Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar;25(1):61-71.
doi: 10.1007/s11019-021-10049-w. Epub 2021 Sep 4.

Chatbot breakthrough in the 2020s? An ethical reflection on the trend of automated consultations in health care

Jaana Parviainen  1 , Juho Rantala  2
Affiliations

Chatbot breakthrough in the 2020s? An ethical reflection on the trend of automated consultations in health care

Jaana Parviainen et al. Med Health Care Philos. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Many experts have emphasised that chatbots are not sufficiently mature to be able to technically diagnose patient conditions or replace the judgements of health professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has significantly increased the utilisation of health-oriented chatbots, for instance, as a conversational interface to answer questions, recommend care options, check symptoms and complete tasks such as booking appointments. In this paper, we take a proactive approach and consider how the emergence of task-oriented chatbots as partially automated consulting systems can influence clinical practices and expert-client relationships. We suggest the need for new approaches in professional ethics as the large-scale deployment of artificial intelligence may revolutionise professional decision-making and client-expert interaction in healthcare organisations. We argue that the implementation of chatbots amplifies the project of rationality and automation in clinical practice and alters traditional decision-making practices based on epistemic probability and prudence. This article contributes to the discussion on the ethical challenges posed by chatbots from the perspective of healthcare professional ethics.

Keywords: COVID-19; Chatbot; Expertise; Health care; Professional ethics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Abd-Alrazaq A, Safi Z, Alajlani M, Warren J, Househ M, Denecke K. Technical metrics used to evaluate health care chatbots: scoping review. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2020;22(6):1–15. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Accenture Consulting. 2018. Artificial intelligence, genuine impact public services in the era of artificial intelligence. https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-75/accenture-ai-genuine-impact-p.... Accessed 15 January 2021.
    1. AlgorithmWatch. 2020. Automated Decision-Making Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A European perspective. Automating society report 2020. https://automatingsociety.algorithmwatch.org/. Accessed 15 January 2021.
    1. Aristotle. 1926. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 73. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL073/1926/volume.xml. Accessed 15 January 2021.
    1. Atique S, Bautista JR, Block LJ, Lee JJ, Lozada-Perezmitre E, Nibber R, O’Connor S, Peltonen L-M, Ronquillo C, Tayaben J, Thilo FJS, Topaz M. A Nursing informatics response to COVID-19: Perspectives from five regions of the world. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2020;76(10):2462–2468. - PMC - PubMed