S. Matthew Liao provides an incisive exploration into the ethical considerations intrinsic to the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare contexts. The paper underscores the burgeoning interest in employing AI for health-related purposes, with AI applications demonstrating competencies in diagnosing certain types of cancer, identifying heart rhythm abnormalities, diagnosing various eye diseases, and even identifying viable embryos. However, the author cautions that the deployment of AI in healthcare settings necessitates adherence to robust ethical frameworks and guidelines.
The author identifies a burgeoning multitude of ethical frameworks for AI that have been proposed over recent years. The count of such frameworks exceeds 80 and stems from a diverse array of sources including private corporations, governmental agencies, academic institutions, and intergovernmental bodies. These frameworks commonly reference the four principles of biomedical ethics: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice, and often include recommendations for transparency, explainability, and trust. However, the author warns that the proliferation of these frameworks has led to confusion, thereby raising pressing questions about the basis, justification, and practical implementation of these recommendations.
In response to this conundrum, the author proposes an AI ethics framework rooted in substantive human rights theory. This proposed framework seeks to address the questions raised by the proliferation of ethical guidelines and to provide clear and practical guidance for the use of AI in healthcare. The author argues for an ethical framework that is not only abstract but also expounds the grounds and justifications of the recommendations it puts forward, as well as how these recommendations should be applied in practice.
The broader philosophical discourse that this research engages with is the ethics of technology and, more specifically, the ethical and moral implications of AI use in healthcare. The central philosophical question the author grapples with is the tension between the rapid development and application of AI in healthcare and the need for substantive ethical guidelines to govern its use. This brings into sharp focus the perennial philosophical tension between progress and ethical constraint, raising the specter of issues such as the nature of autonomy, the definition of harm, and the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens.
For future research, the author’s proposition of a human rights-based ethical framework opens up multiple avenues. First, the application of this framework could be examined in real-world healthcare scenarios to assess its efficacy in guiding ethical AI use. Second, the interplay between this framework and existing legal systems could be studied to ascertain any gaps or overlaps. Lastly, a comparative analysis could be conducted of how this proposed framework fares against other ethical frameworks in use, and how it might be refined or integrated with other approaches for a more robust ethical guidance in healthcare AI applications.
Abstract
There is enormous interest in using artificial intelligence (AI) in health care contexts. But before AI can be used in such settings, we need to make sure that AI researchers and organizations follow appropriate ethical frameworks and guidelines when developing these technologies. In recent years, a great number of ethical frameworks for AI have been proposed. However, these frameworks have tended to be abstract and not explain what grounds and justifies their recommendations and how one should use these recommendations in practice. In this paper, I propose an AI ethics framework that is grounded in substantive, human rights theory and one that can help us address these questions.
Ethics of AI and Health Care: Towards a Substantive Human Rights Framework