The Department of Health and Human Services’ research funding agency is seeking information on potential uses for agentic artificial intelligence (AI) in health care.
In a recent request for information (RFI), the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) said it’s looking to see how agentic AI systems can “improve health outcomes” and requested information on recent implementations of agentic AI, how multiple agentic AI systems work together, risks, optimization, ethics, and scalability.
Agentic AI systems are built to conduct complex tasks on their own with minimal human oversight – with many companies increasingly beginning to develop and advertise their agentic systems.
“Current and expected advances in Agentic AI will facilitate the deployment of autonomous AI agents in healthcare settings […] where the ability for AI agents to collaborate with each other and with humans will have the potential to revolutionize modern medicine, accelerate science, and relieve the burden of overtaxed healthcare professionals and shift many tasks to AI agents,” reads the document.
Other assumptions made by ARPA-H include that agentic AI is currently used in low-stake situations and has a human in the loop for high-consequence situations. The document added that it assumes “agency is the natural progression of Artificial Intelligence.”
ARPA-H also noted that while it is looking for examples related to healthcare if submissions aren’t currently applicable to healthcare, they’re interested in how they could be in the future.
Submissions are due by Nov. 29, 2024, and respondents are asked to submit electronically to eureka@arpa-h.gov. Responses should also include information on how autonomous a system is and how many interactions it has with other agents, according to the document.
