Whose Knowledge Counts? Exploring Epistemic Injustice in Medical AI

Dr. Giorgia Pozzi is a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology. She studied philosophy at LMU Munich before moving to Delft for her PhD research, which she concluded in April 2024. She works on the intersection between the ethics and epistemology of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine and healthcare. She has a particular interest in tackling forms of epistemic injustice emerging due to the integration of AI systems in medical practice. More generally, she is interested in topics related to bioethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science and their cross-overs in connection with novel challenges raised by AI systems.

Jonathan Adams is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo, who is currently visiting the Bioethics Institute Ghent for a three-month research stay. His doctoral work focuses on the ethical and epistemic implications of artificial intelligence in healthcare and involves actively collaborating with colleagues from the fields of law, computer science, and clinical medicine. So far, this has included publishing articles in Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy and AI and Ethics. Prior to starting his PhD, Jonathan received an MSc in Bioethics & Society from King’s College London (2022) and a BA in Philosophy and Theology from the University of Oxford (2020).

Veronique Hoste is Senior Full Professor of Computational Linguistics at the Faculty of Arts and Philisophy at Ghent University. She is department head of the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication and director of the LT3 language and translation team at the same department. She holds a PhD in computational linguistics from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) on "Optimization issues in machine learning of coreference resolution" (2005).

Natural language processing in the last decades has drastically shifted from a discipline in which linguistic rules were handcrafted by experts to a vibrant discipline heavily dominated by machine learning and more recently, end-to-end neural approaches. Véronique has a strong track record in combining linguistic expertise with machine learning of natural language, seeking to automatically model natural language up to the level of semantics and discourse in a wide range of applications, such as cyberbully detection or sentiment and emotion analysis.

Sofia Palmieri is a FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow at Ghent University and Healthcare AI Policy and Compliance Officer at the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (i~HD). Her research is positioned at a crossroads between legal, ethics, AI and healthcare. She investigates the perimeter of regulation for the safe, patient-centred and evidence-based use of Artificial Intelligence in the medical field. After receiving a Master's Degree in Law (magna cum laude) from the University of Bologna, she specialized in Ethics and Life Science at the same Alma Mater. She spent a period of research both at Paris Nanterre University and at KU Leuven. She also joined AI4Health as a member of the core team. Recently, she started as co-chair of the Young Scholar Interest Group of the European Association of Health Law.

Heidi Mertes is professor in de medische ethiek, verbonden aan de onderzoeksgroepen Bioethics Institute Ghent en Metamedica aan de Universiteit Gent. Haar onderzoek spitst zich toe op ethische bezorgdheden in de context van medisch geassisteerde voortplanting, genetica, onderzoek op embryo’s en sinds kort ook op de impact van nieuwe technologieën in de gezondheidszorg, gaande van de evoluerende arts-patiëntrelatie tot dataveiligheid en privacy in tijden van AI en big data.