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Introduction
In my paper entitled ‘Testimonial injustice in medical machine learning’,1 I argued that machine learning (ML)-based Prediction Drug Monitoring Programmes (PDMPs) could infringe on patients’ epistemic and moral standing inflicting a testimonial injustice.2 I am very grateful for all the comments the paper received, some of which expand on it while others take a more critical view. This response addresses two objections raised to my consideration of ML-induced testimonial injustice in order to clarify the position taken in the paper. The first maintains that my critical stance toward ML-based PDMPs idealises standard medical practice. Moreover, it claims that the ML-induced testimonial injustice I discuss is not substantially different from situations in which it emerges in human–human interactions. The second claims that my analysis does not establish a link to issues of automation bias, even if these are to be considered the core of testimonial injustice in ML.
In the following, I address each objection in turn.
A misguided equivalence
Gillett3 argues that my critical stance towards using risk prediction tools such as PDMPs implies the idealisation of standard (ie, non-ML-mediated) modes of clinical practice. Considering certain uses of ML in a different setting, that is, psychiatry, the author goes as far as claiming that ‘traditional models of clinical practice in psychiatry are far from a utopia, free from epistemic injustice, which Pozzi’s argument risks proposing’. Since this statement does not represent what I intend to suggest, I am glad to have the possibility to clarify …
Footnotes
Contributors GP is the sole author of the feature article.
Funding This work was supported by the European Commission through the H2020-INFRAIA-2018-2020/H2020-INFRAIA-2019-1 European project “SoBigData++: European Integrated Infrastructure for Social Mining and Big Data Analytics” (Grant Agreement 871042). The funders had no role in developing the research and writing the manuscript.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
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