Radiologists criticize Anthropic CEO’s recent comments about the specialty
Radiologists are criticizing a noted artificial intelligence executive’s recent comments about the specialty.
Dario Amodei, PhD—CEO of San Francisco-based Anthropic, developer of a series of large language models called Claude—recently appeared on a much-watched podcast episode. Hosted by Nikhil Kamath, an Indian entrepreneur and investor, the hourlong conversation focused on a range of topics under the umbrella of “The AI Tsunami is Here.”
However, radiologists are homing in on a key snippet of the conversation that mentioned the specialty. Amodei was asked to expound on whether AI models like Claude, rather than humans, could increasingly be used to manage customer relationships.
“There’s this story of, like—I think it was Geoff Hinton—predicting that AI will replace radiologists. And indeed, AI has gotten better than radiologists at, you know, doing scans, right?” Amodei responded on the podcast, first posted Feb. 22. “But what happens today is there aren’t less radiologists. What the radiologist does is they walk the patient through the scan, and they kind of talk to the patient. So, the most highly technical part of the job has gone away, but somehow there’s still some demand for like the kind of underlying human skill.”
He was referring to Nobel Prize winning scientist Geoffrey Hinton’s famous prediction in 2016 that “people should stop training radiologists now,” believing it was “completely obvious” AI would surpass them within five years. The NY Times revisited Hinton’s prediction last year, with the physicist admitting he may have spoken too broadly while noting he was only referring to image analysis.
Ben White, MD—a Dallas-based writer and neuroradiologist—shared Amodei’s comments on his blog and via social media on Friday. He believes the AI expert “set a new record on how quickly you can be wrong about how radiology works and how it’s been affected by AI so far.”
“What I find genuinely surprising here is not the marketing hype or the finessing of reality but the bold, straight-faced use of the past tense for something that simply has not happened. The future is uncertain, but the desire to continue raising money doesn’t change the past,” White wrote March 6.
The radiologist noted that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang similarly made misleading comments last November about radiology and how AI is reshaping it. White understands the urge for hyperbole, given the massive amounts of money at stake in the AI race. (Amodei is reportedly worth $7 billion and Anthropic is valued at $380 billion following a $30 billion fundraising round in February.) But White wonders why such prominent AI figures are allowed to make such “laughable, supposedly factual” claims with little pushback.
“If anyone reading this plans to interview Mr. Amodei, Mr. Huang, or anyone else pontificating about AI: In 2026, for radiologists, the ‘most highly technical part of the job,’ hasn’t meaningfully changed,” White concluded.
The Texas radiologist also shared his thoughts on social media channels, receiving thousands of views and several responses over the weekend.
“Interesting that someone immersed in AI would not be aware that Geoffrey Hinton admitted that he had been wrong about AI replacing radiologists. Also interesting that someone presumably highly intelligent is so weak in English grammar,” wrote William Ladd, MD, a retired radiologist based in San Diego.
“It is amazing how ignorant such a prominent figure could be. If anything, as of March 2026 (don’t know about tomorrow), AI…not only did not decrease our workload, but added an additional layer to it further complicating an already complex workflow,” added Maxim Saksonov, MD, MBA, a radiologist based in Thailand, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“I’m not convinced most of these individuals actually believe what they’re saying,” wrote “RJ,” a highly followed radiologist who posts anonymously on X.com under the username @northwoods1980. “They’re simply fueling a hype cycle to push up valuations and attract future investment, not necessarily pursuing the truth. In that way, healthcare is no different from any other business sector these days. We all probably need to take them less seriously and understand what they're really doing.”
“The customer of these AI companies is the investor. Their product is building models so complex that investors can be successfully fooled into believing they will truly replace all white-collar jobs by building ‘AGI’ [artificial general intelligence]. In reality, their goal is not AGI but an IPO,” wrote Viraj Shah, MD, a radiologist based in India.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.