“No longer morally justifiable” temporal dynamics of care, or how AI made waiting unethical

This article explores the impact of Artificial Intelligence on professional caregivers in a Scandinavian hospital, drawing upon an ethnographic and interview-based study that focused on time experiences in relation to cancer diagnoses and treatment plans. The AI system produces detailed radiographic drawings faster and more accurately than its human counterpart, leading to more accurate diagnoses and treatment predictions. I examine how this technological development changes radiologists’ temporal perspectives, identifying three themes: (1) how their perception of a ‘tolerable’ waiting time for an accurate diagnosis evolves; (2) how AI’s speed transforms the caregivers’ moral responsibility towards their patients, leading to a sense that they should work faster. Time-saving technology therefore does not necessarily reduce workloads, which I understand through (3) the power of techno-imaginaries, where beliefs about AI’s inevitability shape current healthcare practices. Because the increased use of AI is seen as the only and inevitable way to mitigate rising and ‘unacceptable’ waiting times, caregivers were adopting riskier practices, related to their use of the new technology, under a new moral imperative by which good care was understood in terms of avoiding keeping patients waiting.