Advancing Artificial Intelligence Ethics in Health and Genomics: Lessons from a Public Survey in South Korea

JUNG IM LEE¹Wonhoo Yoo²Hannah Kim^3*

• ¹Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University, Seoul, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• ²Asian Institute for Bioethics and Health law, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• ³Division of Medical and Health Law, College of Medicine, Asian Institute for Bioethics and Health Law, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Advances in health and genetics are becoming increasingly intertwined with artificial intelligence (AI), bringing significant potential along with complex ethical concerns. This study aims to examine public ethical awareness of AI in healthcare (AI-H) in South Korea and to develop research ethics guidelines. A total of 1,002 respondents of the lay public participated in an online survey from January 10 to 20, 2023. The study found that most respondents expected AI-H to have positive impacts over the next five years (84.5%), while only 3.1% anticipated negative effects. However, concerns were raised about potential risks, including personal information disclosure (54.0%), AI errors leading to harm (52.0%), and unclear legal responsibilities (42.2%). Regarding data sharing, respondents were most willing to provide electronic medical records (72.8%), lifestyle data (72.3%), and biometric data (71.3%) for the development of AI technologies. Genetic data was the least preferred (64.1%). There was strong agreement on the importance of ethical principles for AI-H (89.6%). When prioritizing ethics education, respondents identified developers (70.7%), medical institution managers (68.2%), and researchers (65.6%), as key targets, while the public (31.0%) and students (18.7%) ranked lower. Privacy protection was rated as the most importance ethical principles (83.9%), followed closely by safety and security (83.7%), legal duties (83.4%), and responsiveness (83.3%), whereas autonomy (75.9%), inclusiveness (76.6%), and accessibility (78.1%) received lower importance scores. This study is the first to assess public awareness of AI-H ethics in South Korea, revealing significant concerns alongside high expectations, such as data privacy, potential errors, and unclear legal responsibilities. Despite broad agreement on the need for ethical principles, younger populations showed low awareness, highlighting the need for broader ethics education. Additionally, an imbalanced perception of ethical priorities was observed, with privacy protection ranked highest while inclusiveness and accessibility received lowest importance scores. The results will help ensure that AI-H is developed and used responsibly, addressing societal concerns while maximizing it benefits.