Artificial Intelligence and Bioethics: Perspectives

The fourth industrial revolution challenges humanity ethically and morally: mass unemployment, new forms of colonialism, and mass-and-granular surveillance are a few examples of these challenges. Nevertheless, the industrial revolutions have increased human productivity and quality of life. This book aims to review the ethical challenges related to the use of these technologies. It unfolds bioethical perspectives regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on life on earth. It discusses both northern and southern epistemologies of bioethics. Northern bioethics comprises principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Southern bioethics gives weightage to struggles for human liberation, social justice, and the pluralism of knowledge. The book discusses topics from aging to mass surveillance, to deliver a universal bioethical guideline to a wide range of professions that work with AI and are concerned about its impact on life. This book will not label AI, but broaden the readers’ view of an ethical and explainable AI that works for life on earth.

Dr. Luiz Vianna Sobrinho, ScM, PhD, is a Collaborating Professor in the Department of Human Rights and Health at the National School of Public Health Sérgio Arouca/Fiocruz. He completed his postgraduate studies in Cardiology at the Institute of Assistance of Civil Servants of the State of Rio de Janeiro in 1989. In 2020, he earned a PhD in Bioethics and Collective Health from PPGBIOS at the same institution. Dr. Vianna is the author of two technical books: Financial Medicine: The Shattered Ethics (2013) and The Decline of the Clinic - Data Medicine (2021), as well as a book of short stories titled Nine for the Singular (2023). Since 2022, he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow and Invited Scientist at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. He is also the co-founder of the Latin-American Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Leandro Modolo is a medical sociologist and is currently a guest researcher on the project ’Implications of Digital Technologies for the Health System’, which is linked to the Health Tomorrow Initiative/Fiocruz Strategy for the 2030 Agenda. He obtained his doctorate in Social Sciences from the State University of São Paulo (UNESP) and subsequently completed a doctoral scholarship in Collective Health at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). He is a member of the Centre for Studies in Economics, Technology and Society (NETS) at the Federal University of Ceará (UFCE) and a regular contributor to the Outra Saúde. Dr Modolo is also a co-founder of the Latin American Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

Dr. Maíra Araújo de Santana is a biomedical engineer specializing in artificial intelligence applications in healthcare. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil, in 2017. During her undergraduate studies, she spent an academic year at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the United States and worked as a researcher at Duke University’s Carl E. Ravin Advanced Imaging Laboratories (RAI Labs), where she developed expertise in medical image processing. Dr. Santana holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering (2020) and a PhD in Computer Engineering (2023) from UFPE. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher and a faculty member in the Specialization in Data Science and Digital Health at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UFPE. She is a member of the Biomedical Computing Research Group at UFPE, focusing her research on artificial intelligence applied to health. Her work encompasses areas such as pattern recognition for early diagnosis of breast cancer, affective computing, and applied neuroscience.

Prof. Giselle Machado Magalhães Moreno is a faculty member in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and a Researcher at the Biomedical Computing Laboratory at UFPE. She earned her Master’s degree in Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (2012-2014) and her PhD in Biochemistry and Physiology (2014-2018), both from UFPE. Dr. Moreno completed her postdoctoral research at the Interdisciplinary Climate Investigation Center (INCLINE) at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Her research interests include public health, digital epidemiology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence applied to medicine and biology.

Prof. Fabiano Tonaco Borges is a faculty member in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and a Researcher at the Biomedical Computing Laboratory at UFPE. He also serves as a Special Advisor for International Cooperation at the Science and Technology Department of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Dr. Borges holds a scholarship for Technological and Industrial Development from Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). He is also a Researcher at the Institute of the Economic-Industrial Complex (ICEIS).

An Oral Surgeon by training, he earned his Master’s degree (2007) and Doctorate (2012) in Social and Preventive Dentistry from the State University of São Paulo (UNESP) in Araçatuba, São Paulo, Brazil. During his doctoral studies, he received a sandwich scholarship to study at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (2010-2011). In 2015, Dr. Borges completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, in collaboration with the Andalusian School of Public Health in Granada, Spain. In 2019, he became a fellow scientist at the University of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Dr. Borges’s research focuses on health policy analysis and artificial intelligence. He is also the co-founder of the Latin-American Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.

Prof. Wellington Pinheiro dos Santos is the Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and the Coordinator of the Biomedical Computing Laboratory at UFPE. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (2001) and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (2003) from UFPE, and earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Campina Grande in 2009. At UFPE, Dr. dos Santos is actively involved in both undergraduate and graduate programs in Biomedical Engineering. Since 2009, he has also been a member of the Graduate Program in Computer Engineering at the Escola Politécnica de Pernambuco, Universidade de Pernambuco. Additionally, he is a Researcher at the Institute of the Economic-Industrial Complex (ICEIS), where he coordinates the Biomedical Computing and Bioengineering axes. He is a member of the Brazilian Society of Biomedical Engineering (SBEB), the Brazilian Society of Computational Intelligence (SBIC), the Brazilian Society for Health Informatics (SBIS), and the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE).