Acerca de
Legal Foundations of AI in Civil Law as the key to enhancing the level of People’s Health and Awareness of how to save thereof.
Healthy Lifestyle promoted online by virtue of AI.
Polina Prianykova
International Human Rights Defender on AI,
Author of the First AI Constitution in World History,
Student of the Law Faculty & the Faculty of Economics
Legal Foundations of AI in Civil Law as the key to enhancing the level of People’s Health and Awareness of how to save thereof. Healthy Lifestyle promoted online by virtue of AI.
In the modern era of advanced innovations and multitudinous technological novelties, a great variety of miscellaneous digital tools and applications are elaborated and deployed. But do they all really serve the needs of the public? Has the world government regulated and exercised control over novation, especially the ones pertaining to the spheres of national importance? The exposition of such issues intertwined with the use and regulation of Artificial Intelligence in public health is presented in this scientific article.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Civil Law, healthy lifestyle & AI, useful applications, AI regulation, innovative healthcare, governmental monopoly on AI, protection of the minors’ freedoms & rights, governmental AI.
Formulation of the relevance of the scientific article. More than 2.5 million deaths due to heart attacks and strokes caused by an excessive amount of salt consumption do occur every year, worldwide [1]. Sugar intake is also challenging to control for people due to added sugars embedded in the food and beverage chains and resulting in long-term detrimental effects on the health of the individual [2]. Nutrition labels often seem unclear, not reader-friendly, and, taking into account a particularly dynamic pace of modern life, are unfortunately tended to be neglected or misinterpreted by hurrying consumers. These cases are full of potential for improvement, using AI in particular, and should be regulated in civil law.
The pertinence of this scientific work stems from the exigency of finding feasible solutions to the pervasive issues pertaining to leading a healthy lifestyle and raising awareness concerning wherefore it is one of the most pivotal aspects of our lives in modern and constantly changing realities. And the legislation has to keep up with the times.
Artificial Intelligence may and should become great succor in the promotion of healthy living and its further global incarnation. Hence, potential pathways of how to tune AI in compliance with respective recommendations, inter alia on healthy eating patterns, elaborated by the World Health Organization (hereinafter referred to as ‘WHO’) are comprehensively studied and outlined; liaison between my Scientific Doctrine (on AI implementation into the worldwide legislation by Polina Prianykova) and one of the crucial AI’s transformations into a beneficial healthy tool that would serve the humankind is clarified and emphasized.
Presentation of the main body of the scientific article. As tectonic shifts in the world order and its basis are being faced, it gives us a reason to presume that some aspects of paramount importance are being receded into the background. Unfortunately, such a tendency can be traced in respect of the regulation of the novel technologies’ implementation and use as well as their adherence to planning procedures in terms of the formation of healthy habits among human beings. However, a tad hiatus in terms of significant matters may become the first sign of further stagnation and only aggravate the process of renewal of work on these projects. Hence, we will start with analyzing and assessing some relevant facts related to acute healthcare problems and how it is possible to gain a remedy in the form of AI, and to regulate this process at the legislative level.
People’s awareness of basic facts such as the need of consuming nutritious food and drinking clean water is quite common. A healthy lifestyle itself has already been promoted by a great variety of organizations, public food service chains, and even individuals, e.g., celebrities or popular influencers on social networking sites. For instance, as claimed by ‘Healthline Media’, “influencers are driving tangible, real-world actions when it comes to treatment”. 74% of network users are highly likely to consult with their doctor about the treatment guided by the advice of a health influencer, and 50 % of these people have already done so [3]. Thus, it is not surprising that such private online platforms or accounts where media representatives post recommendations become certain bonanzas for marketers and brands as the target audience is almost ‘served on a silver plate’. This way, some practical tips, concerning fundamental rules of healthy eating in particular, dilute or may not be adequately enlightened due to the fact that the focal point is most frequently set on the promotion of private companies’ interests.
Unequivocally, there exists an opinion that making an appointment with a qualified nutritionist might be much more efficacious and beneficial. However, if we take a closer look at the fact that “more than 3 billion people in the world cannot afford a healthy diet in 2017” provided by the ‘Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ and bear in mind that food price inflation has risen above 5% in the course of this spring and summer, we may assume the tendency that the appalling number of 3 billion people may exponentially rise during these difficult times [4, 5]. The last is one of the primary reasons why many individuals are most likely to prefer a free and prompt online consultation on a healthy diet – they are literally pressed for time and material resources. Nevertheless, many people do still remain ignorant when it comes to fundamental aspects of healthy eating patterns, although the last ones are commonly conceptualized in myriads of official guidelines. And one of such factors lies not only in the misunderstanding of certain provisions, but the challenge of compliance therewith.
As we have already mentioned afore, salt and sugar are one of the most essential and commonly added ingredients, being concurrently challenging to calculate the amount thereof, a person consumes daily. According to the information provided by ‘WHO’, “most people consume too much salt – on average 9–12 grams per day, or around twice the recommended maximum level of intake” [6]. With an aim to prevent the risk of unhealthy weight gain, tooth decay, and other non-communicable diseases, in 2015 ‘WHO’ also published a ‘Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children’ where it is outlined that people are strongly recommended to reduce the intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake [7]. Much of these ‘uncontrollable’ salt and sugar are hidden in processed foods and meals.
In 2013 World Health Organization set a target of reducing salt consumption by approximately 30% by 2025. However, it only decreased by 0.2% in 2020 in contrast to the 2.4% necessary to achieve the goal [8]. One of the reasons for such disappointing figures lies in the complexity of these key ingredients – salt and sugar – identification. As the mentioned ingredients are named differently or written in small print, consumers of the 21st century literally have to be adept at reading the fine print, inter alia notwithstanding the fact that global problems with eyesight such as presbyopia and myopia are expected to substantially rise according to the ‘World report on vision’ provided by ‘WHO’ in 2019 [9].
Many experts do often blame nutrition labeling for the perplexity in recognizing the healthiest product. In the US, for example, researchers found that only 9% of participants were able to identify the most healthful product, while the most worrying number presented became 13% – the number of people who identified the least nutritious food option as the healthiest. Advertising slogans were claimed to be one of the ‘red herrings’ while making a choice [10].
Taking into account the research conducted by the British network ‘The Conversation’, “there isn’t a consistent system for food labeling in the UK”. What is more, although the current guidelines are supposed to be simplified and adapted for the reader, the ambiguity in the interpretation of the information is still very present [11].
Hence, being cognizant of the aforementioned ubiquitous pitfalls for the consumer to strike a balance in healthy eating as well as governmental challenges of conveying vital information to people, we propose to elaborate an advanced and beneficial tool – ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ application or chatbot, powered by AI, which would comprise all the necessary individually tailored tips at our fingertips, with mandatory legislative regulation.
Artificial Intelligence may become one of the main ‘game players’ in encouraging and provisioning respective assistance in order to help people in getting into and maintaining healthy habits. The concept of the aforementioned application lies in giving a person a clear understanding of which products are the most nutritious and beneficial for the organism and calculating the recommended daily norm of water, salt and sugar in particular. What is more, it would allow young parents who may not have much experience in feeding their baby to develop and keep up to an individually-oriented healthy diet. People may also be virtually consulted on whether it is allowed to take certain medications simultaneously or what kind of food is better not to be mixed. In other words, this healthy app would become a specific personal consultation diary, free from advertisements and opinions imposed by marketers.
In order to underscore our point, we will review several significant aspects which would help us to discern our concept of a ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ app from a commercialized variety of others.
Governmental monopoly on development and deployment of the application itself and its robust standards. On May 3rd, 2022, European Parliament adopted a resolution on artificial intelligence in a digital age (2020/2266(INI)) where it stated that “by 2030, AI is expected to contribute more than EUR 11 trillion to the global economy” [12]. Hence, it may be evident that the interest in such digital tools may only be increasing, especially given their profitability, on the part of some corporate actors in particular. This could lead to further manipulation and concentration of power in hands of individuals with vested interests, influencing the masses and their sentiments in different countries. What is more, the European Union expresses certain concerns inextricably intertwined with the fact that it may not keep pace with the US or China due to fewer investments in the digital market, although remaining competitive regarding the conduct of multidimensional research in the respective field [12]. However, such a disquietude may be shown on the part of different countries, including the ones aforementioned. Clashes between political systems, specific marginalization or elimination of some crucial elements from each country’s order, a discrepancy between fundamental human rights and algorithms Artificial Intelligence is programmed to comply with – all these issues may be resolved if the world’s government decides to elaborate and implement AI into digital platforms and tools on a centralized basis, under the auspices of the United Nations and the respective statutory instrument.
As we have stipulated in our scientific articles before, the government of each country would have an opportunity to exercise control over all the realms it finds essential to function and prosper in order to experience complete freedom and objectivity, being not dependent on commercial AI powerholders and be able to take care of its people [13, 14]. Unequivocally, countries may have the sole right to license individuals and enterprises who would like to use the novel technology. The government, in its turn, would have an opportunity to verify and ensure that AI is considered to serve conscientious and bona fide needs.
In the EU, the notion of ‘an EU-wide certification scheme for trustworthy AI’ has been expressed [12]. Nevertheless, the AI system that may function worldwide, guided by international standards which in the long-term may be adjusted to specificities of each country’s legal system, has not been given the respective focus.
Nowadays, unfortunately, AI is widely operationalized by its developers and proprietors up to their discretion, notwithstanding the fact that clarified and harmonized global standards for innovations have not been properly stipulated and enacted yet. Thus, governmental AI algorithms have to be elaborated and integrated with commercial AI ones. In such a way, non-governmental AI would have to be interoperable with the governmental one, which would fix some errors if needed and ensure that the license applicant (non-governmental AI) can be trusted.
Unequivocally, the regulatory environment for commercial AI may become the solid basis, inter alia “to combat abuses of market power” [12], which would provide the protection of fundamental human rights. However, it may not be sufficient in the long term as particular functions misaligned with the stipulated provisions may evolve. Thusly, as novel technologies are often prescribed to have a fine grasp of detail, governmental AI would become advanced succor in terms of adequate supervision on behalf of the state that, in its turn, would be able to ascertain the non-interference of the commercial AI in spheres of public interest. We believe that in the Civil Law of each country, in particular in the field of health care, a new cluster with AI will occupy a whole branch or probably an extensive section of legislation, the norms thereof will regulate all these issues in detail to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens.
It is significant to note that the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ application must be fully operated by the governmental AI – in such a way, it would not only promote the novel centralized system of AI but would provide its users with verified information taken from the WHO’s database.
Safety of Confidential Information. What is more, not only governmental monopoly on AI in itself provides the users with greater protection of their confidential information, but excludes certain leverage of influence over the state system on behalf of third parties. Otherwise, a wealth of information may fall into the hands of some unscrupulous individuals who may decide to parse the data and further use it for mercenary goals, e.g., provide the users with biased advice and promote services or medicaments of their production, being guided by the only objective – to market their business.
Avoiding ‘feature creeps’ and ensuring multiple functions. ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ has to be reader-friendly, transparent, and always at hand. The concept of its functions has to be clearly stated as well. A tailored approach that may be relegated to one of the app’s crucial aspects implies the notion that people may enter particular queries related to personal concerns, and AI, analyzing an enormous amount of information, may issue a reply that would be at a person’s fingertips. Undoubtedly, health issues are purely individual, and, in most cases, the person may then be referred to a medical specialist.
However, in cases of emergency, there exists a common tendency that people may not know the basics of first aid provision. For instance, according to ‘British Red Cross’ only 5% of respondents “would feel knowledgeable confident and willing to act in three potentially life-threatening first aid emergencies – helping someone who is bleeding heavily, is unresponsive and breathing, or is unresponsive and not breathing” [15]. Hence, it might be presumed that if interviewees had been asked how to give the right first aid treatment for alcohol intoxication, the answers could be inaccurate and vague. It is also significant to mention that quite often when people start hastily surfing the Net for the answers, they get on private websites rather than official ones certified by the government and trusted specialists. Hence, if our novel application, e.g., in case of emergency, provides people with tips approved by verified medical representatives, it may save human lives. Everything has to be prescribed in detail in the legislative norms.
The food and beverages scanner may also be handy, especially when we take up the issue of shopping. Imagine a knowledgeable consumer, who wants to buy healthy products and tries to consider the ingredients label. However, it may happen that the description is not stated clearly (not reader-friendly, a brand with a composition set out in a foreign language, etc.). Hence, it would be a convenient option to deploy a feature of a ‘scanner’ into the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ app which would analyze the information about ingredients and lay out the key information in a way comprehensible to the consumer, also outlining whether the scanned product is high in salt or sugar, suggesting the proper daily norm defined by ‘WHO’. As AI is supposed to learn and evolve, it may presumably recognize various popular products and labels thereof easily and fast, bearing in mind the fact that this function has undergone the respective testing.
Particular beneficial tips such as the necessity of sports exercises, screen time monitoring, and taking care of your physical and mental health have already been implemented on a wide variety of online platforms. However, if such options were available in our app, it would also be a useful feature worth considering. Moreover, the options aforementioned, by agreement with the Ministry of Health, would be highly objective, without comprisal of a commercial component.
This app (e.g., in a smartphone) may not become a substitution for medical counseling, but an excellent addition, in terms of professional administration in particular. For instance, the database of verified doctors, inter alia from state hospitals, may be included in the application and hence, the novelty would optimize the process of scheduling appointments with medical specialists, particularly family doctors. Moreover, taking into consideration the idea of each country-orientated and simultaneously global system of international cooperation, the app may expand the aforementioned database by including information about languages health care provider speaks. Hence, the patients would be able to get medical treatment and consultation interpreted in the language they understand. In view of the analogy with the provision of legal aid (when, under the WAP COMPATRIOT, we coordinated people, who contacted us, with lawyers who provided services in the country of client’s actual stay in a language understood by our compatriots) elaborated in one of our previous scientific articles [14], citizens of different countries around the globe would be given an opportunity to receive medical help internationally, in state hospitals with greater chances of finding a healthcare professional who speaks the same language as the patient does.
Shedding the light on the subject of sustainability of a respective chatbot, it is significant to note that in June 2022, research on whether AI chatbots would be effective at encouraging a healthy lifestyle and making certain changes in people’s behavior was carried out [16]. According to the published conclusions, AI chatbots are considered to possess a capacity of “providing personalized interventions and could be scalable to diverse and large populations”. Hence, this notion is viewed as feasible and particularly acceptable to be further implemented in our modern realities. Undoubtedly, notwithstanding the fact that “AI chatbot interventions are still at a nascent stage”, the latter might start evolving in the nearest future. Thus, relevant studies have to be conducted timely in order to envisage and curb possible challenges. Accordingly, regulation of these processes at the legislative level is urgent and critically necessary.
It is also pivotal to outline that, by analyzing vast data and users’ queries, the government may trace certain tendencies concerning what difficulties and problems their citizens face while buying products as well as leading a healthy lifestyle. Advanced technologies may also help human beings in reining in a specific ambivalence between their attitude and understanding of a healthy lifestyle and their actual behavior in compliance therewith. What is more, AI may even predict particular trends in the long-term and facilitate the process of adapting the governmental policy in terms of provision of medical help and support, protection of the people’s health.
Supporting the notion mentioned afore, it is worth mentioning an initiative known as ‘Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘EIOS’) which came to light as a “culmination of a joint commitment by the Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI), the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) and ‘WHO’ to enhance capacity to assess epidemic threats to global health security” [17]. EIOS system is aimed to identify possible world health threats in the early stages and eliminate such detrimental emergencies in the long run. In this program, Artificial Intelligence is inextricably intertwined with Epidemic Intelligence, forming a sustainable connection. However, the initiative still has particular points of growth as well as the algorithms that have to be developed and the functioning thereof has to be constantly supervised. For instance, the trustworthiness of texts analyzed by technology lies in learning how to classify the credibility of miscellaneous articles from the writing style and tone; at the same time, the algorithms still need certain directions that can be outlined by scrupulous individuals as some deceptive texts may also fall under analysis. This case may lead to the thought that particular ambiguity may inevitably occur in the categorization of whether the articles analyzed contain certain provisions pertaining to rumors, junk science, clickbait, etc. Hence, it is of paramount importance for the government to give the right direction to these novel technologies and modify the programmed principles deployed into the algorithms. With an aim of realizing this goal, in our opinion, a new branch/section in Civil Law is requisite.
Nevertheless, taking into account the fact that analogical algorithms might be deployed into the ‘Heathy Lifestyle’ application or chatbot, it would presumably give a nudge to the development thereof.
Synthesizing the information mentioned above, it is significant to put the emphasis on the stipulations set out in one of the EU documents that highlights the respective global health policy, also known as ‘The EU Role in Global Health’ [18]. When it comes to the investment of particular novel projects in the sphere of medicine, it is considered “essential that research priorities are geared to making the biggest impact on public health” [19]. It is vital to note that a unique formula of our application proposed in this scientific article may be integrated not only on the ground of the evidence-based policies, taking into account the fact that the app may be highly beneficial and sustainable; but parallelly this app may stand as an inalienable part of the system of impulses for figuring the outlined evidence itself by analyzing people’s needs and, hence, generating knowledge out of this novel health information system. In other words, the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ application or chatbot may set directions for the evidence-based policy and hence, be not only its result but a certain commencement of the referred policy in manifold spheres. Thus, the monopoly on the elaboration, implementation, and use of AI in such crucial fields as public health has to be controlled by the government, ensuring the compliance of the respective application’s AI algorithms with the fundamental legal provisions and creating a steadfast and even salubrious system for generations as well as technological advancement in particular.
References:
1) ‘Report of the Formal Meeting of Member States to conclude the work on the comprehensive global monitoring framework, including indicators, and a set of voluntary global targets for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases’, World Health Organization. 2012 – URL: https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/3082, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
2) ‘Long-Term Overconsumption of Sugar Starting at Adolescence Produces Persistent Hyperactivity and Neurocognitive Deficits in Adulthood’, Kate Beecher, Ignatius Alvarez Cooper, Joshua Wang, Shaun B. Walters, Fatemeh Chehrehasa, Selena E. Bartlett, and Arnauld Belmer, 2021 – URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.670430/full, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
3) ‘Social Influencer Trend Report, 2020’, ‘Healthline Media’, 2020 – URL: https://www.healthlinemedia.com/assets/files/Healthline-Media_2020-Social-Influencer-Trend-Report.pdf, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
4) ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020. Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets’, FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, 2020 – URL: https://www.fao.org/3/ca9692en/ca9692en.pdf, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
5) ‘Are healthy diets affordable? Using new data to guide agricultural and food policy’, ‘World Bank Live’, 2022 – URL: https://live.worldbank.org/events/healthy-diets-affordable#speakers, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
6) ‘Salt reduction’, World Health Organization, 2020 – URL: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/salt-reduction, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
7) ‘Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children’, Geneva: World Health Organization, 2015 – URL: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241549028, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
8) ‘3M people die due to excessive salt consumption every year: WHO’, ‘German Press Agency’, 2021 – URL: https://www.dailysabah.com/life/health/3m-people-die-due-to-excessive-salt-consumption-every-year-who, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
9) ‘World report on vision’, Geneva: World Health Organization, 2019 – URL: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241516570, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
10) ‘Only 9% of Americans can properly read a nutrition label with many falling for misleading labels like 'whole grain' or 'fat free' on the front of packaging’, Mansur Shaheen, Deputy Health Editor for ‘Dailymail.com’, 2022 – URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10722517/Only-9-Americans-properly-read-nutrition-label.html, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
11) ‘Food labels too complicated for most shoppers to understand – new research’, Dawn Liu, Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Essex, 2019 – URL: https://theconversation.com/food-labels-too-complicated-for-most-shoppers-to-understand-new-research-121837, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
12) European Parliament resolution of 3 May 2022 on artificial intelligence in a digital age (2020/2266(INI)), European Parliament – URL: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0140_EN.html
13) ‘Specific Legislative Amendments that have to be introduced to the Constitutional Law of Every Country’, Polina Prianykova, International Human Rights Defender on AI, 2022 – URL: https://prianykovabusiness.wixsite.com/defender/aiandconstitutionallaw, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
14) ‘Polina Prianykova’s Scientific Doctrine on AI Implementation into the Worldwide Legislation, inter alia in Criminal Law anent the Governmental Assistance in the Migration Process and the Assessment of Risk Development on part of Unmanned Aircraft Systems’, Polina Prianykova, International Human Rights Defender on AI, 2022 – URL: https://prianykovabusiness.wixsite.com/defender/prianykovascientificdoctrineonai, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
15) ‘Press release - New research shows just 5% of adults have the skills and confidence to provide first aid in emergency situations’, ‘British Red Cross’, 2018 – URL: https://www.redcross.org.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/press-releases/press-release-new-research-on-adults-and-first-aid, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
16) ‘Can AI-chatbots promote health-lifestyle changes?’, Suchandrima Bhowmik, 2022 – URL: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220711/Can-AI-chatbots-promote-health-lifestyle-changes.aspx, Accessed on 04 October 2022
17) ‘EIOS Leadership and Governance’, World Health Organization – URL: https://www.who.int/initiatives/eios/eios-leadership-and-governance, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
18) ‘The EU in Global Health’, European Commission – URL: https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2016-11/20140930_global_health_infograph_en_0.pdf, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
19) ‘The EU Role in Global Health’, European Commission, 2010 – URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0128:FIN:EN:PDF, Accessed on 04 October 2022.
Officially Published in October 18-21, 2022, Helsinki, Finland (Table of Contents, № 27)
© Copyright by Polina Prianykova_all rights reserved
