Medicine, Machines, and Magic: Dr. Jonathan Chen on Medical AI

Oct 15, 2025
48 mins

Episode Description

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.

See all episodes

Never lose your place, on any device

Create a free account to sync, back up, and get personal recommendations.