Post-biographical dignity in the age of artificial intelligence: Narrative, ePROMs and ethical challenges in end-of-life care.

OBJECTIVES

The growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and patient-reported digital tools (ePROMs and ePREMs) in palliative care offers new opportunities for personalised care yet also raises profound ethical and philosophical concerns. This paper examines how emerging technologies intersect with the concept of human dignity at the end of life, proposing an expanded notion of post-biographical dignity.

METHODS

Ethical-philosophical analysis based on critical readings of AI ethics, narrative medicine, and the philosophy of technology.

RESULTS

While digital tools such as ePROMs and ePREMs offer potential for richer, more person-centred care, they also risk reducing patients to data points and predictive profiles. Digital processes increasingly shape the narrative, vulnerability, and memory of the dying person. Post-biographical dignity calls for a reconceptualization of care that includes memory, relational continuity, and ethical engagement with digital remains.

SIGNIFICANCE OF

RESULTS

End-of-life care in the age of AI must move beyond autonomy-focused ethics to encompass the narrative, relational, and posthumous dimensions of dignity. A critical, philosophically informed ethics is essential to prevent depersonalisation in digitally mediated care.