Public Health Legal Protections in an Era of Artificial Intelligence

The field of artificial intelligence (Al)-combining computer science and robust data sets to enable problemsolving-offers profound opportunities to improve human health while cutting health care costs. The promises of machine learning to enhance medical diagnoses, speed development and approval of new drugs and vaccines, expedite clinical research, and revolutionize public health surveillance and epidemiological investigations are momentous. Yet, as a new technology with unknown potential, AI is accompanied by significant risks, including medical errors, misinformation, privacy infringements, discrimination, erosion of public trust, and perpetuation of existing health inequities.1The open sourcing of AI portals, beginning with OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022, portends new global and national health security threats. Although the predicted catastrophic risks and doomsday scenarios are debatable, without robust protections, AI could endanger public health and safety as law- and policymakers try to catch up to industry capabilities. We assess the public health and security risks of AI applications, examine current law and policy responses, and offer legal guidance to wield AI for population health while mitigating its substantial current and potential harms.