How The ARISE Network Is Rethinking Clinical AI

InnovationHealthcareHow The ARISE Network Is Rethinking Clinical AIBySpencer Dorn,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Spencer Dorn is a gastroenterologist who covers healthcare and tech.Follow AuthorMay 20, 2026, 08:44am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.The Arise Network aims to understand and explain what AI can do in healthcare.gettyYou’ve seen the headlines: AI aces the medical boards. AI outperforms expert physicians. But what does this actually mean? And how do we evaluate technology that’s advancing faster than we can fully make sense of it?The AI Research and Science Evaluation (ARISE) Healthcare Network was formed to help answer these questions. Spanning multiple medical centers and led by physicians at Harvard and Stanford with diverse and complementary backgrounds, ARISE is trying to understand what AI systems can do in medicine and how we can evaluate and explain their performance.They are working to define what holds up in real-world medicine, what we mean by clinical reasoning, how clinicians and AI should work together, when either may perform better alone, and how we might recognize if AI approaches “medical superintelligence.”The Physician Data Scientist And AI Magic TricksPhysician, magician, and data scientist Jonathan H. Chen is working to demystify clinical AI.ARISE NetworkArthur C. Clarke famously wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Decades later, many people see A.I. as magic. So, who better to spot a magic trick than Jonathan H. Chen, a physician, data scientist, and performing magician? MORE FOR YOUChen’s path is not typical. He started college at 13 and worked as a software engineer before returning to school to earn an MD and PhD in computer science and then training in internal medicine. Since joining the Stanford faculty in 2017, he’s been evaluating how AI applie...