Traditional medical artificial intelligence models that are approved for clinical use restrict themselves to single-modal data ( e.g ., images only), limiting their applicability in the complex, multimodal environment of medical diagnosis and treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article identifies and examines a tension in mental health researchers' growing enthusiasm for the use of computational tools powered by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Although there is increasing recognition of the value of participatory methods in science generally and in mental health research specifically, many AI/ML approaches, fueled by an ever-growing number of sensors collecting multimodal data, risk further distancing participants from research processes and rendering them as mere vectors or collections of data points. The imperatives of the "participatory turn" in mental health research may be at odds with the (often unquestioned) assumptions and data collection methods of AI/ML approaches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHastings Cent Rep
November 2021
Well before the Covid-19 pandemic, proponents of digital psychiatry were touting the promise of various digital tools and techniques to revolutionize mental health care. As social distancing and its knock-on effects have strained existing mental health infrastructures, calls have grown louder for implementing various digital mental health solutions at scale. Decisions made today will shape the future of mental health care for the foreseeable future.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWell before COVID-19, there was growing excitement about the potential of various digital technologies such as tele-health, smartphone apps, or AI chatbots to revolutionize mental healthcare. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread across the globe, clinicians warned of the mental illness epidemic within the coronavirus pandemic. Now, funding for digital mental health technologies is surging and many researchers are calling for widespread adoption to address the mental health sequelae of COVID-19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, "what makes a person the same over time?" as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, however, has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDebates about obesity in bioethics tend to unfold in predictable epicycles between individual choices and behaviours (e.g., restraint, diet, exercise) and the oppressive socio-economic structures constraining them (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recent literature on addiction and judgments about the characteristics of agents has focused on the implications of adopting a "brain disease" versus "moral weakness" model of addiction. Typically, such judgments have to do with what capacities an agent has (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDominant views about the nature of health and disease in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine have presumed the existence of a fixed, stable, individual organism as the bearer of health and disease states, and as such, the appropriate target of medical therapy and ethical concern. However, recent developments in microbial biology, neuroscience, the philosophy of cognitive science, and social and personality psychology have produced a novel understanding of the individual and its fluid boundaries. Drawing on converging evidence from these disciplines, and following recent research in public health, we argue that certain features of our biological and social environment can be so tightly integrated as to constitute a unit of care extending beyond the intuitive boundaries of skin and skull.
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