Zach Lipton

You know, nothing like it is now, but in the sense that there were already front page New York Times articles about what was happening in neural networks research.

There was already a little bit of an arms race.

And leading AI researchers were already saying things like, basically, like, this is the end of cardiology.

I mean, of course, of radiology.

Right.

Because of that ability to sort of recognize findings and images and to classify them.

I think I think the AI community underestimated the complexity of practicing medicine.

But the point is, like, it was coming as like a major tidal wave that was some way or another going to impact health care.

And I think the hospital systems were caught flat footed.

You know, they hadn't really been on the leading edge of the trend.

They were like, oh, wait, you know, they're suddenly like hearing from their board, like, what's your AI strategy?

And they're like, what?

So so I had this moment of like, meanwhile, like I was someone who was like my life's purpose, you know, or like my career mission was to have an impact in health care.

And I had just accepted a faculty position at a university that has no medical school.

Like, I'm sitting there being like, all right, like, I need to find a way to turn this into a collaboration.

And I think from his side, he was probably thinking like, oh, wait, there's a new professor at CMU who's excited about healthcare, you know, in the machine learning department.

Like, this could be an opportunity to do something interesting in Pittsburgh.

So Steve actually invited me out to a happy hour.

First, he drove me home to my Airbnb.

Yeah.