Uncanny Valley | WIRED

Turns out, Meta’s AI agent Muse goes well beyond managing your calendar: it will also sext with you. This week, Brian and Leah are joined by WIRED’s reporter Reece Rogers to discuss how he put it to the test, and ended up getting more than he bargained for. Plus — why the largest pro-AI super PAC network is funneling millions into shadowy LLCs; Apple’s new HomeView underwhelmed us, and a study found men tend to overestimate how much they actually know about AI.  Vote for us in the Signal Awards!  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/technology  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/individual-episodes/genre/documentary  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/interview-or-talk-show  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, the team dives into how Elon Musk's America PAC is spending millions on the most consequential Senate races of the 2026 midterms — and how most of that money goes to opposing Democrats rather than supporting Republicans. They also break down what's the deal with effective altruism, the once-niche philosophy now at the center of the AI safety debate. Plus, they discuss the backlash against the graphic designer who created the logo for Meta's AI assistant, Muse. Vote for us in the Signal Awards!  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/technology  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/individual-episodes/genre/documentary  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/interview-or-talk-show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, President Trump issued a new “morally binding” AI accord after a lunch meeting with tech executives, that basically says the AI labs are going to regulate themselves. We get into how a non-binding accord will affect AI safety. Plus — we’ll talk about OpenAI’s Developer Day, where CEO Sam Altman announced an AI agent for normies known as Dots. We also get into how AI agents are faring with their human colleagues. And Leah will not let us forget about the midterms – we bring you a quick rundown of the most extremist candidates running for office. Articles mentioned in this episode: Trump’s AI Safety ‘Accord’ Is a Fancy Pinky Swear  These Extremists Are Running for Election in November  A Pentagon Influencer Called Liberal Women a ‘Pestilence’ Who Will End Western Civilization I Think I Found an AI Agent Worth the Risk  AI Agents Are About to Flood the Workforce I Built AI Clones of My Coworkers. Things Got Weird Why No One Wants To Date Tech Bros Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from Alexis Ohanian's newest tech venture to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last year, Maddie Kowalski was a regular sophomore attending the University of Florida. That is until one day, a series of anonymous accounts on X started proliferating explicit, non-consensual videos of her. This week, Zoe sits down with WIRED’s senior writer Ej Dickson to discuss the burnerverse — a sprawling, loosely organized network of anonymous accounts that have turned the sexual humiliation of young women into an online participatory sport. Maddie Kowalski is one of countless young women who’ve had their lives destroyed by the burnerverse, a loosely connected online community of sports fans. Now she’s fighting back. Articles mentioned in this episode: A College Girl Was Exploited on Camera. A Network of Anonymous Men Got to Work Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The debate of whether AI can kill us has been everywhere lately, but how exactly would an actual AI catastrophe look like? This week, the team went looking for answers and found the three real-world scenarios experts worry the most about — including hacked water supplies, bioweapons, and autonomous robots. We also discuss the highlights of Salesforce’s annual conference, where OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei defended their positions on AI safety. Plus — Leah tells us how this backlash against AI has become a rare bipartisan flashpoint, to the point that Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon shared a stage over it this week. Articles mentioned in this episode: China Isn’t Buying Silicon Valley’s Call for an AI Slowdown | WIRED  Washington Won’t Be Regulating AI Anytime Soon | WIRED  Why So Many AI Researchers Think the Machines Could Kill Everyone | WIRED  OpenAI Wants to Know if an AI Industry Slowdown Would Even Be Legal | WIRED  Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, an AI researcher's resignation from Anthropic went viral on social media after he claimed there's a real chance AI could wipe out humanity by decade's end. WIRED’s Will Knight joins Brian and Leah to assess whether the doom narrative is overblown or overdue. We also discuss Apple’s debut of its $2000 foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, and the new "always listening" Apple Watch features that have Brian feeling more than a little uneasy. Plus — a WIRED investigation found that the US Census Bureau used faulty data to create a misleading report touted by the Trump administration.  Articles mentioned in this episode: OpenAI Just Claimed a Huge Math Discovery. Some Academics Are Crying Foul  The AI Researcher Who Just Quit Anthropic Says It’s ‘Crunch Time for Humanity’  A US Census Report on Noncitizen Voting Used Bad Data to Reach Faulty Conclusions | WIRED Apple Debuts the iPhone Duo, Its First Folding iPhone | WIRED   Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back! This week, the team discusses the two incidents that have been making noise in prediction markets: George Santos getting lifetime ban from Kalshi, and a Google engineer's Polymarket insider-trading case. Plus, WIRED reporters reverse-engineered Flock's AI-powered person-search tool, and the hosts unpack the online meltdown over how to talk about "rogue" AI agents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The AI race has been framed as a zero-sum game: either the U.S or China will win at the end. But as concerns pile up around the increasing capabilities of AI models — especially AI agents — researchers across state lines are trying to team up to work on AI safety. This week, Zoë speaks with WIRED’s Will Knight about what he saw and heard on the ground when he visited China this summer — and why the two countries might actually need to start working together to avoid a major AI catastrophe. This is our second episode from our summer break series. We’ll be back next week with our usual roundtable. Articles mentioned in this episode: I Met With China’s Top AI Experts. They’re Freaking Out, Too | WIRED  AI Hacks Are Bad. AI Worms and Viruses Will Be Worse | WIRED  The Humanoid Robot of the Future Is a 6-Foot-Tall Beefcake With a Chinese Body and an American Brain | WIRED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier this year, insurance executives gathered in a Times Square conference room to play out a scenario — a Chinese cyberattack that knocks out 5,000 US water utilities at once. If you think that’s a far-fetched scenario, think again. WIRED's Andy Greenberg got rare access to the closed-door war game, and walked away with some disturbing conclusions. This week, Brian sits down to talk with Andy about Volt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group that's spent the past three years pre-positioning itself inside American infrastructure. Articles mentioned in this episode: What Happens if China Hacks the US Water Supply? I Went to a Secret War Game to Find Out | WIRED  Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, the team breaks down Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 6,500-word AI manifesto and why it ultimately rings hollow. Plus — why job seekers are scheduling bot-run interviews at 1 AM, and WIRED's Andy Greenberg joins to unpack Black Hat and DEF CON's best findings, from a hacked kids' smartwatch to a coin-sized device that can hijack a Boeing 737. Articles mentioned in this episode: The Rise of the 1 am Job Interview | WIRED  Hackers Stalked Me by Hijacking a Smartwatch for Kids | WIRED This Coin-Sized Device Can Hack a Boeing 737 | WIRED   McDonald’s Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I’ll Never Stop Eating There | WIRED  Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, the team breaks down how ICE has collected DNA from nearly a million people this year, including young children, feeding an FBI database indefinitely. Plus — Google Earth's AI slop backfires, the White House's secretive AI cybersecurity plan, a SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon, and WIRED's Molly Taft on the strange left-right coalition fighting data centers across America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Nvidia launched a splashy push for an open source AI security alliance alongside companies like Microsoft, SpaceX, and Palantir — notably absent were OpenAI and Anthropic. We break down what the split means for the industry and the Trump administration's own shifting opinions on AI. Plus: how Claude conversations turned up in Google and Bing search results, and the massive feat of how four whales were rescued from Canada to Chicago. Articles mentioned in this episode: Private Claude Chats Exposed in Google and Bing Search Results | WIRED Silicon Valley Is Completely Divided Over Chinese AI | WIRED  The Trump Administration Is at War With Itself Over AI Regulation | WIRED Inside the Wild Rescue Mission That Took 4 Beluga Whales to Chicago | WIRED   System Update Newsletter: The Best of WIRED  Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, the White House accused Chinese-owned Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic's Fable 5 to build their much talked about Kimi K3 model. Zoë, Leah, and Brian break down whether this is a repeat of the DeepSeek moment and what it means for the AI race between the U.S and China. They also get into how the U.S Army — and plenty of Silicon Valley companies — are having to cut back AI usage after burning through their tokens. Plus, we discuss why you should check if you have an alarm that could make your car easier to hack, and how OpenAI briefly lost control of two AI models during a security test.  Articles mentioned in this episode: The White House Is Trying to Figure Out What to Do About Chinese AI | WIRED  OpenAI Models Escaped Containment and Hacked Hugging Face | WIRED  A Device Hidden in Cars Across the US Leaves Them Vulnerable to Hacking and Paralysis. Patch It Now | WIRED System Update Newsletter: The Best of WIRED  Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from the newest ventures to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices