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Cited by 200Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and EducationEthics and Social Impacts of AIEthics and bioethics in healthcare

Artificial intelligence and robotics in nursing: ethics of caring as a guide to dividing tasks between AI and humans

Stokes, Felicia, Palmer, Amitabha·2020·Nursing Philosophy
DOI 10.1111/nup.12306
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Abstract

Nurses have traditionally been regarded as clinicians that deliver compassionate, safe, and empathetic health care (Nurses again outpace other professions for honesty & ethics, 2018). Caring is a fundamental characteristic, expectation, and moral obligation of the nursing and caregiving professions (Nursing: Scope and standards of practice, American Nurses Association, Silver Spring, MD, 2015). Along with caring, nurses are expected to undertake ever-expanding duties and complex tasks. In part because of the growing physical, intellectual and emotional demandingness, of nursing as well as technological advances, artificial intelligence (AI) and AI care robots are rapidly changing the healthcare landscape. As technology becomes more advanced, efficient, and economical, opportunities and pressure to introduce AI into nursing care will only increase. In the first part of the article, we review recent and existing applications of AI in nursing and speculate on future use. Second, situate our project within the recent literature on the ethics of nursing and AI. Third, we explore three dominant theories of caring and the two paradigmatic expressions of caring (touch and presence) and conclude that AI-at least for the foreseeable future-is incapable of caring in the sense central to nursing and caregiving ethics. We conclude that for AI to be implemented ethically, it cannot transgress the core values of nursing, usurp aspects of caring that can only meaningfully be carried out by human beings, and it must support, open, or improve opportunities for nurses to provide the uniquely human aspects of care.

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  • The lower frequency of high-level digital affordances might stem from the strong tradition of human-to-human interaction in nursing education, leading to resistance towards replacing or supplementing these interactions with AI chatbots.

    “This phenomenon might stem from the strong tradition of human-to-human interaction in nursing education, leading to resistance towards replacing or supplementing these interactions with AI chatbots (49).”

    From Digital affordances of AI chatbots in nursing education: a systematic review of learning gains and gaps in the evidence (2026) · cites this paper as [49]

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Authors
Stokes, F., & Palmer, A.
Affiliations
  • American Nurses Association Silver Spring MD USA
  • Bowling Green State University (US)
ORCID
Venue
Nursing Philosophy
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2020-07
Volume
21
Issue
4
Pages
e12306-e12306
ISSN
  • 1466-7681 (ISSN-L)
  • 1466-769X
DOI
10.1111/nup.12306
OpenAlex
W3038265118
Cited by
200
References
40
Citations by year
2026: 43 · 2025: 59 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
FWCI
4.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • Nursing Philosophy (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics and bioethics in healthcare
Keywords
artificial intelligence in nursing, care ethics, nursing ethics, human care
MeSH terms
Artificial Intelligence, Humans, Nursing, Robotics

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