International Association of Catholic Bioethics 12th Biannual Colloquium

Wise Decisions: The place of love in AI-informed health care

It remains to be seen exactly what AI will be able to facilitate in the area of health care.   However, it is already clear that its impact is likely to be limited.  Some aspects of the provision of health care,  and of the decisions made by patients and their caregivers,  cannot – or should not – be left to AI.  While factual information is a necessary condition of decision making – and AI is good at gathering facts – facts themselves carry only limited meaning : they certainly do not reveal objective values. As the recent COVID-19 pandemic underscored, a quantitative/statistical focus on “data” about, for example, infection rates and their prevention can lead to a failure to pay attention to other important aspects of human health and flourishing.

To articulate meaning and value requires a focus on various dimensions of health care, particularly those that are relational, which are not amenable to the tools of AI. To understand and nurture relationships between patients and their caregivers, which are complex and irreducible to quantifiable data, we need to unpack the “logos” that shapes these relationships. This logos has cognitive elements, but also affective, and conative dimensions involves feeling, empathy, motivation, and even love.