The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the doctor-patient relationship is the focus of the report published today by the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO). The report was prepared by Brent Mittelstadt, Senior Research Fellow and Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford). It explores how AI systems that are used in the medical-patient relationship impact on the human rights listed in the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (“Oviedo Convention”). More specifically, six aspects are considered: inequality in access to high quality healthcare; transparency to health professionals and patients; risk of social bias in AI systems; dilution of the patient’s account of well-being; risk of automation bias, de-skilling, and displaced liability; and impact on the right to privacy. It advocates for the need to develop “ethical standards” based on “transparency, bias, confidentiality, and clinical efficacy to protect patient interests in informed consent, equality, privacy, and safety”, so that the use of AI in healthcare may “help rather than hinder the trusting relationship between doctors and patients”.