What if the future of AI in healthcare depends less on better models and more on whether patients can actually access their own data?

In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore why health data portability is not just a bureaucratic headache, but a foundational issue for better care, better research, and better AI. We begin with the story of Liz Salmi, who discovered just how difficult it was to access and move her own medical records after years of treatment for brain cancer. That experience became the starting point for a bigger conversation about patient rights, siloed health systems, and the real-world consequences of inaccessible data.

From there, we examine how better access to health records can help patients catch errors, ask better questions, and become more active participants in their own care. We also look at the larger implications for medicine itself: how fragmented data limits research, weakens AI models, and slows the development of more personalized treatments.

We then dig into the idea of digital twins in healthcare, with insights from Jim St.Clair, Reinhard C. Laubenbacher, Ph.D., and Dr. Matthew DeCamp. Together, they help explain how digital models of the body could eventually support more precise diagnostics, treatment planning, and preventive care, but only if the underlying data is portable, usable, and governed in ways that respect privacy and patient ownership.

It is a conversation about medical records, interoperability, digital twins, precision medicine, and the broader question of who controls health data in an AI-driven future.

Topics covered:

• Liz Salmi’s story of navigating brain cancer and inaccessible medical records
• Why patient access to records can improve care and reduce errors
• The role of data portability in healthcare innovation
• How siloed data weakens AI models and medical research
• What digital twins in medicine actually are, and how they could work
• Why personalized medicine depends on better, more connected data systems
• The tension between privacy, access, and patient ownership of data

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.

What happens when the biggest questions about AI stop being theoretical and start shaping jobs, education, truth, power, and even what it means to be human.

In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore ten of the biggest questions on the future of AI. We examine whether AI will create abundance or accelerate job displacement, whether it will improve education or weaken critical thinking, and how societies should think about AI safety, misinformation, deepfakes, human relationships, power dynamics, AGI, and creativity. Rather than offering one simple answer, this conversation maps the major tensions that will define the next phase of AI.

Key moments:

[00:00:00] Steve Brown frames AI as a transition into a possible post-work era of service and exploration
[00:02:17] Question 1: what AI could mean for jobs, labor, and the economy
[00:05:25] Kevin Surace argues AI is driving the cost of content creation and knowledge work toward zero
[00:10:24] Derek Rydall on why both optimism and disruption may be true, depending on timing
[00:12:15] Question 2: is AI on an exponential path or approaching a limit
[00:14:09] Question 3: how AI could reshape education, homework, testing, and personalized learning
[00:17:18] Why higher education may need to rethink curriculum, pedagogy, and AI use in the classroom
[00:20:25] Derek Rydall’s warning about cognitive atrophy and using AI as a crutch
[00:22:58] Question 4: how to think about AI safety, guardrails, and real-world risks
[00:25:30] James Bellingham on AI, cybersecurity, economic threats, and why misuse matters more than sci-fi scenarios
[00:30:11] Question 5: how AI companions, assistants, and home robots may affect human relationships
[00:32:01] Question 6: AI power dynamics, inequality, sovereignty, and who benefits most
[00:34:11] The geopolitical race for AI power and why AI capability may concentrate in a few countries and companies
[00:37:29] Derek Rydall on AI as both a force for concentration and a tool for individual leverage
[00:40:00] Question 7: what happens if AI reaches AGI or superintelligence
[00:43:19] Question 8: misinformation, deepfakes, and navigating a world where synthetic media gets harder to detect
[00:45:42] Question 9: how AI may change human creativity, cognition, and identity
[00:51:17] Question 10: the unknown unknowns, and why everyone needs to help shape the future we want

Guests:

Steve Brown — AI Futurist
Kevin Surace — AI Futurist
Derek Rydall — Author, A Whole New Human
James Bellingham — Executive Director, IAA at Johns Hopkins

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.

What if the next life-saving medical breakthrough isn’t a brand-new drug, but an old generic hiding in plain sight, waiting to be matched to the right disease?

In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore the upside of AI and data when used to solve consequential problems, from AI drug discovery and drug repurposing to ambient AI in clinical workflows -- to climate change science and preventing wild fires -- and to the often-overlooked importance of data portability and health data interoperability.

Key moments

• [00:00:00] A rare-disease crisis becomes a roadmap for a new model of discovery with Dr. David Fajgenbaum
• [00:02:00] Why this episode focuses on the promise of AI and richer, more granular data
• [00:06:00] The incentives problem: why there’s little profit in finding new uses for generic drugs
• [00:10:00] Every Cure’s approach: scanning the world’s knowledge to score drug–disease matches at scale
• [00:11:00] Dr. İlkay Altıntaş on turning data at scale into scientific insights, faster
• [00:13:00] Wearables and digital biomarkers: what Oura-style data revealed during COVID-era research
• [00:17:00] Personalized medicine, dosage, and the return of tailored treatment through AI assistance
• [00:18:00] Wildfire AI and disaster resilience: integrating fragmented data to predict risk and act earlier
• [00:26:00] Dr. Marschall Runge on the healthcare talent crunch and what AI changes in practice
• [00:27:00] Ambient AI / AI medical scribe: why clinicians embrace it and what it frees up
• [00:30:00] Interoperability: why health records still don’t talk, and what AI can and can’t fix
• [00:33:00] Data portability, explained with Art Abal: why “your data should follow you” is still rare
• [00:35:00] The most “locked” data today: health trackers and social platforms, and why it matters
• [00:38:00] Competition, innovation, and antitrust: how data silos shape who gets to build
• [00:42:00] Surprising matches: examples like Botox for depression and lidocaine around tumors
• [00:45:00] A provocative future: early diagnosis at home, continuous signals, and faster intervention

Guests

• Dr. David Fajgenbaum — Co-founder and President, Every Cure
• Dr. İlkay Altıntaş — Chief Data Science Officer, San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
• Dr. Marschall Runge — Author, The Great Healthcare Disruption
• Art Abal — Co-founder, Vana

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.