IHEM External Speaker Series: Karola Kreitmair

Abstract:

The fundamental tenets of biomedical ethics—respect for patient autonomy, shared-decision making, and trust—are premised on the centrality of the patient-clinician dyad. Since the founding of modern medical ethics, the patient-clinician relationship has been seen as integral to the meaning and proper function of medicine. Today, massively interconnected agentic AI systems, increasingly heralded as the future of healthcare, promise to upend this tradition, as specialized AI agents diagnose conditions, recommend treatments, coordinate care, and communicate with patients. Patient-clinician encounters are offloaded onto “empathic” AI agents, which are trained to simulate empathy and provide emotional support. Such a radical shift in the nature of medicine will almost certainly have far-reaching implications that have not yet been fully conceptualized. In my presentation, I present ethical considerations around what might be lost, retained, and gained when the relational underpinning of medicine and health care is offloaded onto AI agents.

About:

Karola Kreitmair is an Associate Professor of Medical History and Bioethics in the School of Medicine and Public Health, and an Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A certified Clinical Ethics Consultant, she also serves as the Vice-Chair of the Ethics Committee for the University of Wisconsin Hospital and American Family and Children's Hospital.  Dr. Kreitmair earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University and holds an M.Sc. in the Evolution of Language and Cognition from the University of Edinburgh. Her research spans a wide array of vital issues at the intersection of philosophy, bioethics, and emerging technologies. She is particularly recognized for her work in neuroethics—including the ethical dimensions of human brain surrogates, cerebral organoids, and consumer neurotechnologies—as well as the ethics of mobile health applications, digital behavioral technology, and clinical data protection.

Prof. Karola Kreitmair’s scholarly work spans research ethics, clinical ethics, and the consumer applications of medical technologies. She is particularly interested in ethical questions concerning the brain and emerging neurotechnologies. Her research has addressed a range of topics, including the ethics of digital behavioral technologies, disorders of consciousness, organ transplantation, and novel forms of human brain surrogates, such as cerebral organoids.

IHEM External Speaker Event Date and Time: 15.07.2026, 4:30 to 6 pm

Microsoft Teams-Link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/35791002031360?p=anVK0s0NNoCSsvBAOz