THE potential to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the medical assessment of terminally ill patients was the subject of a detailed debate on amendments in the House of Lords last week.

The former Conservative minister Baroness Coffey, who is a Roman Catholic, was keen to press for clarity on the impact of “evolution in medicine”.

She said: “I do not know to what extent the Government have confidence in the use of AI in the diagnosis of lifespans. A new evolution in government is that AI is now starting to handle consultations.”

She wanted to know more about the “consideration of artificial intelligence in relation to the practicality and operability” of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill “if it were to become law”.

The Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Revd Richard Jackson, thanked Baroness Coffey for “raising a very important issue”. His concern was that “we distinguish between AI tools and the more dangerous artificial general intelligence, or superintelligence. . . To exclude the use of AI altogether might deprive patients who are considering assisted dying of valuable diagnostic assistance and care at a very vulnerable time.”

But he was clear that “it would not be acceptable for a general-purpose artificial intelligence, still to be developed, to be part of the decision-making process. . .

“Were this Bill to pass, it would be vital that decisions about assisted dying required the combination of intelligence, wisdom, and love — as defined by Thomas Aquinas as ‘to will the good of the other’. These are distinctive and uniquely human qualities. However sophisticated AI becomes, it can never replace human interaction and judgment — and it should not do so.”

Lord Deben, another Roman Catholic and former Conservative minister, picked up on Bishop Jackson’s Thomist reference. “There is a remarkable book called Why Aquinas Matters Now, which is well worth reading in the context of this particular Bill.”

Earlier in the debate, a former Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Lord Harries, spoke on the importance of human interaction, and a “common-sense view that of course we all agree that it is much better to have face-to-face interviews”.

“It would”, he said, “be much safer to have a Bill in which it is specified that interviews should be face to face.”

The point having been made, Baroness Coffey withdrew her proposed amendment on AI.