Can AI Replace Doctors? Zachary Lipton on the Future of Healthcare and AI

Can AI Replace Doctors? Zachary Lipton on the Future of Healthcare and AI

Published: September 21, 2026

Duration: 1:31:17

Zachary Lipton is an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a co-founder of Abridge, a healthcare AI company (and a jazz saxophonist!). His research spans machine learning, healthcare, and the broader impact of AI.

In this episode, we discuss what AI can (and cannot yet) do in healthcare. We talk about why medicine is harder to automate than coding, AI scribes and clinical decision support, drug discovery, whether AI could eventually replace doctors, and the role of open models and intelligent routing.

In the second half, we turn to the future of AI research...