US FDA Opinions Vary On AI’s Black Box Issues. Will Uncertainty Follow?

Chief Medical Officer Hilary Marston says a black box model could be a problem for reviewers, after CDER and CBER officials said unexplainable AI models could be acceptable but transparency is important.

Transparency is important with an AI black box, the FDA said. (Shutterstock)

Some US Food and Drug Administration officials may be willing to consider artificial intelligence models that are not fully explainable, but Chief Medical Officer Hilary Marston seems concerned about their use in applications, further illustrating the agency’s ongoing challenge regulating the emerging technology.

Key Takeaways
  • FDA CMO Hilary Marston said an AI black box could be problematic because reviewers like to redo analyses in applications.

AI models sometimes produce the expected output, but their creators cannot fully explain how the model reached the answer or...

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