Artificial Intelligence in Social Health: A Narrative Review of Uses, Advantages, Challenges, and Future Directions

Artificial intelligence (AI) is deeply integrated into daily life. Emerging evidence suggests AI may help change the dynamics of social relationships by influencing social interactions, connectivity, and interpersonal relationships, and by providing new avenues for communication and contributing to improved social well-being. Therefore, this review aims to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as a tool to enhance social health, focusing on current applications, advantages, challenges, and ethical considerations associated with their implementation, as well as opportunities for future development. The literature on the relationship between the connectedness of social health dimensions and AI as a tool to better understand how interactions with AI technologies may influence social well-being. In this current review, key terms such as "Artificial Intelligence", "Social Health", "social inequalities", "AI algorithm", "AI technology", "social connection", "digital communication", "social participation", "social support", "social isolation", "loneliness", "mental wellbeing", were used to search relevant literature on Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Sciences. In addition, relevant aspects of the multidimensional impacts of AI on social health dimensions are also discussed. The use of AI technologies by individuals within societies was found to hold profound potential to reshape social health through enhancing social relationships, bridging communication gaps in diverse populations, stimulating social dynamics, and understanding human emotions. It may contribute to reducing social inequalities, promoting equity, accommodating individual differences, and enhancing the effectiveness of many tasks in the social and health care systems through deep learning, natural language processing, and machine learning techniques. This reduces social exclusion and increases accessibility and quality of health and social services. However, AI has also posed distinguishable challenges to its adoption, specifically in terms of data quality, privacy and security, algorithmic bias, ethical issues, public trust and acceptance, and regulatory and policy gaps. Evidence suggests that building public trust in the future of AI in social health requires interdisciplinary collaboration among health providers and professionals, social scientists, community members, and policymakers. Such collaboration is crucial to ensure that AI platforms do not perpetuate social inequalities or biases by maintaining transparency, explainability, and demonstrated effectiveness. In conclusion, the integration of AI into social health dimensions holds promise for social health transformation. As we move forward, several key areas need to be addressed to develop a robust governance and regulatory framework, along with ethical guidelines to ensure privacy protection, respect for human rights, transparency, and the promotion of the common good.