Christianities View on the Integration of AI in Healthcare

How do Protestant Christians feel about integrating AI into the medical field compared to those who are agnostic, and does age affect there comfortability

Researcher

Love Oluwaleye

Class of 2023

Problem Statement

There is a problem with the evolution of AI. Artificial Intelligence can do most things that humans can do more accurately and efficiently. We now know that they can do a better job doing surgeries than humans can. However, we have not taken into consideration the effect religion has on the incorporation of AI into the medical field. So, in order to prevent future backlash towards AI we must know if religion affects their comfortability of AI in medical facilities. Since, christianity is one of the most prominate religions in the US. It is important for us to understand if they are okay with the current development of AI

Significance and Value of Study

This research idea is significant because we are in the generation of AI. We already have AI’s that can drive, play chess, and help us with tasks. However, these AI’s are constantly evolving to be self-learning. As a whole, we have to take into consideration people from different backgrounds as we develop. One of the most prominent religions in the United States is Christianity, about 64% of people considered themselves as christians in 2020. More specifically, 40% of Christians are protestant. So we need to understand how they would feel concerning the future development of AI, and the possible integration of AI technology into there lives. Researchers should care about my field of research because more than 64% of the United States population are christians. So we must know if the beliefs of christians are for or against AI. More specifically, we know that AI can efficiently outperform doctors in the medical field. However, we do not know if a reliance on AI in the future could be against there views. However, with this experiment we can know whether the direction of the development is supported by Christians.

Hypothesis and Assumptions

I hypothesize that the comfortability of Protestant Christians towards the integration of AI into the medical field will be lower than that of those who are agnostic, and that the lower the age of the participant, the higher their comfortability is. This is because Christians believe that God created people and that people created machines, and some Christians do not support some of the creations of humans. I also believe that the younger participants will be more comfortable with AI since, they are more used to the technology of today. Furthermore, I believe that the participants who were born in Generation Z will be more comfortable with AI in healthcare, in comparison to that of Millennials.

Proposed Method of Study

Hermeneutic Correlational Research

Definitions and Variables

The variables of this research project is the participant's age and religion.

Operational Definition

Christian - a religion based on the belief in Jesus

Agnostic - a person who neither believes nor has disbelief in God

Doctor - a medical professional

Initial Assumptions

My assumption were that the participants would be truthful throughout the survey

Results & Findings

An examination of my results found that only 9 people completed my survey. From those 9 participants, it was found that all of them belonged to Generation Z. Furthermore, 3 out of the 9 participants were Agnostic, while the other 5 were Christians. When collecting the data from the survey, my assumption was that the participants would be truthful throughout the survey. However, one of the participants decided to go through the survey, without putting effort towards each of the questions. I was able to decide this due to the participant using the name blah blah for the name section of the survey, and for using an email address with a fake domain. Due to those facts, I excluded the participants survey from my results, since this caused me to believe that the participant was only completing the survey to have a chance to win the $10 Amazon gift card which I used as the incentive. The first question I asked after the preliminary questions was if the participant could rate there experience with using artificial intelligence in healthcare, in the standpoint of reliability. The table on the left shows the results of the participants who were Christian, while the table on the right shows the participants who were Agnostic.

Chart 1: Reliability of AI in Healthcare

Average: 7 Average 6.3

Based on the results of these questions, the average reliability that the participants had towards the results given by the AI was higher for that of Christians, in comparison to that of the Agnostic, which goes against my hypothesis. The final question that I ultimately used to make a conclusion was concerning if the participants believed AI should be used in healthcare.

Chart 2: Belief towards AI in Healthcare

Agnostic Christians

As shown in the table above 66.7% of the participants who were agnostic believed that AI should be used in healthcare, while only 50% of those who Christian believed that AI should be used in healthcare. In order to determine if my hypothesis was correct, I put the question, “Do you believe AI should be used in healthcare”, near the end of the survey, while the first few questions were asked to get the participants to create a decision that is based on there own experience, insead of based on what they have heard.

Limitations

Conclusion/Next Steps

Based on the results that I gathered, I was able to conclude that religion affects one's belief on AI being used in healthcare. As I stated earlier, 50% of the Christians that participated in my survey believed AI should be used in healthcare, while 66% of my agnostic participants believed AI should be used in healthcare. Though I can conclude that my hypothesis was correct. My conclusion is not very conclusive due to the lack of participants. Furthermore I was unable to draw a conclusion concerning if one’s born generation affects there comfortability towards AI in healthcare. For next steps, a bigger cohort of people should be used, and with more religions to compare to. Since it is important to know how one’s religion affects there belief on different issues, since a majority of the population of people in the US are religious

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