Governing AI‐Driven Health Research: Are IRBs Up to the Task?
Open accessAbstract
Many are calling for concrete mechanisms of oversight for health research involving artificial intelligence (AI). In response, institutional review boards (IRBs) are being turned to as a familiar model of governance. Here, we examine the IRB model as a form of ethics oversight for health research that uses AI. We consider the model's origins, analyze the challenges IRBs are facing in the contexts of both industry and academia, and offer concrete recommendations for how these committees might be adapted in order to provide an effective mechanism of oversight for health‐related AI research.
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Traditional institutional review boards and ethical oversight committees may be ill-equipped to deal with AI and M-LLM applications due to the lack of understanding of such novel technologies in the medical arena.
“In addition, it can be argued that traditional institutional review boards (IRBs) and ethical oversight committees may be ill-equipped to deal with AI and M-LLM applications due to the lack of understanding of such novel technologies in the medical arena [187].”
From Multimodal Large Language Models in Health Care: Applications, Challenges, and Future Outlook. (2024) · cites this paper as [187]
The opening section says the IRB model is being stretched, often unsuccessfully, by AI-driven medical research. “Adapting Institutional Review Boards for AI” also notes insufficient training, but the paper does not specifically address M-LLMs or establish that a lack of understanding of those technologies is why committees may be ill-equipped. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Friesen, P., Douglas‐Jones, R., Marks, M., Pierce, R., Fletcher, K., Mishra, A., Lorimer, J., Véliz, C., Hallowell, N., Graham, M., Chan, M. S., Davies, H., & Sallamuddin, T.
- Affiliations
- McGill University (CA)
- IT University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Gonzaga University (US)
- Tilburg University (NL)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Data protection and information lawyer
- ORCID
- Venue
- Ethics & Human Research
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2021-03
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 35-42
- ISSN
- 2578-2355 (ISSN-L)
- 2578-2363
- OpenAlex
- W3107627743
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 5
- FWCI
- 5.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Ethics & Human Research (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Research portal (Tilburg University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) (submittedVersion)
- IT University Of Copenhagen (IT University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (203132/Z/16/Z, 104825/Z/14/Z)
- NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20008)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics in Clinical Research
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Keywords
- research ethics committees, ethical oversight, research governance, AI ethics, regulatory adaptation
- MeSH terms
- Artificial Intelligence, Governing Board, Humans, Ethics Committees, Research
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