The role of anethics committeeis to give advice on what should be done in often contentious situations.
They are used in medicine, research, business, law and a variety of other areas.
The word ethics relates to themoral principles governing human behaviour.

As AI is aclass of computer algorithm, it relies on data.
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Here, context becomes very important.

It is in this area that AI could be very helpful.
Research protocols, especially those ofclinical trials, often run to hundreds if not thousands of pages.
The information is dense and complex.

A role for machines?
AI seemsideally placedto speed up the process and assist in ironing out some of the inconsistencies.
It could very rapidly spot any ethics issues and suggest solutions for the research teams to implement.
This would vastly speed up the ethics review process and probably make it far more consistent.
But is it ethically acceptable to use AI in this way?
This means that over time AI may also be able to assist in other areas of ethics decision making.
The danger is not the AI, but how people choose to integrate AI into ethics decision making processes.