The rise of political slopaganda

政治拖延宣传的兴起

Today, Explained

2026-10-23

25 分钟
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The first midterms to feature AI slop ads are also on track to be the most expensive ever. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt with help from Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. A person holds a smartphone displaying President Donald Trump's Truth Social post featuring an AI-generated video of him interacting with a tiger, while a laptop screen in the background shows footage circulated on social media of William Chapman being attacked by a tiger at Britain's Yorkshire Wildlife Park, on October 14, 2026 in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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  • This past weekend I was at a podcast festival and some guy came up to me and was like, Sean Ramaswamy?

  • And I was like, hell no.

  • I'm glad I got out ahead of it because Vivek Ramaswamy,

  • candidate for governor in Ohio, has given just about everyone in this country, except J.D.

  • Vance, the ick this week with an attack ad against his opponent

  • that dares to stoop as low as one can possibly go.

  • It's not easy for a mother to say this, that Amy has a serious problem.

  • She is a liar.

  • She lies about her past.

  • I'll spare you the details, but trust me, it's gross.

  • And it reminded us here today, explained from Vox, that...

  • We should probably talk about the ads because, my goodness,

  • did you know these midterms are on track to be the most expensive election

  • ever and the first midterms to eclipse the previous presidential election in spending?

  • And all that spending is on ads.

  • So we're going to talk about the ads and we're going to start with what feels totally new,

  • the ads made by AI.

  • Report for Today Explained comes from ServiceNow.

  • AI is moving fast, but without visibility, it's just chaos.

  • Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways.