Are You Ready for the A.I. Election?
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, voters received a robocall purportedly from Joe Biden. Authorities have now determined the call was likely A.I.-generated.
In the era of A.I., how can voters tell what’s real and what’s not? And will the general election be thrown into chaos by artificial intelligence-created disinformation?
Guest: Makena Kelly, senior writer at Wired covering politics and technology
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Paige Osburn and Anna Phillips.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | In the weeks ahead of Tuesday's primary, thousands of New Hampshireites got a call from Joe Biden. |
| 0:12.6 | Republicans have been trying to push nonpartisan and Democratic voters to |
| 0:19.9 | participate in their primary. |
| 0:22.4 | What a bunch of malarkey. Or, well, they got a call from |
| 0:26.1 | someone or something that sounded like Joe Biden. Voting this Tuesday only |
| 0:31.9 | enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. |
| 0:37.0 | Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday. |
| 0:41.0 | If you're asking yourself, why would Joe Biden urge people not to vote for him? |
| 0:47.0 | Yeah, he wouldn't. That's not Joe Biden. |
| 0:52.0 | New Hampshire authorities say that Robocall was fake, likely an artificially generated |
| 0:57.0 | impersonation and possibly an unlawful attempt at voter suppression. |
| 1:01.8 | So far, no one has been able to figure out who was behind the call. |
| 1:05.6 | The voice to me did sound really convincing. |
| 1:08.1 | That's McKenna Kelly with Wired. She's been covering AI and the presidential election. |
| 1:12.8 | And to be honest with you, like audio generation can sometimes sound a little |
| 1:16.8 | mucky, it can sound like it's not really that person, but over the phone, you know, |
| 1:21.6 | over a voicemail, all of us sound like that all of us sound maybe not so much like ourselves |
| 1:26.7 | there's no doubt AI will be a major player in 2024 politics but what kind of player remains to be seen? |
| 1:34.6 | So for the last year, as the GOP primary has run its course, |
| 1:39.4 | we've seen AI and its use in political ads. |
| 1:42.4 | The Never Back Down Pack that supports Ron Desantis. They had been using AI to create fighter jets in political ads, placing fighter jets where there really were none in this like eagle screech American patriotic way. |
| 1:56.0 | But this rooc call that is purporting to be Joe Biden is the first that we've |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.