Dr. Bot

Why Doctors Can Fail Us—and How AI Could Save Lives

Charlotte Blease author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Yale University Press

Published:9th Sep '25

Should be back in stock very soon

Dr. Bot cover

How does AI compare to a doctor when it comes to saving lives? 

Doctors are under-resourced and face unprecedented levels of stress, with rising patient numbers and ever developing medical knowledge. But at the same time, they are all too human, prone to racial, class and social biases that affect the care patients receive. 

Can we improve patient experience and alleviate the burdens of doctors at the same time?

In this groundbreaking study, Charlotte Blease reveals how AI, if handled with care, could emerge as the most reliable physician in history. Drawing on interviews with authorities in AI, doctors and patients, Blease shows how technology – despite some resistance – is already making a difference. From diagnosis and second opinions to treatment and aftercare, AI has the potential to revolutionise our healthcare.

“Blease’s arguments have reframed how I think about AI’s role in medicine.”—Leana Wen, Washington Post

“Change is inevitable and, as Blease’s thought-provoking book shows, necessary.”—Nick Rennison, Daily Mail

“I learned a lot from this book. . . . A timely reminder that as a society we need to have the conversation about what we want health care to look like.”—Rageshri Dhairyawan, The Lancet

“This book asks the challenging question: could AI perform better than doctors? . . . From the outset, the author is careful not to antagonise doctors: she empathises with their plight. . . . But at the same time, she points out that they are all too human.”—Muiris Houston, Irish Times

“A bold, brilliant diagnosis of medicine’s blind spots, Dr. Bot is the second opinion that medicine didn’t ask for, but desperately needs. It is sharp, savvy and impossible to ignore.”—Brendan Kelly, Medical Independent

“This is very, very interesting . . . and a stylish book.”—Pat Kenny, Newstalk

“One of this year's most mind shifting reads.”—Joe Humphreys, Irish Times

“[Blease’s] evidence-driven sceptical approach is part of what makes this such a good book.”—Nigel Warburton, New World

“Blease . . . sets professional pretensions against the lived reality of patients and uses this to set out the many ways in which suprahuman intelligence is bound to serve patients better.”—Richard Lehman, British Journal of General Practice

“Brilliant. . . . A thorough, insightful, and timely exploration.”—Kenneth D. Mandl, Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School

“Medical professionals will no doubt wince. But patients should rejoice. This is a superb vision of the future of health care. I enjoyed the book immensely. Mandatory reading for doctors and policymakers.”—Professor Richard Susskind CBE KC (Hon), author of How to Think About AI and coauthor of The Future of the Professions

“Few books manage to be this beautifully written and this unsparing. Dr. Bot is both a searing critique of medicine-as-we-know-it and a hopeful exploration of what care could become. Blease brings deep insight and rare clarity to one of the most urgent conversations of our time.”—Maxine Mackintosh, Alan Turing Institute

Dr. Bot is an intelligent, incisive exploration of why even the best doctors are only human—and why, if used wisely, AI could transform healthcare for the better.”—Steve Stewart-Williams, Professor of Psychology, University of Nottingham Malaysia

“With a lively mix of medical data, ethics, and ethnography, Blease covers the waterfront of what Artificial Intelligence might mean for medicine and what to do about it. The result is a highly readable, and surprisingly human, discussion of technological change.”—I. Glenn Cohen, JD, Deputy Dean and James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

ISBN: 9780300247145

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

352 pages