Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

GenAI will save lives—if properly applied

GenAI will save lives—if properly applied

A medical professional and the word "AI".

Getty Images, Toowongsa Anurak

In medicine, rare moments arise when technological breakthroughs and shifts in leadership create an opportunity for sweeping change. The United States now stands at that crossroad.

A major advance in artificial intelligence, combined with a shake-up at the highest levels of federal healthcare leadership, has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, make medical care affordable and ease the burnout crisis among doctors and nurses.


But there’s a risk this potential will go unrealized. The newly appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Marty Makary, the incoming head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), must move swiftly to capitalize on what U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance recently called, “One of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations.”

A breakthrough in AI development

For the first time, generative AI isn’t solely the domain of billion-dollar companies. Instead, entrepreneurial and midsize companies can build tools for patients without having to raise massive amounts of capital.

A new generative AI model, DeepSeek-V3, recently emerged from China, and unlike models built by OpenAI, Google or Anthropic, it wasn’t developed with billions of dollars in funding. Reportedly developed for less than $6 million, DeepSeek used a technique called “knowledge distillation” that allows GenAI applications to learn from existing models faster, cheaper and with greater efficiency.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

While DeepSeek is free to use for Americans, there are serious concerns about data retention policies and privacy issues for data stored on servers in China. However, the biggest advance won’t derive from the use of DeepSeek in America but from the rapid advancement of American Open-source AI packages. This means any company, researcher or startup will soon be able to access and refine it to build tools for patients. If RFK Jr. and Makary act quickly, they can unlock AI’s full potential before red tape strangles it.

But where will innovative companies find the biggest opportunity to save lives and make medical care affordable?

America is currently mired in an urgent and worsening crisis of chronic disease, which affects 60% of Americans and drives 70% of healthcare costs. Right now, most chronic diseases are poorly managed. Hypertension, diabetes, and heart failure remain uncontrolled in at least 40% of U.S. cases, leading to millions of avoidable strokes, heart attacks, kidney failures and cancers each year. According to CDC estimates, effective control of these conditions would prevent 30–50% of these life-threatening events.

The future is here and now

Rather than spending hundreds of millions to build large language models from scratch, healthcare startups will be able to create their own generative AI tools at a fraction of the cost. But unlike today’s broad AI applications, which answer general medical questions, this next generation of generative AI will be different. It will be hyper-specialized, trained on massive amounts of existing (but largely unused) patient data to monitor and manage these chronic diseases.

Right now, 97% of hospital bedside monitor data is discarded, never analyzed to improve patient care. Similarly, today’s GenAI models have never been trained on millions of hours of recorded medical call center conversations and chronic disease management check-ins that provide medical advice and offer personalized care recommendations.

Here’s how it could work: For a newly diagnosed patient with diabetes or hypertension, GenAI-enabled wearable monitors would continuously track blood sugar or blood pressure, analyzing fluctuations in real time. And for patients, instead of waiting four months for a routine follow-up visit, the new AI system would identify poor chronic disease control months earlier, provide timely medical advice and flag issues for clinicians when medication adjustments are needed—all for an estimated cost of less than $9 per hour.

For heart failure patients, GenAI-driven monitoring tools would assess daily clinical status, detecting subtle signs of deterioration before a full-blown crisis occurs. Instead of being rushed to the hospital two days later when they can’t breathe, patients and their doctors would receive early alerts, allowing for immediate intervention and eliminating the need for hospitalization.

These disease-specific GenAI agents won’t replace doctors. They’ll fill the gaps between office visits, identify patients at risk, and provide continuous and data-driven care, lowering costs and decreasing daily demands on clinicians.

The FDA must modernize its approach to AI in medicine

Despite AI’s potential to save lives and lower healthcare costs, outdated FDA regulations threaten to stall these innovations before they can reach patients.

The agency has long treated AI like a traditional drug or medical device, demanding information on the data sources and expecting years-long clinical trials. This isn’t how GenAI operates. Unlike pharmaceuticals that keep the same chemical structure, GenAI systems continuously learn and improve—a process driven by the application itself.

RFK Jr. and Makary have a rare opportunity to fix the burdensome regulatory process and lower the barriers to implementation. While Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has drawn criticism, his stated commitment to public health and tackling chronic disease aligns with what GenAI can achieve. Meanwhile, Makary has built a reputation for patient safety and challenging outdated medical policies. He is likely to recognize the value GenAI provides for patients.

A new AI approval framework

Rather than forcing GenAI-driven disease management programs to fit into an antiquated approval model, HHS and the FDA should encourage the development of these programs and fast-track implementation by:

  • Prioritizing GenAI applications that focus on diabetes, hypertension, heart failure and similarly high-impact chronic diseases.
  • Comparing GenAI-driven programs to existing clinician-led models rather than some hypothetically perfect model. When GenAI-powered disease management tools can outperform humans by at least 10% in advice quality, successful disease control and patient satisfaction, they should be given FDA approval.

As U.S. life expectancy remains stagnant, and over half the population can’t afford medical care, the window for action is narrowing. RFK Jr. and Makary must act now to modernize the approach the HHS and FDA take to GenAI. If not, bureaucratic inertia will lock American medicine in the past.


Dr. Robert Pearl is a Stanford University professor, Forbes contributor, bestselling author, and former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group.

Read More

Trump’s Gambit: Trade Tariff Relief For a TikTok Sale

TikTok icon on a phone.

Getty Images, 5./15 WEST

Trump’s Gambit: Trade Tariff Relief For a TikTok Sale

You know things aren’t going well in the negotiations for the U.S. operations of TikTok when President Trump has to bribe the Chinese government with billions in tariff relief.

But that’s exactly what was reported out of the White House. President Trump is willing to give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) billions in tariff relief if they pressured TikTok to sell its U.S. operations before the April 5th deadline.

Keep ReadingShow less
Who gets to ask questions at the White House?

WASHINGTON, DC, USA –– White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt answers questions from journalists on Jan. 28, 2025.

(Joshua Sukoff/Medill News Service)

Who gets to ask questions at the White House?

WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration increasingly welcomes vloggers and social media influencers into press briefings and the Oval Office, established outlets like the Associated Press find themselves excluded from the century-old press pool, sparking controversy about what "transparency" truly means.

Watch the video report here:

Keep ReadingShow less
Lost Sams and Missing Fei-Feis: Why America Needs AI Guides Now

Students studying robotics.

Getty Images, eyesfoto

Lost Sams and Missing Fei-Feis: Why America Needs AI Guides Now

In 2018, Economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues revealed a sobering truth: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Their research on "Lost Einsteins" demonstrated that countless young Americans with the potential to be great inventors never get the chance to develop their skills simply because they lack exposure to innovation and mentorship. The data was clear: if a child grows up in an area with a high concentration of inventors, they are far more likely to become one themselves. But for too many, particularly those in rural and lower-income communities, the door to innovation remains closed. Failure to find those “Lost Einsteins” has deprived us all of a better future. Chetty forecasted that "if women, minorities, and children from low-income families were to invent at the same rate as white men from high-income (top 20%) families, the rate of innovation in America would quadruple." That’s a more prosperous, dynamic America.

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) carries the promise of realizing that brighter future if we learn from our prior mistakes. A lack of broad exposure among our youth to AI and the individuals shaping its development threatens to leave behind an entire generation of would-be entrepreneurs, scholars, and thought leaders. We risk creating "Lost Sams"—referring to OpenAI's Sam Altman as a stand-in for AI innovators—and "Missing Fei-Feis"—a nod to Stanford AI researcher Fei-Fei Li. Without urgent action, we will reinforce the existing gaps in AI leadership, limiting who gets to shape the future of this transformative technology.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education is Key to Winning the AI Revolution

Two young students engaging in STEM studies.

Getty Images, Kmatta

Education is Key to Winning the AI Revolution

As the Department of Education faces rounds of layoffs and threats of dissolution, prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), it is urgent to rethink and rededicate efforts to strengthen, broaden, and enhance STEM education from early childhood through post-secondary programs.

In order to realize the promise of an AI-driven future, technology and education leaders must address the persistent gaps between supply and demand for all highly skilled technical workers in the U.S.

Keep ReadingShow less