‘Uncanny Valley’: Pentagon vs. ‘Woke’ Anthropic, Agentic vs. Mimetic, and Trump vs. State of the Union

This week, the Uncanny Valley group dives into the feud that has been brewing between Anthropic and the Pentagon—and what it says about how the federal government interacts with tech corporations. Later, Zoë Schiffer tells us why determining whether or not you might be agentic or mimetic has change into the brand new litmus check in Silicon Valley. Plus, we focus on the important thing takeaways from the State of the Union handle and provides a farewell to the TAT-8 undersea cables—those that made our fashionable web attainable.

Articles talked about on this episode:

You’ll be able to observe Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.

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Transcript

Be aware: That is an automatic transcript, which can include errors.

Brian Barrett: Hey, it is Brian. Zoë, Leah, and I’ve actually loved being your new hosts these previous few weeks, and we need to hear from you. In case you just like the present and have a minute, please go away us a assessment within the podcast or app of your selection. It actually helps us attain extra folks. And for any questions and feedback, you may all the time attain us at uncannyvalley@wired.com. Thanks for listening. On to the present.

Leah Feiger: Hey, how’s it going?

Zoë Schiffer: I really feel nice. Brian?

Brian Barrett: I really feel terrific, and I do know Leah does too, as a result of Survivor‘s again tonight, one other factor that we care about and you do not.

Zoë Schiffer: How have you learnt I do not? I imply, I do not. I do not, aside from my greatest buddy from childhood tried to go on it after which she did not get on, so it is irrelevant.

Leah Feiger: Famously, someday I’ll apply, and each Brian and our colleague Tim have assured me that I can go away for a month to the seashores of Fiji and are available again and nonetheless hold my job.

Zoë Schiffer: I believe most individuals can be like, Leah, you are not going to outlive on the market, however they do not know about your deep-sea-diving prowess.

Leah Feiger: I really assume I’d be high-quality. I actually, actually need to do that. Sooner or later, you guys.

Brian Barrett: However Leah, it could require you to doubtlessly kill some fish to eat them, which isn’t usually—

Leah Feiger: That is OK.

Brian Barrett: Oh, OK.

Leah Feiger: No, no, no, no, fishing’s high-quality. Subsistence dwelling, that is very OK. It is, like, the bigger institutionalization of the mass homicide of our sea that I take a little bit of an even bigger problem with.

Zoë Schiffer: And on that observe, welcome to WIRED’s Uncanny Valley. I am Zoë Schiffer, WIRED’s director of enterprise and trade.

Brian Barrett: I am Brian Barrett, government editor.

Leah Feiger: And I am Leah Feiger, senior politics editor.