The WHO’s AI warning

Illustration of a female healthcare worker wearing scrubs and a surgical mask created with Generative AI technology.

IMAGO/Nedrofly Stock via Reuters Connect

Generative AI could be game-changing for the world of medicine. It could help researchers discover new drugs and better match ailing patients with correct diagnoses.

But the World Health Organization is concerned about everything that could go wrong. The global health authority is formally warning countries to monitor and evaluate large language models for medical and health-related risks.

“The very last thing that we want to see happen as part of this leap forward with technology is the propagation or amplification of inequities and biases in the social fabric of countries around the world,” said WHO official Alain Labrique. This advice was issued as part of a larger guidance on AI in healthcare, a topic on which the WHO began advising in 2021.

Artificial intelligence systems are susceptible to bias, because the inclusion or absence of data could seriously affect its outputs. For example, if a medical AI model is trained solely on health data from people in wealthy nations, it could miss or misunderstand populations in poorer nations and do harm if used improperly.

More from GZERO Media

Protesters hold Democratic Republic of Congo flags during a march to voice concerns about issues regarding the recent conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), outside the parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, February 7, 2025.
REUTERS/Esa Alexander

On Tuesday, Angola offered to mediate an end to the conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group.

Flags hung at the reconvening of the COP16 conference in Rome last month, with an inset image of Adrian Gahan, the ocean lead for Campaign for Nature.
María José Valverde and Adrian Gahan

Countries gathered in Rome in late February to finalize key decisions left unresolved after last year’s COP16 summit in Colombia. In Italy, negotiators agreed to the first global deal for finance conservation, which aims to achieve the landmark goal of protecting and restoring 30% of the world’s land and seas by 2030. Eurasia Group’s María José Valverde interviewed Adrian Gahan, the ocean lead for Campaign for Nature, a global campaign founded in 2018 to safeguard the 30x30 target, as we look ahead to the UN ocean conference and continue building on the nature agenda for 2025.

Trump in front of a downward trending graph and economic indicators.
Jess Frampton

For someone who campaigned on lowering grocery prices on day one and rode widespread economic discontent to the White House, Donald Trump sure seems bent on pursuing policies that will increase that discontent.

An Israeli soldier stands next to a gate on a road near the Israel-Lebanon border, in Israel, on March 12, 2025.

REUTERS/Avi Ohayon

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to start talks “as soon as possible” on their disputed land border nearly four months after a ceasefire ended the most recent war between the two countries.

A man walks as a Danish flag flutters next to Hans Egede Statue ahead of a March 11 general election in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025.
REUTERS/Marko Djurica

Greenland’s center-right parties trounced the ruling left-wing coalition in Tuesday’s election. In a blow to US President Donald Trump’s plans to annex the Arctic territory, a once-marginal party that favors a slow separation from Denmark is set to lead the next government.