Ethics & Human Research
The Prospect of Artificial Intelligence-Supported Ethics Review
ABSTRACT The burden of research ethics review falls not just on researchers, but also on those who serve on research ethics committees (RECs). With the advent of automated text analysis and generative artificial intelligence (AI), it has recently become possible to teach AI models to support human judgment, for example, by highlighting relevant parts of a text and suggesting actionable precedents and explanations. It is time to consider how such tools might be used to support ethics review and oversight. This essay argues that with a suitable strategy of engagement, AI can be used in a variety of ways that genuinely support RECs to manage their workload and improve the quality of review. It would be wiser to take an active role in the development of AI tools for ethics review, rather than to adopt ad hoc tools after the fact.