Plain English with Derek Thompson Is AI Really About to Solve Human Disease?
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Oct 3, 2025 
Lloyd Minor, the Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine and a physician-scientist, dives into the transformative role of AI in healthcare. He discusses its potential to diagnose diseases better than doctors and the current limitations of AI in drug design. Concerns about overdiagnosis and the risk of de-skilling clinicians are also highlighted. Minor emphasizes AI's promise in clinical trials and chronic disease management, while addressing the societal impacts of technology on human connections.
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AI As Medicine's Grand Hope
- Many optimists say AI's biggest promise is to solve disease by diagnosing and explaining complex cases.
- Derek highlights a Harvard demo where an AI convincingly diagnosed Lofgren syndrome faster than a human expert.
Ambiguous Diagnostic Reality
- AI systems both hallucinate and sometimes match expert diagnosticians, producing a complex mixed reality.
- Lloyd Minor and Derek stress that AI's diagnostic power coexists with serious risks and errors.
Use Clinical Models In Secure Contexts
- Deploy clinical AI inside secure, privacy-protected environments tied to medical records.
- Use models to synthesize rare findings and guide therapy selection only with safeguards and clinician oversight.