Primer on an ethics of AI-based decision support systems in the clinic

authored by

Matthias Braun, Patrik Hummel, Susanne Beck, Peter Dabrock

Abstract

Making good decisions in extremely complex and difficult processes and situations has always been both a key task as well as a challenge in the clinic and has led to a large amount of clinical, legal and ethical routines, protocols and reflections in order to guarantee fair, participatory and up-to-date pathways for clinical decision-making. Nevertheless, the complexity of processes and physical phenomena, time as well as economic constraints and not least further endeavours as well as achievements in medicine and healthcare continuously raise the need to evaluate and to improve clinical decision-making. This article scrutinises if and how clinical decision-making processes are challenged by the rise of so-called artificial intelligence-driven decision support systems (AI-DSS). In a first step, this article analyses how the rise of AI-DSS will affect and transform the modes of interaction between different agents in the clinic. In a second step, we point out how these changing modes of interaction also imply shifts in the conditions of trustworthiness, epistemic challenges regarding transparency, the underlying normative concepts of agency and its embedding into concrete contexts of deployment and, finally, the consequences for (possible) ascriptions of responsibility. Third, we draw first conclusions for further steps regarding a 'meaningful human control' of clinical AI-DSS.

Organisation(s)

Criminological Institute

External Organisation(s)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)

Type

Article

Journal

Journal of medical ethics

Volume

47

No. of pages

8

ISSN

0306-6800

Publication date

29.11.2021

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Health(social science), Issues, ethics and legal aspects, Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), Health Policy

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2019-105860 (Access: Open)