AI in healthcare, eradicating mosquitoes, chatbots, remembering George Annas
Latest News
June 12, 2025
AI in Healthcare: Trust and Accountability Takeaways from our recent conference
Cedars-Sinai and The Hastings Center jointly organized a timely conference on AI in healthcare on May 16 in Los Angeles. Discussions with leading experts in the field addressed evolving ethical, societal, and legal issues raised by AI in medicine and biomedical research. Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky and senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger participated in the conference and share some highlights. Read more and watch Ravitsky and Berlinger discuss their favorite moments.
"Voice is the New Blood" Start-ups promote innovation in AI voice-based health technologies, but say little else
Human voice as a biomarker could become “the new blood” because it shows promise for providing accessible and cost-effective methods to detect, diagnose, and monitor various conditions, notes a new article co-authored by the Bridge2AI Voice Consortium, including Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky. The article analyzes the language used on the websites of 25 start-ups working on voice-based health technologies, which are key public communications platforms. The language was largely self-promotional, emphasizing innovation but lacking important information like how voice datasets are used to train algorithms—information essential to building trust with healthcare partners. Read the article.
In the Media Driving mosquitoes to extinction, chatbots for older people
Director of research Gregory Kaebnick spoke with the Washington Post about the ethics of deliberately driving mosquitoes and other deadly pests to extinction. He said that deliberate extinction should be an option only “for particularly horrific species” and that mosquitoes don’t make the cut, affirming a conclusion that he and research colleagues reached in an article in Science last month. “Even at a microbial level, it became plain in our conversations, we are not in favor of remaking the world to suit human desires,” he said. Read the Washington Post article. (Subscription required.)
In an interview with Fortune, senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger discussed the prospect of chatbots relieving older people’s loneliness. “It’s not going to replace all of that richness of relationships, but it’s not nothing,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s a solution to the problem of aging. It’s something to keep our eye on.” Read the Fortune article.
Remembering George Annas Hastings Center Fellow with a "human rights-centric approach to bioethics"
The Hastings Center for Bioethics mourns the passing of George Annas on May 30. Annas was a Hastings Center Fellow and the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor at Boston University and Director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics and Human Rights at Boston University School of Public Health. Read more.
TODAY: Artificial Intelligence Code of Conduct for Health and Medicine Publication Release Webinar. Panelists include Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky. June 12.
From Consciousness to Coma: Are We Worried? A conversation with Hastings Center board chair and fellow Joseph J. Fins. June 17.
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