Alex John London

About

Alex John London is the K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also co-leads the K&L Gates Initiative in Ethics and Computational Technologies. His work focuses on ethical and policy issues related to the development and deployment of novel technologies in medicine, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, as well as methodological issues in theoretical and practical ethics, and cross-national issues of justice and fairness. He has authored the book 'For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics,' which explores the ethical foundations of research involving human participants, emphasizing the importance of connecting research to social justice and the common good. London has contributed extensively to the field of research ethics, policy, and oversight, shaping key guidelines and participating in international and national advisory groups, including the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. His research extends to the ethical challenges of AI, including issues of bias, accountability, and governance, and he critiques current standards such as explainability in favor of institutional mechanisms that ensure social trust and non-domination. Additionally, he has engaged with biosecurity policy, serving on the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and collaborating with organizations like the Nuclear Threat Initiative. His foundational work in ethics…

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Engineering ethics
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Law and economics
• Law
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Against pandemic research exceptionalism

  Science · 2020 · 386 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Crises are no excuse for lowering scientific standards

  DOI

• AI, Health, and Health Care Today and Tomorrow

  JAMA · 2025-10-13 · 85 citations

  letter

  Importance: Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing health and health care on an unprecedented scale. Though the potential benefits are massive, so are the risks. The JAMA Summit on AI discussed how health and health care AI should be developed, evaluated, regulated, disseminated, and monitored. Observations: Health and health care AI is wide-ranging, including clinical tools (eg, sepsis alerts or diabetic retinopathy screening software), technologies used by individuals with health concerns (e…

  PublisherDOI

• Protecting scientific integrity in an age of generative AI

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2024-05-21 · 71 citations

  editorialOpen access

  ISSN:0027-8424

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Artificial intelligence in medicine: Overcoming or recapitulating structural challenges to improving patient care?

  Cell Reports Medicine · 2022 · 69 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  There is considerable enthusiasm about the prospect that artificial intelligence (AI) will help to improve the safety and efficacy of health services and the efficiency of health systems. To realize this potential, however, AI systems will have to overcome structural problems in the culture and practice of medicine and the organization of health systems that impact the data from which AI models are built, the environments into which they will be deployed, and the practices and incentives that st…

  DOI

• Self-Defeating Codes of Medical Ethics and How to Fix Them: Failures in COVID-19 Response and Beyond

  The American Journal of Bioethics · 2020 · 40 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Statements of the core ethical and professional responsibilities of medical professionals are incomplete in ways that threaten fundamental goals of medicine. First, in the absence of explicit guidance for responding to cases in which there is significant uncertainty or disagreement about the relative therapeutic, prophylactic or diagnostic merits of available interventions they perpetuate self-defeating practices. Second, without addressing the role of advertising in shaping patient and communit…

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jonathan Kimmelman

  McGill University

  65 shared

• Spencer Phillips Hey

  Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

  57 shared

• Benjamin Gregory Carlisle

  Berlin Institute of Health at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin

  50 shared

• Tim Ramsay

  Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

  50 shared

• Nadine Demko

  McGill University

  49 shared

• Georgina Freeman

  University of Calgary

  49 shared

• Amanda Hakala

  McGill University

  49 shared

• Nathalie MacKinnon

  St. Paul's Hospital

  49 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Philosophy

  University of Virginia

  1999

Awards & honors

• Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Distinguished Teaching and Ed…
• Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Bio…
• New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundati…

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• Richard Scheinesh-35
• Teddy Seidenfeldh-31