Promise and Responsibility: Big Data and AI in Youth Mental Health

In this conversation, Yuki Kotani of the Child Mind Institute talks to Rebecca Weintraub Brendel, MD, JD, director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, about the ethics of artificial intelligence, consent, and privacy in digital youth mental health research and interventions. This discussion is part of our webinar series on Technology and Youth Mental Health, which asks how tech can improve mental health outcomes for all young people.

Notably, Dr. Brendel highlights the ethical concerns of not pursuing research in this controversial, quickly evolving, and potentially transformative space that might lead to new interventions, screening tools, and improved access. “It would be a mistake ethically to say the risks are too great, we’re not going to do this research,” she says.

Dr. Brendel notes some of the major ethical considerations that must be taken into account as technology finds its way to market. One is equity. “We need to make sure it’s not just the people who live in urban centers and have broadband access who are getting treatment,” she says. Another is privacy. “The risk is being complacent and thinking that our old safeguards for our core values are going to work in the age of big data, not to mention AI and subsequent technologies.” A third is choice. “Some people love their Oura Rings and biofeedback and watches,” she says, “and other people are very happy having small fluctuations in heart rate and blood pressure be a mystery.”

Above all, Dr. Brendel says, researchers and clinicians must adhere to the “underlying principals and ethical commitments” of the field, including “respecting people and making sure we have permission to do things or take things from them, including their data” and ensuring that “people aren’t harmed by research or interventions.”

This video is part of a series of discussions on the ethical and equity challenges to accessing and leveraging real world data in youth mental health research. View more videos on this topic:

• Christa Studzinski, PhD, of the Ontario Brain Institute
• Amy Green, PhD, of Hopelab
• Stephen Scheuller, PhD, of the University of California, Irvine
• Casey Pick, JD, of the Trevor Project

View the Full Series

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