Dear HIFA friends,
I hope you are doing well, please find a recent essay of mine published in PloS Global Public Health. I look forward to hear about your thoughts :
*Title : On the ethical and moral dimensions of using artificial intelligence for evidence synthesis*
*Link *: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal....
*Summary* : New essay on AI ethics in evidence synthesis in health and medicine: it dives into a gap that’s often overlooked: while AI promises efficiency in synthesising evidence, what are the ethical trade-offs? Using the decolonial Bengali Adda approach, the article unpacks how moral agency, bias, epistemic uncertainty, & knowledge systems are impacted through AI.
*Extract *:
"People perceive AI as a tool, owing to its individualised interface. In reality, it is a large socio-technical system where several actors contribute by providing input data, design, testing, validation, and deployment. It is therefore important to not only evaluate the AI model for technical validity and fairness, but also the relationships through which an AI model is developed, implemented, and owned. It is important to consider the multitude of ethical and moral dimensions of AI use in evidence synthesis. It is likely what the AI model learns through evidence synthesis of medicine and health data is used for other purposes. This aspect of AI is worrisome because of the potential for causing overall material risk of harm, including for warfare. As for example, Google in February 2025, removed its earlier pledge to not use AI for “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people. Is it ethically and morally acceptable to use AI systems for conducting health and medical research, when doing so has a risk for harming health?”
With best regards
Soumyadeep
Dr. Soumyadeep Bhaumik
www.soumyadeepbhaumik.com
HIFA profile: Soumyadeep Bhaumik is a medical doctor and international public health specialist with more than 8 years’ experience as a methodologist and public health generalist. His work is focused on employing and innovating on a diverse range of methodologies (rapid evidence synthesis, national evidence gap maps, qualitative research, and lot quality assurance sampling) as fit-for-purpose approaches for public health research and practice, including for evaluation of public health programs. https://www.georgeinstitute.org.uk/people/soumyadeep-bhaumik He is a HIFA Country Representative and CR of the Year 2012. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/soumyadeep drsoumyadeepbhaumik AT gmail.com