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Artificial Intelligence in Forensic Medicine

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Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

Abstract

Forensic medicine lies at the crossroads between medicine and justice, with a particular connection to criminal law. This field can be broken down into two major areas: clinical forensic medicine, which focuses on the living, and forensic pathology, which focuses on the dead. The use of data, and in particular artificial intelligence (AI), in this context faces two distinct challenges. First, there needs to be a discussion about the concept of evidence both upstream and downstream. A distinction must be made between scientific evidence, which is used to train algorithms and to support forensic reasoning in order to produce valid and robust information and legal evidence, which can include scientific data from investigations and interviews, as well as data produced by algorithms. The second challenge is individualization. One of the problems found in medicine, namely the application to a particular patient and situation of statistical knowledge established based on homogeneous groups whose study characteristics do not necessarily correspond to those of the patient, is only exacerbated in the field of forensic medicine. Not only must scientific knowledge be individualized, ensuring the validity of the algorithm to the specific case, without any learning or inclusion bias, but legal reasoning and the sentences handed down must be individualized too. AI can be used to support doctors’ decision-making in forensic medicine, and it can also be used to structure research necessary for the evolution of scientific knowledge in forensic medicine. To date, the AIs used to support decision-making remain fairly immature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRIS Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux Sociaux, UMR8156 CNRS – U997 Inserm – EHESS – Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paris, France

    Thomas Lefèvre

  2. Department of Forensic and Social Medicine, AP-HP, Jean Verdier Hospital, Bondy, France

    Thomas Lefèvre

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  1. Thomas Lefèvre
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Correspondence to Thomas Lefèvre .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Niklas Lidströmer

  2. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Hutan Ashrafian

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Lefèvre, T. (2022). Artificial Intelligence in Forensic Medicine. In: Lidströmer, N., Ashrafian, H. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64573-1_220

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64573-1_220

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64572-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-64573-1

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