Is SA ready to handle AI?

Need to consider legal, ethical issues technology brings.

- Franaaz Khan

This year, it was reported that 2024 promised to be the groundbreaking year in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), with even more applications to be used across various fields.

However, as AI technology rapidly grows, questions arise about who should be held responsible when things go wrong.

For example, IBM Watson for Oncology was promoted as a tool to help doctors diagnose and treat cancer in the US. Soon thereafter, reports surfaced that Watson had recommended "unsafe and incorrect" cancer treatments, leading to concerns about their reliability and potential harm to patients.

In addition, AI tools used in radiology to detect diseases like cancer have occasionally missed diagnoses or made incorrect ones. In some cases, this has led to delayed treatments or unnecessary procedures, potentially harming patients.

In 2018, an Uber self-driving car struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, in the US.

The AI system failed to identify the pedestrian correctly and did not take appropriate action to avoid the collision.

So, who should be held liable in such cases arising from AI?

In South African law, determining liability for wrongful actions that result in harm is known as delict. Delict traditionally involves a straightforward test: where we compare the conduct of the wrongdoer to what a "reasonable person" would have done.

This standard is a representation of societal demands of proper behaviour. It aims to ensure that everyone acts responsibly.