2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In the case of serious illnesses, it often happens that difficult treatment-related decisions have to be made that patients themselves can no longer make. In cases where there is no living will, “patient preference predictors” are designed to help. Based on data analysis and supported by AI, these make predictions about the patient's expected will in order to make an appropriate decision. A comprehensive discussion of the ethical aspects and the advantages and disadvantages of such AI-based decision support in healthcare can be found in the literature.
As part of a course on the topic of technology assessment, students should evaluate this AI-based IT application and weigh up its advantages and disadvantages. The course is structured into several weekly sessions and a one-day seminar (8 hours). The day seminar serves to simulate a fictitious citizen participation process in which students are confronted with the various considerations and value judgments of experts who comment on the topic of “Patient Preference Predictors”.
In order to make the participation of experts from different fields (doctors, ethicists, lawyers, church representatives or patient rights advocates) more vivid and transparent for the students, avatars were created for these people using the Dall-E software. Using the perplexity and ChatGPT software, short statements (3 to 5 minutes) were written that concisely present the fundamental positions of the aforementioned experts. In a further step, avatars and the short statements were merged using D-ID software, so that the avatars were animated and could “present” their statements via video.
The basic premise in designing the one-day seminar was that it would not be possible for the students to acquire the relevant knowledge in a short time by reading. The visual representation of the avatars clarifies the different people and makes the diversity of their positions clear. A detailed evaluation with a largely standardized questionnaire and an analysis of qualitative statements shows that this teaching format is well suited to helping students engage with such ethical issues and understand and weigh up the various perspectives. This format enables students to deal with a challenging ethical issue in an exemplary way.