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THE WEEKLY REVEAL
Saturday, October 11, 2025
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The Race to Stop AI’s Threats to Democracy
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the AI Action Summit in Paris in February. Credit: A. Clary/AFP/Getty
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Have you seen that viral video of an alligator about to eat a toddler right before the mother whisks the child away in the nick of time? Or what about that clip of ex-YouTube prankster Jake Paul kissing a rival boxer? Or maybe you’ve seen any of the numerous clips of security camera footage of woodland animals jumping on trampolines in the dead of night.
If you’ve said yes to any of these, you’ve been acquainted with the products of the latest version of Sora AI, an app based on the same “text to video” artificial intelligence by its parent company, OpenAI.
In the past few weeks, this AI slop has been cluttering my feed, with people marveling and shuddering at the rapid improvements between the AI videos of 2023 and today. Long gone are the usual telltale signs of AI—the jerky movements, people with concerning amounts of teeth and fingers.
The videos are smoother and more realistic, and have put me in a state of constant paranoia. It feels like every time I see a video, whether it’s a Trump speech or a kitten acting cute, I have to ask myself: Is this AI? These videos are cropping up on social media at an alarming rate. According to a report from CNBC, Sora hit 1 million downloads just a few days after its launch.
And if that doesn’t unsettle you, maybe this will: OpenAI is now the world’s most valuable private company, valued at an estimated $500 billion. (The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Reveal, Mother Jones, and More To The Story, is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.) But the danger of AI isn’t limited to the authenticity of videos. These AI companies also pose a threat to our nation’s democracy, as tech journalist and author Karen Hao explains on this week’s episode of More To The Story.
“We are allowing the tech industry to consolidate this extraordinary degree of resources unlike anything ever before,” she tells host Al Letson. “We thought that they were already powerful during the social media era. In the AI era, the amount of resources and the amount of influence and domination that they now have is of a fundamentally different degree.”
It’s an episode you won’t want to miss. Listen here.
—Arianna Coghill
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Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
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Mackenson Remy didn’t plan to bypass security when he drove into the parking lot of a factory in Greeley, Colorado. He’d never been there before. All he knew was this place had jobs—lots of jobs.
Remy is originally from Haiti, and in 2023, he’d been making TikTok videos about job openings in the area for his few followers, mostly other Haitians.
What Remy didn’t know was that he had stumbled onto a meatpacking plant owned by the largest meat producer in the world, JBS. The video he made outside the facility went viral, and hundreds of Haitians moved for jobs at the plant.
But less than a year later, Remy and JBS were accused of human trafficking and exploitation by the union representing workers.
This week on Reveal, in an update of an episode that first aired in February 2025, reporter Ted Genoways with the Food & Environment Reporting Network assesses what has changed for these workers since our story first aired, including becoming targets of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Check it out here.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify, Overcast, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Through exclusive prison interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried and others, we put fresh eyes on the dramatic collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Photo Credit: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty
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FTX’s collapse didn’t end with Sam Bankman-Fried. We investigate customer claims that its costly bankruptcy shortchanged them.
Photo Credit: Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma
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David Hogg is spending $20 million to challenge Democratic incumbents in primaries around the US. The Democratic establishment isn’t happy.
UPDATE: Seemingly making good on his promise, Hogg made his first endorsement against a Democratic incumbent on Monday.
Photo Credit: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via AP Images
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A former National Guard officer discusses the perils of politicizing the military and why the Insurrection Act needs reform.
UPDATE: Trump sent the National Guard to Portland and Chicago, while also calling for the arrest of the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois.
Photo Credit: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and edited by Daniel King. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!
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