This article highlights the growing utility of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the field of cardiothoracic surgery and discusses the current and potential future ethical and legal implications, as well as concerns regarding impact on data privacy and the trust between patients and physicians. The article also emphasizes the opportunities and utility of AI in the preoperative and postoperative periods, including the use of segmentation algorithms to accurately measure aortic dimensions for the planning of transcatheter aortic valve implantation, as well as algorithms to model and predict the development of right heart failure after left ventricular assist device implantation.