Epistemic status of artificial intelligence in medical practice: Ethical challenges

Abstract

Advances in artificial intelligence have raised controversy in modern scientific research regarding the objectivity, plausibility, and reliability of knowledge, and whether these technologies will replace the expert figure as the authority that has so far served as a guarantor of objectivity and the center of decision-making. In their book on the history of scientific objectivity, modern historians of science L. Duston and P. Galison discuss the interchangeability of “epistemic virtues,” which now include objectivity. Moreover, selecting one or another virtue governing the scientific self, i.e., serving as a normative principle for a scientist when adopting a perspective or scientific practice, depends on making decisions in difficult cases that require will and self-restriction. In this sense, epistemology and ethics are intertwined: a scientist, guided by certain moral principles, prefers one or another course of action, such as choosing not a more accurate hand-drawn image but an unretouched photograph, perhaps fuzzy, but obtained mechanically, which means it is more objective and free of subjectivity. In this regard, the epistemic standing of modern artificial intelligence technologies, which increasingly perform the functions of the scientific self, including influencing ultimate decision-making and obtaining objective knowledge, is intriguing. For example, in medicine, robotic devices considerable support and are assigned some of the responsibilities of a primary care physician, such as collecting and analyzing standardized patient data and diagnosis. It is expected that artificial intelligence will take on more tasks such as data processing, development of new drugs and treatment methods, and remote interaction with patients. It remains to be seen whether this implies that the scientific self can be replaced by artificial intelligence algorithms and another epistemic virtue will replace objectivity, thus breaking the link between ethics and epistemology.

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