What Values are in AI? A Conversation with Dr. Zak Kohane

Doctronic’s Autonomous AI with Dr. Byron Crowe

Doctronic CMO Dr. Byron Crowe [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/xsz4vhedu2s4fpyn/ByronCrowebio.pdf] describes how administrative complexity can interfere with timely, effective treatment, and how AI may help address those challenges. Crowe discusses Doctronic’s use of autonomous AI to renew prescriptions, arguing that this application can streamline care while maintaining clinical oversight. For physicians, this shift raises important questions about workflow, responsibility, and patient engagement. Crowe emphasizes that the goal is not automation for its own sake, but more reliable and accessible care. As these tools evolve, their impact will depend on how thoughtfully they are integrated into clinical practice. Transcript. [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/9nue7iu8y5fwgktb/Episode_41_Crowe.pdf]

AI’s Next Frontier with Dr. Kyunghyun Cho

Dr. Kyunghyun Cho [https://kyunghyuncho.me/] is a leading AI researcher best known for co-authoring a landmark 2014 paper that introduced neural machine translation. In this episode, he discusses his wide-ranging career spanning fundamental AI research, co-founding Prescient Design (acquired by Genentech), and driving applications of AI in health care. For clinicians, Cho’s core message is pragmatic: AI should help health care run better. After years of work at NYU Langone, he reframed AI in medicine from solving rare diagnostic puzzles to improving operational prediction at scale. Cho emphasizes purpose‑built data, careful fine‑tuning, and regulatory accountability. His perspective connects technical rigor with system stewardship—and insists that patient voices must be present in AI governance. Transcript.  [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ij6rxt9prfdu6y4u/Episode_40_Cho.pdf]

Epic’s Approach to AI with Seth Hain

Clinical AI only helps patients if clinicians and health systems trust it. Seth Hain [https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-hain-12760647/] describes how Epic is building foundation models that respect institutional autonomy, minimize burden, and prioritize safety. He discusses scaling laws in structured medical data, cautious deployment for clinical interventions, and why understanding causality—not just correlation—is essential. This conversation reframes AI not as disruption, but as infrastructure for safer, more reliable care. Transcript.  [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/b625f6upga7iswz9/Episode_39_Hain.pdf]

Bridging AI and Biology to Tackle Medicine’s Hardest Problems with Dr. Marinka Zitnik

For Dr. Marinka Zitnik [https://dbmi.hms.harvard.edu/people/marinka-zitnik], the promise of AI in medicine begins with acknowledging the scale of the problem. Most patients with rare diseases have no approved treatments, and traditional drug development timelines make progress painfully slow. In this conversation, she describes how AI-driven drug repurposing offers a way to work within existing constraints while still opening new therapeutic possibilities. She also highlights a structural issue that has limited impact: machine learning and biology communities often work in parallel, not together. By building shared benchmarks and collaborative spaces, Marinka argues, researchers can focus models on problems that truly matter for patients. The episode introduces her definition of AI agents as systems that can take actions and learn from outcomes — a capability she sees as essential for scientific discovery beyond static prediction. Throughout the discussion, Marinka returns to the value of academic freedom: the ability to chase difficult questions that require long time horizons and interdisciplinary thinking. Transcript. [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/n3xr5kytcb6h9acx/Episode_38_Zitnik.pdf]

What Values are in AI? A Conversation with Dr. Zak Kohane

For Dr. Zak Kohane [https://dbmi.hms.harvard.edu/people/isaac-kohane], this year’s advances in AI weren’t abstract. They were personal, practical, and deeply tied to care. After decades studying clinical data and diagnostic uncertainty, he finds himself building his own EHR, reviewing his child’s imaging with AI, and re-thinking the balance between incidental and missed findings. Across each story is the same insight: clinicians and machines make mistakes for different reasons — and understanding those differences is essential for safe deployment. In this episode, Zak also highlights where AI is spreading fastest, and why: reimbursement. While dermatology and radiology aren’t broadly using AI for interpretation, revenue-cycle optimization is advancing rapidly. Meanwhile, ambient documentation has exploded — not because it increases accuracy or throughput, but because it improves clinician satisfaction in strained systems. Yet the most profound theme, he argues, is values. Models already show implicit preferences: some conservative, some aggressive. And unlike human clinicians, no regulatory framework examines how those preferences form. Zak calls for a new form of oversight that centers patients, recognizes bias, and bridges clinical expertise with technical transparency. Transcript. [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/g5sp9iv6tqwau7xv/Episode_37_Kohane.pdf]