Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35293841›Full record

ArticleThe American journal of bioethics : AJOB2022

Algorithms for Ethical Decision-Making in the Clinic: A Proof of Concept.

Lukas J Meier, Alice Hein, Klaus Diepold, Alena Buyx

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Article in The American journal of bioethics : AJOB, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
21citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

21 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Digital bioethics: exploring an emerging field.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2026
    Article
  5. Artificial intelligence and medical futility.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2026
    Review
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  16. Review
  17. AI and the need for justification (to the patient).Ethics and information technology · 2024
    Article
  18. Article
  19. [ChatGPT: aid to medical ethics decision making?]Innere Medizin (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2023
    Review
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Lukas J MeierTechnical University of Munich.ORCID 0000-0002-3316-3928
Alice HeinTechnical University of Munich.ORCID 0000-0002-9457-8131
Klaus DiepoldTechnical University of Munich.ORCID 0000-0003-0439-7511
Alena BuyxTechnical University of Munich.ORCID 0000-0002-5726-7633

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Machine intelligence already helps medical staff with a number of tasks. Ethical decision-making, however, has not been handed over to computers. In this proof-of-concept study, we show how an algorithm based on Beauchamp and Childress' prima-facie principles could be employed to advise on a range of moral dilemma situations that occur in medical institutions. We explain why we chose fuzzy cognitive maps to set up the advisory system and how we utilized machine learning to train it. We report on the difficult task of operationalizing the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence and patient autonomy, and describe how we selected suitable input parameters that we extracted from a training dataset of clinical cases. The first performance results are promising, but an algorithmic approach to ethics also comes with several weaknesses and limitations. Should one really entrust the sensitive domain of clinical ethics to machine intelligence?

Indexed as

Ethics, ClinicalPersonal AutonomyAlgorithmsBeneficenceHumansAlgorithmsartificial intelligenceBeauchamp and Childressclinical ethicsdecision-makingmachine learning

Identifiers

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.