Hear Me Out: AI’s Threat to Democracy Flopped

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: tried and Turing tested. Coming into the 2024 election cycle, generative AI was one of the main concerns for democracy watchdogs; its power to create deceptive text, images and sounds at a rapid, unfettered pace seems ripe to spread misinformation. But of all the controversies and current events that have shaped the election thus far… AI, somehow, might not be one of them. Writer and social strategist Rachel Greenspan joins us to share what she’s hearing about the AI revolution that wasn’t. If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: [email protected] Podcast production by Maura Currie. Want more Hear Me Out? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/hearmeoutplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we start this episode, a quick note.
0:04.2	This conversation was recorded just after the presidential debate on June 27th and before
0:09.7	the apparent assassination attempt on former President Trump.
0:13.7	We encourage you to check out the coverage of that incident from Slate's other politics and news programming.
0:18.7	You just won't hear us talking about it today.
0:22.5	This is Hear Me Out. I'm Celeste Headley. Are the robots coming for our election?
0:29.0	Democracy watchdogs have been raising flags about AI for years now, and we're starting to see
0:33.7	AI show up in public discourse in some very real ways. Back in May, some voters in New Hampshire got voicemails from what sounded like Joe Biden,
0:42.3	suggesting that voting in the primary might preclude them from voting in November.
0:46.3	It was, of course, not Joe Biden, but an AI recreation of his voice.
0:51.3	The person behind that stunt now says he was actually trying to raise the alarm
0:55.1	about AI misinformation, though he's still facing a $6 million fine and criminal liability. All you have to do is log on to social media to see a photo or post that was created by AI. The question is, are we ready for it? have we overblown the threat at least for now?
1:13.7	Experts that I've spoken to have said, you know, they've been really surprised, honestly, that
1:17.4	thus far, nothing super alarming has happened and there have been some cases where folks have
1:22.8	said, actually, I was just trying to show that this was super easy to do.
1:26.5	Rachel Greenspan returns to hear me out in just a moment.
1:29.3	Stay with us.
1:30.3	Get ready for a game changer.
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1:41.3	From engaging presentations to eye-catching animations and social posts,
1:45.5	your teams can produce work that's on brand and on time every time. Transform your ideas into
1:51.3	stand-out content with time-saving generative AI features that are designed to be safe for commercial
	...

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