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Regulatory centaurs

Nature Biotechnology volume 38, pages 788–789 (2020)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Although artificial intelligence (AI) has been talked about exhaustively in the healthcare context, there has been less discussion of its application to regulatory oversight. AI represents an opportunity for the emergence of regulatory ‘centaurs’.

In the parlance of AI, a centaur is a combination of a human brain and computer intelligence. The centaur model sparked the growth of freestyle chess, a context in which Garry Kasparov concluded that “weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkable, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process.”1 There’s a lot that global medicines regulators can learn from this construct.

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References

  1. Kasparov, G. The chess master and the computer. New York Review of Books (11 February 2010); https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/02/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/

  2. US Food and Drug Administration. Individual Case Study Reports Release 2 (FDA, 2011; accessed 8 March 2020); https://www.fda.gov/industry/fda-resources-data-standards/individual-case-safety-reports

  3. Gottlieb, S. Breaking down barriers between clinical trials and clinical care: incorporating real world evidence into regulatory decision making. Speeches by FDA Officials (28 January 2019); https://www.fda.gov/news-events/speeches-fda-officials/breaking-down-barriers-between-clinical-trials-and-clinical-care-incorporating-real-world-evidence

  4. Sacristán, J. A. & Soto, J. Pharmacoeconomics 5, 299–312 (1994).

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  5. Meskó, B. Artificial intelligence will redesign healthcare. Medical Futurist (4 August 2016); https://medicalfuturist.com/artificial-intelligence-will-redesign-healthcare/

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  1. Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, New York, NY, USA

    Peter J. Pitts

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  1. Peter J. Pitts
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Correspondence to Peter J. Pitts.

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Pitts, P.J. Regulatory centaurs. Nat Biotechnol 38, 788–789 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-020-0589-x

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