Describe an ethical conundrum found in a magazine or newspaper article, and your own thoughts.

• Give good citations
   

*********   #2 Reply to the following post:

For this discussion board assignment, I selected an article that discusses the ethics of artificial intelligence as applied to children’s healthcare, specifically a concept called digital twins. A digital twin is then used to create a simulation of an individual’s health. However, the technology also introduces ethical dilemmas that need to be addressed. 

One of the issues that arises is that children have less medical history than adults to draw from due to their age. So this calls into question the accuracy of the simulation. Therefore, care must be applied when attempting to make a medical care decision based on a simulation for a child. This is particularly so since children generally have not yet reached majority to make their own medical decisions (dependent upon their location). Still yet another issue that arises is where bias is introduced into predictive tools. Finally, the level of surveillance needed for management of the digital twin introduces privacy risks to the child that need to be considered.  

Given these points, I agree that there are ethical considerations that need to be addressed. The article further points out that of the 193 member states of the UN, that the United States is the only one that has not yet ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Mackenzie, 2022, April 8). It would be an interesting discussion to discover why this is.

References

Mackenzie, R. J. (2022, April 8). Ethics Study Explores the Implications of Creating “Digital Twins” for Kids’ Healthcare. Technology Networks Informatics. https://www.technologynetworks.com/informatics/new…

United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK). (n.d.). What is the UN Convention on Child Rights?. UNICEF United Kingdom. https://www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention…