Aligning Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Medical Expertise: A Conceptual Understanding of Expert Practices to Foster Ethical AI Integration

Abstract

Medical expertise is an essential concept when discussing the potential value of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in advancing the medical field, as one of AI’s main promises is to positively complement the expertise of medical professionals. Yet, relatively few articles on medical AI explicitly mention what medical expertise entails, how it is practiced in medical contexts, and how AI systems relate to medical professionals’ expertise. We believe it is essential to focus on answering these questions to determine how AI should be integrated into medical practice and how we should formulate the expected benefits of AI systems in clinical care. With this article, we conceptualize medical expertise and identify four forms of medical expertise: epistemic expertise, performative expertise, adaptive expertise, and virtuous expertise. Additionally, we highlight how this conceptualization of expertise can support the ethical evaluation of AI’s augmenting role in medical practices.