The Artificial Levite: AI and the Temptation to "Pass By" the Patient

Healthcare stands to gain much from the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). We must, as a society, decide how it should be ethically implemented into these human-led sectors. After first examining AI from a Catholic perspective at the general scale using Antiqua et Nova, this essay shifts its focus to the implementation of AI in healthcare. With the gaze of the Good Samaritan as a foundation, this essay establishes relational care as a core principle of a Catholic healthcare system that AI threatens to erode. Using the modern incorporation of electronic health records (EHRs) as a parallel, it describes how advancements in technology have dramatically shifted healthcare away from relationality and finally characterizes how the anticipated implementations of AI will likely lead to similar outcomes. Drawing on Antiqua et Nova's distinction between AI that enhances the patient-provider relationship and AI that replaces it, this paper uses the historical adoption of EHRs as a cautionary precedent and examines ambient AI scribes as a test case for what disciplined, relationship-enhancing AI integration can look like.