The papers in this panel critically engage the complex ethical and religious questions raised by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. Altogether, the authors confront the potential of AI systems to transform—and be transformed by—abiding concerns of human dignity, vulnerability, and flourishing. The first author considers AI’s possible role in virtue formation, while proposing Niebuhrian virtues of moral vigilance as an important check on advancing AI. The second author argues that the creation of compassionate AI in healthcare, especially eldercare, requires modeling multiple dimensions of human suffering and health agency in support of phronetic attention and compassionate response. With the final paper, the authors attend to the development of AI-enabled virtual autopsy systems. These AI-generated digital reconstructions of the postmortem body raise new bioethical and religious concerns about corporeal dignity, privacy, and the governance of digital bodily data.
This paper considers the possibility of AI being employed to improve moral character from the perspective of an account of virtues that is psychologically realistic and informed by a Christian agapeic ethic oriented toward creaturely well-being goods that ground right action. While Part I briefly presents such an account of the virtues, Part II explores three ways that advancing AI may impact virtue formation, each of which is conceivable but has significant limitations and drawbacks. Part III argues that recognizing the social character of virtue formation requires recognizing the importance of extending the rule of law to AI. The effectiveness of rule of law in the face of advancing AI, however, will depend on Niebuhrian virtues of moral vigilance that recognize the ease with which the loftily stated ideals sometimes associated with AI coexist with other aims.
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly pervasive in healthcare, the incentives for technical innovation and financial gain driving efficient AI healthcare automation often interfere with patient care and increase health inequity. However, bio- and AI ethical frameworks remain inadequate for guiding this transformation, especially at the speed and scale in which autonomous decision-making is embedded within healthcare. Incorporating compassionate care into AI systems focuses moral attention onto patient suffering and flourishing (eudemonic well-being), translating ethical insights into an AI framework that can be operationalized within current and near-term AI system development. I argue that compassionate AI in healthcare requites modeling multiple dimensions of human suffering and health agency in support of phronetic attention and compassionate response, and that eldercare provides both a rich context and urgent test case.
Artificial intelligence and augmented reality are transforming healthcare technologies, including the development of virtual autopsy systems that reconstruct the human body using high-resolution imaging and three-dimensional visualization. While these technologies may reduce the need for invasive postmortem examinations, they also introduce new bioethical questions concerning bodily integrity, digital representation, and the moral status of postmortem data. This paper examines how religious ethical traditions—including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shamanism—interpret emerging technological practices surrounding death investigation. Some religious communities may view virtual autopsy technologies as more acceptable alternatives to invasive procedures because they preserve bodily integrity. However, AI-generated digital reconstructions of the deceased body raise new ethical concerns about postmortem dignity, privacy, and the governance of digital bodily data. Drawing on perspectives from religious bioethics, this paper argues that religious traditions provide important ethical resources for addressing emerging questions about death, technology, and the future of healthcare.