Welcome to Running: A FEVER. My name is Michael Davis, and this is a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. My goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. It’s all about livin’ long and lovin’ life.
Today I want to put something on the record, clearly, once, so nobody has to guess.
I’m not an AI. I will never be an AI. And on this show, you will never get a synthetic stand-in for me as the host.
On Running: A FEVER, I will NEVER use an AI avatar, deepfake, or synthetic version of myself as the host. Not on the long-form. Not on the shorts. Not as a “temporary” stand-in. Not while I’m traveling.
What you get on this show is a real human host with real experience, all of the messy human inventory. That is the product. The face, the voice, the judgment calls, the mistakes, the recovery stories: those are mine.
Now I’m not anti-tool. And I’m not anti-AI. I want to be honest about what I do use it for. I do use AI in the production of this show. Research assist. Transcripts. Caption drafts. Scheduling helpers. Agents in the publishing workflow helping move files, drafts, and posts so the show actually ships.
That is tools in the shop. Wrenches. Spreadsheets with a brain. A faster way to find a clip or clean a transcript.
That is not the same thing as putting a fake Michael on camera or on the mic and calling him the host.
Bright line:
- Tools that help make the episode: fine, when used carefully.
- A synthetic host pretending to be me: never.
I did an experiment that you’ll see in the upcoming milestone episode 500. I can’t believe we have that many behind us! I’ll be using an AI avatar as an interviewer, who will be interviewing me. I’d love to hear what you think of that episode, I think it’s going to be a good one and will show you a few things about me you probably don’t already know.
If someone else wants to build an AI influencer empire, that’s their business. This show is built on trust that the guy talking about training, food, and medicine has a body that ages, gets injured, gets fixed, and shows up again.
Why does it matter?
This isn’t a cartoon podcast about gadget toys.
People come here for training cues, diet decisions, and medical topics that touch real bodies. Cataracts. Injury. Recovery. What to eat. How to train when life punches you. Claims about health travel differently than claims about a movie trailer.
If the host can be faked, every medical-sounding sentence gets cheaper. Disclosure matters twice as hard on a health show: who said it, what experience sits behind it, and whether you’re listening to a person who will still be accountable next year. AIs don’t get sick, and they don’t sweat.
Trust is the product. An undisclosed synthetic host burns that product down.
Let’s talk about the current debate.
The argument in public is not really “is AI clever?” Everybody can see the demos. The fight is about trust, money, consent, and whether the person on the thumbnail is a person.
For podcasters and YouTubers, that fight shows up in everyday decisions:
1) Who is talking?
Some channels already experiment with AI hosts, cloned voices reading scripts, or “faceless” channels where the voice is synthetic and the face is stock or generated. Some disclose it. A lot don’t. Listeners find out later and feel lied to, not because tools are evil, but because the deal was “a person is talking to me,” and the product was something else.
2) Who owns the voice?
Voice cloning tools make it easy to sound like someone with a few minutes of audio. For a living creator, that can mean fraud: fake sponsorship reads, fake apology videos, fake political ads in your voice. For a dead creator, families argue over whether a clone is tribute or grave-robbing. Consent and disclosure are the whole game. Without them, cloning is just a nicer word for impersonation.
3) Who wrote this?
Script assist is common now: outlines, titles, first drafts. Fine when a human still owns the judgment. Ugly when a channel mass-produces medical or financial advice from a model and pretends a credentialed person is behind it. On YouTube especially, the algorithm rewards volume. AI makes volume cheap. Cheap volume plus health claims is how people get hurt.
4) Who edited this?
Auto-captions, clip finders, thumbnail generators, SEO title tools: most indie shows already use some of this. That’s the “tools in the shop” side. The ethical line is usually disclosure when the creative identity itself is synthetic, not when you used a better spellchecker.
5) Who gets paid?
Platforms are flooded with low-effort AI channels: recycled scripts, stock footage, generated voice. Real creators compete for the same attention and ad dollars. Viewers waste time. Platforms scramble with labeling rules that arrive late and get gamed. The public debate keeps circling the same question: if the feed can’t tell real from fake, does authenticity still have a market, or only until the next cheaper fake?
Put it plainly for creators: AI can help you ship. It can also help you fake a relationship with your audience. Those are not the same skill. One is production. The other is fraud with better software.
Pope Leo XIV published an important document in May of this year called Magnifica Humanitas. Here’s what he had to say about the media aspects of AI:
“The speed and simplicity with which information, complex analyses, media content and practical assistance can be accessed undoubtedly makes life easier. Yet they can also encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment. The apparent objectivity of the responses and suggestions these systems provide can lead us to overlook the fact that they reflect the cultural assumptions of those who designed and trained them, with all their strengths and limitations. The artificial imitation of positive human communication — words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love — can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful. However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject. When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance. The artificial imitation of care or support can become particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking. Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.”
I think that’s pretty wise.
Here’s a recent story that brings this issue to the fore.
Tilly Norwood is an AI-generated “actress” associated with Particle6 / Xicoia and creator Eline van der Velden. Billed as AI talent. Debuted around late September 2025. There were reports of agency interest. Then a hard Hollywood backlash.
SAG-AFTRA’s line was blunt: she’s not an actor; she’s a computer-generated character trained on performers’ work without permission or compensation. Creativity should stay human-centered. The union opposed replacing humans with synthetics sold as talent.
Creator defense leaned on “this is creative work / art” and claims it wasn’t meant to replace humans. Plenty of working creatives were unconvinced, because the market doesn’t care about your intentions once the cheaper synthetic option exists.
This fight didn’t come out of nowhere. The 2023 strikes already put consent and compensation for AI likenesses on the table as core issues. Tilly was the poster child that made the abstract concrete: a named “performer” with no person behind the eyes.
If Hollywood is arguing over fake actresses, podcasters and health creators should not sleepwalk into fake hosts.
Here’s my AI manifesto for Running: A FEVER:
- I use AI as production tools. I will say so when it matters.
- I will not replace myself with an AI avatar on Running: A FEVER.
- Listeners get a real human host: experience, scars, judgment, and all.
- Disclosure isn’t optional on a show that talks medicine and training.
- If the industry races toward synthetic hosts and synthetic stars, this show stays on the human side of the line.
I’m not an AI. I never will be. This face is real. That’s the bottom line.
I’d love to hear your comments on this episode. If you’re not subscribed, be sure to do that. Add comments on YouTube or at http://RunningAFEVER.com. And if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning. And if you don’t, catch the fever. And I’ll see you next time on Running: A FEVER.
References:
Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (encyclical letter, 15 May 2026): https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
AP News: Tilly Norwood AI actor: https://apnews.com/article/tilly-norwood-ai-actor-0fe7dd79a11f77870f4aadd1f5d45887
Reuters: Hollywood performers union condemns AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/hollywood-performers-union-condemns-ai-generated-actress-tilly-norwood-2025-10-01/
CNN: Hollywood AI actor backlash: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/tech/hollywood-ai-actor-backlash
Vanity Fair: AI actor Tilly Norwood controversy: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/ai-actor-tilly-norwood-controversy-hollywood-reacts
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