Super disappointed to see my good friends and physicians @ZekeEmanuel @drjohnwhyte go into a conversation about one of the most important topics of our time with such poor-quality talking points. Listening to two scientific experts resort to emotional & anecdotal arguments over and over, for or against AI, truly shows how disconnected we’ve become in our ability to debate and communicate with those we disagree with. I’m not sure if this is a result of watching Secretary Kennedy’s rise to power, but this is certainly not the right direction for us to go as scientists. Dr. Emanuel wrote a book called “eat your ice cream” as a way to grab attention, for perhaps a less than ideal piece of medical advice, but now he’s taking this approach in making hyper-specific, predictive claims about autonomous AI replacing human doctors. He does so using non-realistic, poorly applicable studies, and when appropriately called out for it, his defense is that he was not being selective in only including pro-AI written papers. Sure, that may be true, but he should still realize that the level of research he’s using to justify his extraordinary position is at the bottom of medical evidence hierarchy. Making recommendations based on low-quality evidence is unfortunately sometimes part of medicine, however we cannot take that same liberty when discussing the health/well-being of millions of patients and the value of a million+ physicians in the US. I’m not sure how much time Dr. Emanuel spends practicing medicine these days vs how much he interacts with AI-obsessed VC’s, as many of his points come off quite disconnected from current medical practice and education. He says medicine has never prioritized empathy or EQ in education, but he’s surprisingly missing the point here. Yes, early in med school much time is spent hammering science in the classroom, but then the last two years, as well as most of residency is focused on the humanistic aspect. This is where doctors are made. As someone who teaches resident physicians, I have seen time and time again brilliant test-taking med-students absolutely flounder once they begin working with actual humans. This is where I expected Dr. Whyte to shine and defend the humanistic parts that are currently lacking in AI research studies. Instead, he was so often on the defensive and resorting to emotional arguments that he was unable to represent the anti-autonomous AI side well. Yes healthcare in our country is broken, yes we are all suffering, but this requires thoughtful solutions utilizing true evidence-based tools as opposed to AI-industry funded, “podcast-bro” level discussions and predictions. It’s no doubt that AI has a place within medicine and certainly has the capacity to improve care. I can’t imagine a single doctor thinking that improving care with technology is a bad thing. But what’s painfully obvious is that we’ve become quite comfortable making exaggerated claims to get attention, at the expense of further confusing an already overwhelmed public. Physicians, med students, and most importantly patients deserve better leadership and guidance in this space. Spending an hour spitballing stories about the one time AI got it right, or how Waymo got it wrong should be reserved for Joe Rogan and not the CEO of the @AmerMedicalAssn or a professor from an esteemed institution. We should be avoiding hyperbole & fear-mongering at all costs. We should be debating how to create quality & inclusive research to better understand where AI needs work, where the human touch is indispensable, and how future medical professionals should be trained. - a frustrated family medicine physician P.S. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry when the moderator took the first break to share a commercial for another AI company 😅

After a year, today we’ve finally published our MeNome app. It’s available on the App Store and at MeNome.belly-Md.com. DM for free premium access. This is the greatest thing I’ve done in my career, and we’re just getting started.