Daniel P. Sulmasy The New England Journal of Medicine March 16, 2024 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2310498 Mind, body, and soul are inseparable. Throughout human history, healing has been regarded as a spiritual event. Illness (especially serious illness) inevitably raises questions beyond science- questions of a transcendent nature. These are questions of meaning, value, and relationship. 1 They touch on perennial and profoundly human enigmas. Why is my child sick? Do I still have value now that I am no longer a "productive" working member of society? Why does brokenness in my body remind me of the ..read more

Rob Stein npr.org Originally posted 12 April 24 Here is an excerpt: Scientific progress prompts ethical concerns But the possibility of an artificial womb is also raising many questions. When might it be safe to try an artificial womb for a human? Which preterm babies would be the right candidates? What should they be called? Fetuses? Babies? "It matters in terms of how we assign moral status to individuals," says Mercurio, the Yale bioethicist. "How much their interests — how much their welfare — should count. And what one can and cannot do for them or to them." But Mercurio is optimis ..read more

Protzko, J., Tobia, K., Strohminger, N.,  & Schooler, J. W. (2023). Cognitive Science, 47(7). https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13317 Abstract Do you persist as the same person over time because you keep the same mind or because you keep the same body? Philosophers have long investigated this question of personal identity with thought experiments. Cognitive scientists have joined this tradition by assessing lay intuitions about those cases. Much of this work has focused on judgments of identity continuity. But identity also has practical significance: obligations are tagged to one's id ..read more

Eric Lipton The New York Times Originally posted 21 Nov 23 Here is an excerpt: Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and the intense use of drones in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have combined to make the issue that much more urgent. So far, drones generally rely on human operators to carry out lethal missions, but software is being developed that soon will allow them to find and select targets more on their own. The intense jamming of radio communications and GPS in Ukraine has only accelerated the shift, as autonomous drones can often keep operating even when communicati ..read more

Benosman, M. (2024, January 7). PsyArXiv Preprints https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mdq8v Introduction: In recent years, the integration of chatbots in mental health care has emerged as a groundbreaking development. These artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tools offer new possibilities for therapy and support, particularly in areas where mental health services are scarce or stigmatized. However, the use of chatbots in this sensitive domain raises significant ethical concerns that must be carefully considered. This essay explores the ethical implications of employing chatbots in mental heal ..read more

Muralidharan, A., Savulescu, J. & Schaefer, G.O. Ethics Inf Technol 26, 16 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09754-w Abstract This paper argues that one problem that besets black-box AI is that it lacks algorithmic justifiability. We argue that the norm of shared decision making in medical care presupposes that treatment decisions ought to be justifiable to the patient. Medical decisions are justifiable to the patient only if they are compatible with the patient’s values and preferences and the patient is able to see that this is so. Patient-directed justifiability is threaten ..read more

Gordon, E.C. Philos. Technol. 37, 17 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00702-6 Abstract Bioconservative bioethicists (e.g., Kass, 2002, Human Dignity and Bioethics, 297–331, 2008; Sandel, 2007; Fukuyama, 2003) offer various kinds of philosophical arguments against cognitive enhancement—i.e., the use of medicine and technology to make ourselves “better than well” as opposed to merely treating pathologies. Two notable such bioconservative arguments appeal to ideas about (1) the value of achievement, and (2) authenticity. It is shown here that even if these arguments from achievement ..read more

Acerbi, A., & Stubbersfield, J. M. (2023). PNAS, 120(44), e2313790120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2313790120 Abstract As the use of large language models (LLMs) grows, it is important to examine whether they exhibit biases in their output. Research in cultural evolution, using transmission chain experiments, demonstrates that humans have biases to attend to, remember, and transmit some types of content over others. Here, in five preregistered experiments using material from previous studies with human participants, we use the same, transmission chain-like methodology, and find that t ..read more

Frank Vinluan MedCityNews.com Originally posted 1 April 24 A software app that modifies behavior through a series of lessons and exercises has received FDA clearance for treating patients with major depressive disorder, making it the first prescription digital therapeutic for this indication. The product, known as CT-152 during its development by partners Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Click Therapeutics, will be commercialized under the brand name Rejoyn. Rejoyn is an alternative way to offer cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of talk therapy in which a patient works with a clinician in a s ..read more

R. G. Wilkinson & K. E. Pickett Nature.com Originally published 12 March 24 Here is an excerpt: Inequality also increases consumerism. Perceived links between wealth and self-worth drive people to buy goods associated with high social status and thus enhance how they appear to others — as US economist Thorstein Veblen set out more than a century ago in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Studies show that people who live in more-unequal societies spend more on status goods14. Our work has shown that the amount spent on advertising as a proportion of gross domestic product ..read more