Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatric Medicine: Trustworthiness, Epistemic Justice, and Empowerment

Medicine has a distinct set of moral responsibilities. This is because the physician-patient relationship contains inherent inequalities of knowledge, skills, and control of resources, and it treats matters both intimate and potentially of great importance to the patient (Rhodes 2001; Nickel & Frank 2020). These responsibilities include physician’s obligation to earn trust and be trustworthy (Rhodes 2001; 2020). The field of psychiatric medicine faces additional ethical challenges specifically related to patient trust. As artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies (in diagnosis, relapse prevention, and treatment) begin to play a larger role in all medicine, and specifically psychiatry, these ethical challenges may be exacerbated or complicated. In this talk I present three of these challenges relating to patient testimony, false empowerment, and harm prevention.