advice-generating algorithms, are inserted into the process of professional advice-giving? Professional advice is valuable to clients because of the asymmetry between lay and expert knowledge where professionals have knowledge that their clients lack. But technology is increasingly changing the traditional process of professional advice-giving.

This Article considers the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into the healthcare provider-patient relationship. Technological innovation in medical advice-giving occurs in a densely regulated space. The legal framework governing professional advice-giving exists to protect the values underlying the provider-patient relationship. This Article first sketches the regulatory landscape of professional advice-giving, focusing on the values protected by the existing legal framework. It then considers various technological interventions into the advice-giving relationship, identifying the changes that result. Finally, it outlines legal responses aimed to integrate AI-based innovations into medical advice-giving while at the same time upholding the values underlying the professional advice-giving relationship. To the extent the existent regulatory framework is responsive to these changes, it ought to be kept in place. But when the introduction of AI into medical advice-giving changes the dynamics of the relationship in a way that threatens the underlying values, new regulatory responses become necessary.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, professional regulation, healthcare, professional advice, malpractice, professional licensing, informed consent, fiduciary duties

JEL Classification: I1, I10, K13, K19, K23