About this episode

Dr. Jonathan Chen discusses his journey in medical AI and the implications of machine learning in healthcare.

In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Chen joins the hosts to discuss his path from teenage programmer to Stanford physician-informatician and why machine learning has both thrilled and unnerved him. From his 2017 NEJM essay warning about “inflated expectations” to his latest studies showing GPT‑4 outperforming doctors on diagnostic tasks, Dr. Chen describes a discipline learning humility at machine speed. This conversation spans medical education, automation anxiety, magic, and why empathy—not memorization—may become the most valuable clinical skill. Transcript.

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Jonathan Chen

Topics covered

• medical AI
• machine learning
• medical education
• automation anxiety
• empathy in medicine

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stanford

Books & works: NEJM, GPT‑4

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