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THE WEEKLY REVEAL
Saturday, July 18, 2026
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The Race to Stop AI’s Threats to Democracy
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I feel like I speak for the majority when I say that AI-generated slop content is the worst. It’s ugly as sin, usually racist, sexist, and fatphobic in nature, and is frequently used by sketchy businesses to peddle useless products that’ll no doubt be a waste of money.
From the weirdly sexually charged, AI fruit version of Love Island that clogged up my Instagram feed for weeks to narcissistic garbage that Trump is constantly spamming onto his Truth Social, it often feels inescapable. And a lot of this content exists thanks to one company: OpenAI.
As my colleagues at More To The Story reported, OpenAI was considered a joke in Silicon Valley when it was founded more than a decade ago. But since the creation of ChatGPT, the company has single-handedly accelerated artificial intelligence’s growth. And the consequences of this are far more than slop-filled social media feeds; it’s actively harming the planet and helping undermine the United States’ democracy.
Karen Hao, the author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, has followed the company’s rise from the very beginning and warns that these real risks are already here.
“We are allowing the tech industry to consolidate this extraordinary degree of resources, unlike anything ever before,” she tells More To The Story 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.”
This week, we revisit Letson’s interview with Hao, where they discuss how the Trump administration is attempting to deregulate the tech industry and how this version of AI could upend the nation’s already fledgling democracy.
-Arianna Coghill
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Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
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The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 2
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Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma
Sam Bankman-Fried was back in the news this week when the Senate declared that he should not join the long list of convicted fraudsters to receive a pardon from President Donald Trump.
He’s reportedly been lobbying Trump for a pardon on his fraud conviction–even as the company he founded, FTX, has spent the past three and a half years in bankruptcy, a legal process that determines who will be paid back and how much they’ll receive.
From the start, some customers and FTX insiders have criticized the bankruptcy. Legal experts and a bipartisan group of senators objected to the law firm tapped to run it, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. But the bankruptcy court and an independent examiner signed off on the firm’s appointment as lead counsel.
Customers are now receiving compensation for their losses, but many say they’re being shortchanged. Instead of being paid in cryptocurrency, they’re receiving cash, with their claims pegged to the value of crypto when the market was at an all-time low.
“Under this plan, my contractual rights and my ownership rights have been trampled; my property rights have been disregarded,” says Lidia Favario, an Italian artist who argued in court that customers should be repaid in crypto, not cash.
This week on Reveal, in the second part of our series on FTX, we examine the decisions that shaped what’s become one of the most expensive bankruptcies in US history.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify, Overcast, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Catch Up First: Listen to The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 1
Sam Bankman-Fried was once called the “crypto king.” But in November 2022, his company, FTX, imploded within a matter of days. All around the world, customers of the cryptocurrency exchange were suddenly cut off from their money.
Meanwhile, inside the company, employees were panicking.
Through prison interviews with Bankman-Fried, his parents, FTX insiders, and customers, we take you through the frantic week of FTX’s collapse and the controversial and less well-known bankruptcy that followed. At a cost of nearly $1 billion, it has become one of the most expensive in history.
Listen here. |
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Election lies didn’t just fuel the president’s unhinged Thursday night speech. They also paved the way for an FBI raid and the push to rewrite voting laws before the midterms.
Photo Credit: David Goldman/AP
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Since the Trump administration started its nationwide crackdown on immigration, ICE has shot at twenty people, killing six. While this is a terrifying development, it’s also unsurprising when you consider that the president has turned the agency into his own paramilitary force.
Photo Credit: Dave Decker/ZUMA
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Three reporters who love soccer dig into the World Cup. Why are tickets so expensive? Why is Gianni Infantino always on camera? And why wasn’t Haiti bound to win a game?
Photo Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty
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Over the last decade, the court—led by Chief Justice John Roberts—has increasingly relied on a fast-track way of making decisions that was once rarely used. It’s known as the shadow docket.
Photo Credit: Tim Mossholder/Unsplash
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We follow four siblings who have been left behind after their parents were arrested and deported by ICE.
Coming soon, on Reveal. See you next week.
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and edited by Kate Howard. 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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