A Review of Ethical Challenges in AI for Emergency Management

As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly integrated into emergency management, ethical considerations demand greater attention. Essential components of comprehensive emergency management include mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, which should serve as the foundation for integrating AI-driven science and technologies to effectively safeguard populations and infrastructure in times of crisis. This paper reviewed the ethical challenges of AI in emergency management in terms of critical issues, best practices, applications, emerging ethical considerations, and strategies addressing ethical challenges. Three core ethical themes are identified: algorithmic bias; privacy, transparency and accountability; and human–AI collaboration. This paper thoroughly analyzed the associated ethical challenges, reviewed the theoretical frameworks and proposed strategies to mitigate ethical challenges by strengthening the audits of algorithms, enhancing transparency in AI decision-making, and incorporating stakeholder engagement. Finally, the importance of creating policies to govern AI ethics was discussed.