Hastings Center News

New in Bioethics Briefings: AI in Healthcare

AI is quickly becoming a fixture in modern medicine. It writes clinical notes, answers patient messages, assists diagnoses, and even offers mental health support. But how much of healthcare should remain fundamentally human—even if AI can do it faster? “AI in Healthcare,” a new chapter in our Bioethics Briefings written by Athmeya Jayaram and Kellie Owens, examines this question. Hospitals say AI tools can reduce burnout and improve efficiency, but their rapid rollout is raising urgent ethical concerns about safety, trust, and the role of human care. Key risks include privacy gaps, biased outputs, overreliance on automation, and unclear responsibility when errors occur. Read the chapter.

Hastings Bioethics Briefings contains overviews of issues in bioethics of high public interest. The chapters, written by leading ethicists, are nonpartisan, describing topics from a range of perspectives that are grounded in scientific facts.