TY - JOUR
T1 - Embedded Ethics in Practice
T2 - A Toolbox for Integrating the Analysis of Ethical and Social Issues into Healthcare AI Research
AU - Willem, Theresa
AU - Fritzsche, Marie Christine
AU - Zimmermann, Bettina M.
AU - Sierawska, Anna
AU - Breuer, Svenja
AU - Braun, Maximilian
AU - Ruess, Anja K.
AU - Bak, Marieke
AU - Schönweitz, Franziska B.
AU - Meier, Lukas J.
AU - Fiske, Amelia
AU - Tigard, Daniel
AU - Müller, Ruth
AU - McLennan, Stuart
AU - Buyx, Alena
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into critical domains such as healthcare holds immense promise. Nevertheless, significant challenges must be addressed to avoid harm, promote the well-being of individuals and societies, and ensure ethically sound and socially just technology development. Innovative approaches like Embedded Ethics, which refers to integrating ethics and social science into technology development based on interdisciplinary collaboration, are emerging to address issues of bias, transparency, misrepresentation, and more. This paper aims to develop this approach further to enable future projects to effectively deploy it. Based on the practical experience of using ethics and social science methodology in interdisciplinary AI-related healthcare consortia, this paper presents several methods that have proven helpful for embedding ethical and social science analysis and inquiry. They include (1) stakeholder analyses, (2) literature reviews, (3) ethnographic approaches, (4) peer-to-peer interviews, (5) focus groups, (6) interviews with affected groups and external stakeholders, (7) bias analyses, (8) workshops, and (9) interdisciplinary results dissemination. We believe that applying Embedded Ethics offers a pathway to stimulate reflexivity, proactively anticipate social and ethical concerns, and foster interdisciplinary inquiry into such concerns at every stage of technology development. This approach can help shape responsible, inclusive, and ethically aware technology innovation in healthcare and beyond.
AB - Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into critical domains such as healthcare holds immense promise. Nevertheless, significant challenges must be addressed to avoid harm, promote the well-being of individuals and societies, and ensure ethically sound and socially just technology development. Innovative approaches like Embedded Ethics, which refers to integrating ethics and social science into technology development based on interdisciplinary collaboration, are emerging to address issues of bias, transparency, misrepresentation, and more. This paper aims to develop this approach further to enable future projects to effectively deploy it. Based on the practical experience of using ethics and social science methodology in interdisciplinary AI-related healthcare consortia, this paper presents several methods that have proven helpful for embedding ethical and social science analysis and inquiry. They include (1) stakeholder analyses, (2) literature reviews, (3) ethnographic approaches, (4) peer-to-peer interviews, (5) focus groups, (6) interviews with affected groups and external stakeholders, (7) bias analyses, (8) workshops, and (9) interdisciplinary results dissemination. We believe that applying Embedded Ethics offers a pathway to stimulate reflexivity, proactively anticipate social and ethical concerns, and foster interdisciplinary inquiry into such concerns at every stage of technology development. This approach can help shape responsible, inclusive, and ethically aware technology innovation in healthcare and beyond.
KW - AI
KW - Ethics
KW - Health
KW - Interdisciplinary collaborations
KW - Social science
KW - Technology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85212820581&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11948-024-00523-y
DO - 10.1007/s11948-024-00523-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85212820581
SN - 1353-3452
VL - 31
JO - Science and Engineering Ethics
JF - Science and Engineering Ethics
IS - 1
M1 - 3
ER -