PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Thomas Grote TI - Randomised controlled trials in medical AI: ethical considerations AID - 10.1136/medethics-2020-107166 DP - 2022 Nov 01 TA - Journal of Medical Ethics PG - 899--906 VI - 48 IP - 11 4099 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/48/11/899.short 4100 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/48/11/899.full SO - J Med Ethics2022 Nov 01; 48 AB - In recent years, there has been a surge of high-profile publications on applications of artificial intelligence (AI) systems for medical diagnosis and prognosis. While AI provides various opportunities for medical practice, there is an emerging consensus that the existing studies show considerable deficits and are unable to establish the clinical benefit of AI systems. Hence, the view that the clinical benefit of AI systems needs to be studied in clinical trials—particularly randomised controlled trials (RCTs)—is gaining ground. However, an issue that has been overlooked so far in the debate is that, compared with drug RCTs, AI RCTs require methodological adjustments, which entail ethical challenges. This paper sets out to develop a systematic account of the ethics of AI RCTs by focusing on the moral principles of clinical equipoise, informed consent and fairness. This way, the objective is to animate further debate on the (research) ethics of medical AI.