AI Accountability in Justice and Medicine – Ethics and EU AI Act
The article explores AI accountability challenges in criminal justice and medicine, focusing on opaque decision-making and responsibility gaps. It outlines how the EU AI Act aims to address these risks through risk-based regulation, transparency mandates, and human oversight for high-risk AI systems.
Background
The EU AI Act, passed in 2024, is the world's first comprehensive law regulating artificial intelligence. It classifies AI systems by risk level (unacceptable, high, limited, minimal) and imposes strict requirements on "high-risk" systems, especially in sensitive domains like criminal justice (e.g., predictive policing, risk-assessment tools) and medicine (e.g., diagnostic algorithms, surgical robotics). Neural Core Tech is a consultancy/analysis firm focused on emerging technology regulation. This piece examines how the Act's accountability frameworks — transparency obligations, human oversight, bias auditing — apply to AI used in courtrooms and hospitals, where errors can have life-altering consequences. It also highlights tensions: the Act's focus on European markets versus global deployment, and the challenge of enforcing rules on opaque "black box" models.