Environmentally sustainable development and use of artificial intelligence in health care

Artificial intelligence (AI) can transform health care by delivering medical services to underserved areas, while also filling gaps in health care provider availability. However, AI may also lead to patient harm due to fatal glitches in robotic surgery, bias in diagnosis, or dangerous recommendation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bioethics Vol. 36; no. 5; pp. 547 - 555
Main Author: Richie, Cristina
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2022
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Subjects:
Artificial Intelligence
Bioethics
Biomedicine
Carbon
carbon emissions
Carbon footprint
Conservation
Delivery of Health Care
Emissions
environmental bioethics
Environmental impact
environmental sustainability
Ethics
Health care
Health care delivery
health care ethics
Health care industry
Health Facilities
Health services
Humans
Intelligence
Justice
Medical diagnosis
Medical ethics
Medical personnel
Medical technology
Medicine
Principles
Robotic surgery
Special Issue
Special Issue: Iab 15th World Congress
Surgery
Sustainability
Sustainable Development
Underserved populations
environmental bioethics
environmental sustainability
carbon emissions
health care ethics
artificial intelligence
ISSN:0269-9702, 1467-8519, 1467-8519
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Artificial intelligence (AI) can transform health care by delivering medical services to underserved areas, while also filling gaps in health care provider availability. However, AI may also lead to patient harm due to fatal glitches in robotic surgery, bias in diagnosis, or dangerous recommendations. Despite concerns ethicists have identified in the use of AI in health care, the most significant consideration ought not be vulnerabilities in the software, but the environmental impact of AI. Health care emits a significant amount of carbon in many countries. As AI becomes an essential part of health care, ethical reflection must include the potential to negatively impact the environment. As such, this article will first overview the carbon emissions in health care. It will, second, offer five reasons why carbon calculations are insufficient to address sustainability in health care. Third, the article will derive normative concepts from the goals of medicine, the principles of biomedical ethics, and green bioethics—the very locus in which AI in health care sits—to propose health, justice, and resource conservation as criteria for sustainable AI in health care. In the fourth and final part of the article, examples of sustainable and unsustainable development and use of AI in health care will be evaluated through the three‐fold lens of health, justice, and resource conservation. With various ethical approaches to AI in health care, the imperative for environmental sustainability must be underscored, lest carbon emissions continue to increase, harming people and planet alike.
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ISSN:0269-9702
1467-8519
1467-8519
DOI:10.1111/bioe.13018