Artificial Intelligence and Health Care Ethics
Science Content
This week, we’ll be talking about the relationship between medical sciences and ai.
Please read this commentary linked here on the web OR alternatively in the course site readings here entitled: Parsing Molecules for Drug Discovery.
Next, check out this commentary on very recent work, using ai to design DNA sequences to perform functions in ways we were not previously able. This is available on the web here OR on the class website readings section as: AI predicts the effectiveness and evolution of gene promoter sequences.
As you read through these, you should be aware that I’ll likely ask you, not about the gritty details of the experiments, rather, I want to know your thoughts about what the future prospects for these types of approaches - what other good could they do (and where could things go wrong).
Philosophy Content
We’ve already reviewed ethical basics (remember Kant and Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics?). For the philosophy part of class today, we’ll be reviewing the basics of a specific application of ethics: Bioethics. Roughly, bioethics is the study of ethical issues raised by the sciences and especially in medicine. Having a basic understanding of the field will be crucial to many of the issues we’ll be discussing this semester.
To prepare for class, simply view the video below.
Fiction
You should start reading/listenting to Binti (one of the novellas pictured on the syllabus page) this weekend!