How AI-Driven Healthcare will Change Medical Ethics

Joshua Schulz (DeSales)

Date: June 15, 2021

Time: 1600-1730 (Amsterdam time)

45 minutes talk followed by discussion

Abstract

This paper begins with the relatively uncontroversial claim that how we define the nature and ends of medicine depends on our current best model of scientific investigation. It is now possible to draw a distinction between analog and digital models of medicine based on how we collect, analyze, and use data. We argue that the development of sophisticated AI will encourage medicine to increasingly focus on disease prediction, risk-management, and behavior optimization. However, principle-based approaches to clinical bioethics are ill-prepared to deal with novel problems posed by this shift. Specifically, an increasing emphasis on the medical management of long-tail risk factors for asymptomatic, primary-prevention targets will raise two sets of worries: one about the medicalization of daily life, and a second about which of several competing models of virtue ethics are best equipped to think about ethical concerns arising from these changes—that is, how medical ethics should deal with what is coming to be known as the problem of ‘corrupt personalization.’

Please register via the link if you wish to participate in the seminar by June 9th: https://forms.gle/ewduVCyHRs7NFQBH7

We will send you the link later.

If you have any inquiries, please contact Dr Pei-hua Huang (p.huang.1@erasmusmc.nl) or Dr Cristina Richie (C.S.Richie@tudelft.nl).