Vinod Khosla Calls on FDA to Certify AI That Outperforms the 'Median Human Doctor'
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla called for the FDA to certify autonomous medical AI when it can demonstrate better performance than the median human doctor, arguing that medicine should be held to a higher standard.
Khosla Calls for Autonomous Medical AI
On Tuesday, in a post on X, Khosla shared an Atlantic opinion piece he co-authored with physician and health policy expert Ezekiel Emanuel, calling for a more aggressive approach to medical AI.
"We need to get past biases and knee jerk responses and have FDA really certify AI based on it performing better than median human doctor as a predicate," Khosla wrote.
He added, "Uplevel medicine to above median standards."
AI Doctors Challenge Human Oversight
The authors argued that some medical care is highly algorithmic and that specialized AI systems could potentially identify drug interactions, evaluate symptoms and monitor patients more consistently than physicians.
They cited studies in which AI performed better than doctors in certain simulated clinical tasks and a 2023 diabetes study in which autonomous AI helped patients reach stable insulin doses faster.
Khosla’s investment firm has also highlighted his view that medical AI should meet or exceed the error rates and quality standards of median physicians before receiving FDA approval.
AI Could Predict Disease Earlier
Last month, Khosla predicted that AI could transform medicine by 2035, making routine tests such as ECGs and EEGs far more informative.
He said AI could uncover hidden health conditions and potentially predict diseases before serious symptoms appeared, enabling earlier treatment.
Researcher Derya Unutmaz praised Khosla’s decade-old AI predictions as remarkably accurate and "prophetic."
AI’s Growing Role in Health Care
Earlier, Marc Andreessen said AI is already a better doctor than 99.99% of humans after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said physicians found fewer flaws in GPT-5.6’s responses than in doctor-written answers.
Meanwhile, Mark Cuban warned that healthcare conglomerates could undermine AI’s benefits by creating barriers that delayed or denied care.
A national survey found that 25% of U.S. adults had used AI for health information, with many using it to research symptoms before or after doctor visits.
However, about 14 million adults had skipped a medical visit after receiving AI guidance, raising concerns about AI replacing professional care for some patients.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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