Bioethical Considerations of Deploying Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Orthopedic Settings: A Narrative Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged in orthopedics with the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy, optimize surgical workflows, and support personalized care. We conducted a narrative review exploring the bioethical considerations of AI use in the orthopedic clinical setting, focusing on 4 core principles-autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice-to provide orthopedists with a practical framework for AI's implementation. We utilized the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses framework to conduct a comprehensive PubMed search; 89 articles were evaluated and 23 met our inclusion criteria. Across these studies, bioethical considerations for the clinical implementation of AI tools consistently emerged, most commonly concerning privacy, bias, transparency, informed consent, and regulation. We offer recommendations for strengthening privacy safeguards, adopting bias mitigation strategies, improving transparency through explainable AI tools, and establishing clear regulatory frameworks with lifecycle evaluation.