Chasing Life: "The Year in News: Deepfakes, MAHA & AI"

Podcast: Chasing Life (CNN Podcasts)
Host: Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Guests: Audie Cornish, Claire Duffy
Date: December 26, 2025

Episode Overview

This special 2025 roundtable episode brings together three prominent CNN podcasters—Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Audie Cornish, and Claire Duffy—to reflect on the year's most impactful stories at the intersection of health, technology, and society. The conversation flows between the rise of AI in everyday life, the challenges posed by deepfakes, the political and cultural ascendance of "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA), and the shifting landscape of trust, truth, and community in the Internet age. The hosts connect personal experiences, expert insights, and cultural observations, exploring how these major trends have reshaped our lives, careers, and collective psyche.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. AI’s Ubiquity & Cultural Impact

Timestamps: 03:27–11:34

• AI’s Integration into Daily Life

  • Claire Duffy identifies the biggest story of the year as "the way that we’ve started to see people forming relationships with AI and what that means for individuals and also for all of us communally.” (04:28)
  • Dr. Gupta describes the medical field’s rapid adoption of AI: “Most patients have already been affected by it, whether they realize it or not… My residents, my medical students… become so facile with it so quickly.” (04:43)

• Changing Attitudes Toward Technology in Medicine

  • The age-old debate: Is it “cheating” for med students to lean on AI tools?
  • Dr. Gupta: “The response you often get is, but the technology does exist, and this is the world in which we live... Sometimes it just is for them, it just is.” (06:24)

• Persistent Doubts and Dependencies

  • “What happens when the power goes out? I don’t want that doctor who’s only perplexity’d their way through the process.” – Audie Cornish (06:24)
  • Gupta’s med student: “We would probably wait for the power to come back on.” (07:15)

• Polarized Narratives and ‘Religious Fervor’ Around AI

  • Audie notes the “religious fervor” with which AI is discussed—apocalyptic or utopian extremes dominate, paralyzing action.
  • Claire Duffy: “Part of the point is just to paralyze people into doing nothing, because either alternative feels so scary and extreme.” (08:57)

• Regulation and Hype

  • “The best thing that you can do is engage with it and use it because it’s coming. But it doesn’t really have to be this way,” Claire argues, referencing Karen Hao’s reporting on OpenAI (09:13).

2. AI and Medical Science

Timestamps: 11:01–15:50

• Promise vs. Reality in Health

  • Audie: “Is the promise of longer lives and health the path to deregulating our hearts?... Build that data center because this is going to change the world.” (11:01)
  • Dr. Gupta distinguishes between platforms: “Open Evidence... is really, really streamlined in terms of what it’s using to train itself. So it is all peer-reviewed journals.” (12:13)

• Distrust and Politicization Post-Pandemic

  • Audie: “The medical community has lost its status... vaccine skeptics, after years of being told you’re crackers, they have a seat at the table.” (13:33)
  • Dr. Gupta reframes the loss as a “deeper desire to understand... as opposed to just taking the expert’s word for it.” (14:34)

3. Deepfakes: Threats to Reputation, Trust, and Safety

Timestamps: 16:53–21:53

• The Rise of Deepfake Abuse

  • Claire: “It has gotten really scary... It just is so easy. And I think the challenge with AI is even if we see some of the bigger actors... require that people have consented... as soon as it’s clear that this technology is possible, somebody is going to find a way to do it in a way that is harmful to people.” (17:31)

• Personal Impact: Dr. Gupta’s Deepfake Experience

  • “I was weirded out... My former professor... came up to me [and] said... I bought some of those products you were talking about online. I was like, my goodness, that’s not me.” (18:59)
  • Gupta notes these scams target the vulnerable: “A lot of them, by the way, are around dementia, so they are preying on older people... I can only pray that these are not products that will actually harm people.” (19:47)

• Looking Forward: Real-time Deepfakes

  • Claire on deepfake threats: “I could be on this call with you all and it would actually be somebody else... Whether that ends up targeting people because it looks like I’m calling my grandmother and I’m in trouble, or it’s a CEO... That’s the sort of thing I think we’re going to start to see in the coming year.” (21:07)

4. Generational Shifts: Trust, Skepticism, and Digital Reality

Timestamps: 21:53–26:45

• Digital Natives’ Healthy Skepticism

  • Audie: “I’ve heard my kids who are under the age of ten say to one another, ‘oh, that’s fake. That’s AI.’ ...even if they haven’t seen it...” (21:53)
  • Dr. Gupta shares his daughter’s remark on a meme: “Dad, I don’t think any of it’s true.” (23:08)

• Loss of a Shared Reality

  • “We all grew up with a platform of truth... I just don’t know what happens to a generation of kids that don’t have that,” Gupta reflects. (23:46)
  • Audie imagines a move towards “a market of a human-verified Internet.” (24:07)

• Platforms Respond – and Reality Apathy

  • Claire references Kevin Rose’s Digg reboot: “The selling point... everyone on this platform is going to be a verified human.” (24:48)
  • The threat of “reality apathy”: “If nobody can trust if what they’re seeing is real or fake, they do just sort of stop caring… and it just sort of pulls people even more deeply into the rabbit holes that we’ve seen divide us.” (25:31)

5. Offline Community: Rediscovering the Real

Timestamps: 27:30–31:13

• Return to In-Person Community & Faith

  • Audie: “I have been surprised at returning to... church life, like returning to community... I actually wonder if it’s part of that world where people... want to shake hands with someone... get away from it.” (27:41)

• Medical Innovation Overshadowed by Polarization

  • “So much of the conversation around healthcare and medicine has been the MAHA sort of movement... but there are so many amazing things that are happening in the world of science and medicine... wonderful progress... [on] dementia, for example.” – Dr. Gupta (28:37)

• Teens & Tech: Toward Digital Mindfulness

  • Claire: “There’s this movement, teenagers... to not reject technology entirely, but take intentional breaks... they come together phone-free for a few hours... organize ‘delete days’...” (30:35)
  • Sanjay sees hope: “When they can have these really intense in-person social experiences, the desire for online social media goes down and they didn’t seem to miss it.” (32:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Generational Change:

  • “My residents... have become so facile with it so quickly. I mean, I’ll see my medical students on their phones, walking into patients' rooms, having a conversation with Perplexity or ChatGPT or Open Evidence, whichever platform they’re using.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta (04:43)

• On Misinformation:

  • “Dad, I don’t think any of it’s true.” – Dr. Gupta’s daughter on Internet memes and reality (23:22)

• On AI’s Collateral Damage:

  • “A lot of them, by the way, are around dementia, so they are preying on older people and presumably older people who are worried about their memory. These are reprehensible people.” – Dr. Sanjay Gupta (20:23)

• On Community Revival:

  • “Our church is packed... I wonder if it’s part of that world of people who are like, offline, I want to shake hands with someone. I want to see someone’s baby... They’re also coming for community.” – Audie Cornish (27:41)

• On Optimism:

  • “That makes me optimistic... ultimately all these problems that we’re talking about, we are saddling the next generation with them. And they are—you’re starting to see glimmers of this.” – Dr. Gupta (32:10)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:27: AI’s infiltration into daily life and medicine
• 08:57: The psychological effects of AI hype
• 16:53: Deepfakes—personal, social, and ethical implications
• 21:53: Kids’ skepticism about online content
• 24:07: The need for a human-verified Internet
• 27:41: Revival of offline community and faith
• 30:35: Teenagers’ deliberate digital detox movements
• 32:10: The restorative impact of offline experiences

Summary Tone and Flow

The episode is conversational, thoughtful, and engaging, blending professional expertise with personal stories and cultural observations. Each host brings their unique vantage—be it health, tech, or politics—creating a lively exchange full of humor, skepticism, and hope for the future.

Takeaways

• AI’s presence is pervasive, reshaping professions and relationships, but its risks (including deepfakes and mental health effects) demand vigilance and informed skepticism.
• The complexity of truth and reality online is pushing both the young and the old to reevaluate trust, seek authenticity, and forge new types of communities.
• Despite polarization and manipulation, positive trends—like teens’ intentional unplugging and renewed in-person community—offer reasons for optimism.
• Ultimately, a balance between embracing innovation and cultivating real-world connections is key to chasing a healthier, happier life in the age of AI.