How Artificial Intelligence Might Save Bioethics (And it’s not how you think)

Speaker: Eric M. Meslin, PhD FRSC FCAHS ICD.D

By now society has become familiar with the promised benefits and potential pitfalls of the artificial intelligence revolution. Not since the early years of genetic engineering has a technology captured our imagination and fears so quickly.  But AI has done something else – it has dragged bioethics into unfamiliar territory: this is because AI does not fit comfortably under one category of analysis (e.g., research, policy, technology development, public health) nor is even limited to the health sector, but touches on every sector of society including trade policy, national security, banking, and immigration, among others.   This is a good thing, as it calls on bioethics to take stock of how it can (and should) engage in future-altering policy debates.