The Hastings Center conducts research and produces public engagement activities on the ethics of artificial intelligence in health and biomedical research. Our publications include articles and essays on the rapidly evolving issues raised by AI in health and research. Our scholars publish articles on their research findings and are quoted in the media.

AI projects:

Putting Bioethics to Work on AI, Trust, and Health Care

At a time when artificial intelligence is changing the landscape of health care delivery and biomedical research, this five-year Hastings Center project, supported by The Donaghue Foundation, seeks to advance bioethics research and related public engagement regarding how to integrate AI into health care in ways that promote—and deserve—trust. Among the questions being addressed are: Will patients, health care providers, researchers, and the public trust new AI-based tools? And how should we design and implement AI to be trustworthy?

Hastings on the Hill: Informing Policy on AI and Health

Bioethics has been dedicating much attention to the appropriate governance of health-AI, but this work is often not accessible to decision-makers. To close this gap, this 12-month Hastings Center project, funded by the Greenwall Foundation, will translate bioethics research on artificial intelligence in health for use by decision-makers, including legislators, policymakers, and industry leaders interested in self-regulation.

Bridge2AI: Cell Maps for AI Data Generation

In genomics and precision medicine, machine learning models are often “black boxes,” predicting phenotypes (observable traits) from genotypes (genetic traits) without understanding the mechanisms by which such translation occurs. To address this deficiency, this project, funded by the National Institutes of Health with Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky as co-principal investigator, is helping to create a library of largescale maps of cellular structure and functions. The ethics module is developing new knowledge and resources to identify, anticipate, address, and provide guidance toward the development, sharing, and usage of ethical and trustworthy AI for human cell architecture mapping and for functional genomics.

Bridge2AI: Voice as a Biomarker of Health

Voice is increasingly being recognized as a biomarker of health, but it raises important issues related to patient privacy, ethical and fair representation of populations, and clinical accuracy. This project, funded by the National Institutes of Health with Vardit Ravitsky as the Hastings Principal Investigator, is integrating the use of voice as biomarker of health in clinical care by generating a substantial multi-institutional, ethically sourced, and diverse voice database linked to a broad range of health biomarkers. The goal is to build predictive models to assist in screening, diagnosis, and treatment of five disease categories for which voice changes have been associated with specific diseases: 1. Vocal Pathologies, 2. Neurological and Neurodegenerative Disorders, 3. Mood and Psychiatric Disorders, 4. Respiratory disorders, and 5. Pediatric diseases.

National Academy of Medicine Artificial Intelligence Code of Conduct

Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky is on the steering committee of this pivotal initiative of the National Academy of Medicine, aimed at providing a guiding framework to ensure that AI algorithms and their application in health, health care, and biomedical science perform accurately, safely, reliably, and ethically in the service of better health for all. A draft code of conduct for artificial intelligence in health, health care, and biomedical was released in April 2024.

Essays in Hastings Bioethics Forum:

Griefbots Are Here, Raising Questions of Privacy and Well-being

For Ethical Use of AI in Medicine, Don’t Overlook Maintenance and Repair

ChatGPT in the Clinic? Medical AI Needs Ethicists

Articles in our journals:

Hastings Center Report:
Editors’ Statement on the Responsible Use of Generative AI Technologies in Scholarly Journal Publishing

Synthetic Health Data: Real Ethical Promise and Peril

Ethics & Human Research:
Should Chatbots Be Used to Obtain Informed Consent for Research?

The Prospect of Artificial Intelligence-Supported Ethics Review

Articles authored or coauthored by Hastings Center scholars:

Frontiers in Digital Health: Workshop summaries from the 2024 voice AI symposium, presented by the Bridge2AI-voice consortium

American Journal of Bioethics: Beyond Consent: The MAMLS in the Room

Journal of Hospital Ethics: Mapping the Ethical Concerns Surrounding Medical AI Throughout its Life Cycle

Journal of Hospital Ethics: AI Moratoriums and Medicine: What the Digital Revolution Can Learn From the Genetic Revolution – Hype, Panic, and Action

American Journal of Bioethics: Early AI Lifecycle Co-Reasoning: Ethics Through Integrated and Diverse Team Science

Digital Health: Stakeholder perspectives on ethical and trustworthy voice AI in health care

bioRxiv preprint: Cell Maps for Artificial Intelligence: AI-Ready Maps of Human Cell Architecture from Disease-Relevant Cell Lines

Journal of Medical Ethics: AI and the falling sky: interrogating X-Risk

Interspeech 2024 conference paper: Developing Multi-Disorder Voice Protocols: A team science approach involving clinical expertise, bioethics, standards, and DEI

The American Journal of Bioethics: Generative AI, Specific Moral Values: A Closer Look at ChatGPT’s New Ethical Implications for Medical AI

Journal of Adolescent Health: Investigating the Influence of Artificial Intelligence on Adolescent Health: An Urgent Call to Action

American Journal of Bioethics: Individuals and (Synthetic) Data Points: Using Value-Sensitive Design to Foster Ethical Deliberations on Epistemic Transitions

Journal of Medical Ethics: Beyond the robot apocalypse

Journal of Hospital Ethics: Mapping the Ethical Concerns Surrounding Medical AI Throughout its Life Cycle

American Journal of Bioethics: Early AI Lifecycle Co-Reasoning: Ethics Through Integrated and Diverse Team Science

American Journal of Bioethics: The Epistemological Nuances of Interpreting Adaptive Machine Learning Systems Through the Lens of Surgical Innovation

Voices in Bioethics: The Epistemological Consequences of Artificial Intelligence, Precision Medicine, and Implantable Brain-Computer Interfaces

Events and webinars:

Disinformation, Trust, and the Role of AI: Combating misinformation and disinformation and the distrust that they cause is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and that the problem is exacerbated by AI and increasingly sophisticated deepfakes. Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky moderated a discussion with experts Reed Tuckson and Timothy Caulfield on disinformation, trust, and the role of AI, focusing on current and future threats to health and democracy. Watch the event.

Can AI Promote Our Health & Well-Being?: Medicine has been at the forefront of recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), from image recognition to generative AI. Watch leaders in AI, ethics, and health as they discuss the hype, the hope, and what it might take for AI to improve patient outcomes. This conversation featured Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky, Roxana Daneshjou of the Stanford School of Medicine, and Hastings Center fellow Alex John London of Carnegie Mellon University.

2024 Rothenberg Speakers Series – From Legal Segregation to the Affordable Care Act:  How Law Can Make a Difference The Intersection of AI and Healthcare: This series was held at University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law and featured Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky.

Inside the Lake Nona Impact Forum: Q&A with Vardit Ravitsky – The Hastings Center: Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky spoke at the 12th annual Lake Nona Impact Forum, a three-day event that aspires to build “the Wellbeing Ecosystem of the Future, by exploring the intersections of health, wellness, medical and scientific innovation and strategies to optimize human performance.”

In the media:

Leaked Training Shows How Doctors at New York’s Biggest Hospital System Are Using AI (404 Media, with quotes from Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky)

 That Message From Your Doctor? It May Have Been Drafted by A.I. (The New York Times, with quotes from Hastings Center research scholar Athmeya Jayaram)

Ravitsky Discusses AI in Health Care on Dr. Radio on Sirius XM

Can artificial intelligence improve doctor-patient visits and reduce burnout?   (AAMC, with a quote from Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky)

AI can lessen peer-review woes, researchers say (Inside Higher Ed, with a quote from Hastings Center senior research scholar Gregory Kaebnick)