Artificial intelligence is described as the“fourth industrial revolution”. Driven by the development of the Internet and big data, ophthalmology has become a frontier discipline in this wave, showing a good prospect of vigorous development. Artificial intelligence has been applied to the auxiliary screening, diagnosis and treatment of a variety of eye diseases, and assisted in the completion of corneal, refractive, cataract and other related operations; Help realize graded diagnosis and treatment, telemedicine and improve the training mode of ophthalmic talents, and participate in eye health management and ophthalmic education. While artificial intelligence brings benefits to mankind, it also brings a number of ethical problems, among which the contradictions related to medical ethics, such as the division of responsibility for diagnosis and treatment errors, the protection of patient information privacy, humanistic care and its fairness, the contradiction between the growing artificial intelligence and imperfect ethics and laws are particularly prominent. Artificial intelligence must be guided by the correct value and abide by the corresponding ethical norms to continue to mature and improve in clinical practice. This paper summarizes the development status and ethical dilemma of ophthalmology under the background of artificial intelligence to provide reference for promoting its healthy development in the field of ophthalmology.