Who is to Blame? Extended Physicians and the Responsibility Gap

Medicine faces a dilemma regarding the use of AI: it can either choose not to use AI, potentially sacrificing the best care for patients, or embrace its use, which may lead to insurmountable challenges in properly attributing responsibility, in the form of a responsibility gap. In order to illustrate the responsibility gap, the following approach will be taken: Firstly, an analysis of three problem dimensions is necessary. The first dimension pertains to the nature of decision support systems. The second dimension encompasses various concepts and prerequisites of moral responsibility. The third dimension introduces a relatively new aspect in the debate about the responsibility gap, considering the physician and the clinical decision support system as a coupled cognitive system, as proposed in the extended mind theory. Subsequently, the existence of a responsibility gap will be demonstrated, along with an explanation of how it arises. The essay will conclude with a rather pessimistic outlook on the possibility of bridging this gap.