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Tag: uncanny valley podcast

  • WIRED Roundup: Gemini 3 Release, Nvidia Earnings, Epstein Files Fallout

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    Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I think that one thing that everyone can agree on is that Nvidia is undoubtedly one of the companies that has gone all in during this AI acceleration moment. For better or worse, about 90 percent of Nvidia’s sales, which were once dominated by chips for personal gaming computers now come from its data center business, and it feels like every time one of these partnerships between OpenAI and another company, Nvidia’s in there somewhere, it just feels like it’s attached to everyone else in this industry at this point.

    Max Zeff: Yeah, it’s done a great job of infusing itself with every AI company, but also, I mean, that’s been a major concern. There’s been a lot of talk of these circular deals where Nvidia really depends on a lot of these startups that it’s also funding. It’s a customer, it’s an investor. Nvidia is so wrapped up in this. So I guess in that way, it’s not that surprising that Jensen is defending the AI bubble constantly now.

    Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. It’s also worth saying that one of the fears that people who have the fear of the AI bubble will talk about is the fact that the GPUs are the majority of the cost of building out a data center, and they need to be replaced, what, every three years? Nvidia releases new chips and they’re cutting edge, and companies need to buy them in order to compete. I think the fear is that that renewal cycle isn’t quite factored into the pricing, but as long as people continue to buy chips, what Jensen is saying is, “No, no, we’re insulated right now.”

    Max Zeff: Right. We’ll see if that’s really true though.

    Zoë Schiffer: One more story before we go to break, and to get through this one, we both have to be extra professional. I’m not sure Max, which we always are, but just a little extra. You will see what I mean. WIRED contributor Mattha Busby reported on how two young Mormons created an app to help other men break their porn addiction and gooning habits. I’m going to be real. I had never heard this term before reading this story, and I was shocked. OK, if you’re not familiar with gooning, it’s basically just another word for edging. That is long hours of masturbation without release. This app called Relay was created by 27-year-old Chandler Rogers with the mission of providing his Gen Z peers a way to stop doing this and to generally escape from the clutches of porn. I have some other ideas. I feel like go outside, talk to a human, but I don’t want to be mean, because I do feel like this could be really difficult for people.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Maxwell Zeff

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  • WIRED Roundup: Fandom in Politics, Zuckerberg’s Illegal School, and Nepal’s Discord Revolution

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    Leah Feiger: Zoë, I am obsessed with this story. Before you continue, I think that it’s really important to say that Caroline, the lovely reporter of this story on your business desk, obtained 1,665 pages of documents about the dispute about Zuckerberg’s house. This story is canon now.

    Zoë Schiffer: Caroline Haskins is a complete star. Our fact-checking team literally cried when I asked them. They were like, “Wait, sorry, how many documents are we looking through?” I was like, “Yes.”

    Leah Feiger: Shout out to the WIRED research team.

    Zoë Schiffer: Absolutely. The school, I think we just have to say, is named after one of the Zuckerberg family chickens. It’s called the Bicken Ben School.

    Leah Feiger: I mean, hearing you say this, it’s, I know you’re being serious, but again.

    Zoë Schiffer: So, the Crescent City neighborhood in Palo Alto, where the Zuckerbergs live, as you can imagine, is some of the best real estate in the entire country. It’s filled with these gorgeous homes, a ton of greenery. Mark Zuckerberg has been expanding his presence throughout the years in this ultra fancy neighborhood. The plot of land that the Zuckerbergs live on has expanded to include 11 previously separate properties. This is so funny and just such a nightmare. If you’re living on the street, you paid whatever, $5 million for your house, and suddenly all of your neighbors are Mark Zuckerberg.

    Leah Feiger: Important to note that not all of them are connecting either. I don’t totally understand what that means. Do they walk through a neighbor’s porch to get to their horse’s pool? What does this entail?

    Zoë Schiffer: We have more questions. We have to Google Earth this. I think there’s some holes in this story that we need to fill in. The expansion first became a concern for Mark Zuckerberg’s neighbors, back in 2016, due to fears that his purchases were driving up the market pretty dramatically. But then, about five years later, neighbors started noticing that a school appeared to be operating out of the Zuckerberg compound. So, this is illegal to do without a permit, at least under the area’s residential zoning code. And so, naturally, the neighbors started to alert the city. Caroline Haskins, the reporter on the story, obtained over a thousand documents, like you said, outlining the resulting fight between the neighbors and the city authorities, basically arguing that, it felt to them like the Zuckerbergs were getting special treatment.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger

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  • The 4 Things You Need for a Tech Bubble

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    Chatter about an AI bubble has been everywhere lately, and top tech companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft have doubled down on their AI investments for 2026. But how have analysts in the past accurately identified forming tech bubbles? Hosts Michael Calore and Lauren Goode sit down with Brian Merchant, WIRED contributor and author of the newsletter Blood in the Machine, to break down the four criteria some researchers have used in the past to understand and brace for the worst.

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    Please help us improve Uncanny Valley by filling out our listener survey.

    You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight and Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.

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    Transcript

    Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

    Michael Calore: Hey Lauren, how are you doing?

    Lauren Goode: I’m OK, Mike. It’s earnings season, so a lot of us on the business desk here at WIRED have been tuning into tech companies earnings reports and their earnings calls. And I guess that basically means it’s CapEx season.

    Michael Calore: CapEx?

    Lauren Goode: Capital expenditures.

    Michael Calore: You say CapEx?

    Lauren Goode: Yeah. Now that I’m a business desk reporter, I say CapEx.

    Michael Calore: You’re one of those.

    Lauren Goode: I throw it around at parties. No, I really don’t. But we are seeing a trend in how tech companies are sleeping on piles of money, but they aren’t just sleeping on it. They’re sharing big plans to spend on it, and especially to spend on AI infrastructure.

    Michael Calore: Right. Data centers.

    Lauren Goode: Yeah, more data centers. Not just data centers, but yes, that’s a big part of it.

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    Lauren Goode, Michael Calore

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  • WIRED Roundup: Alpha School, Grokipedia, and Real Estate AI Videos

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    The thing that gets me, and I’m really curious about your take on this, Brian, as someone with children, that the guides these people that were brought in, they were actually in the room with students helping them with any technological glitches or settling anything that’s happening in the real world. While some had experience as educators, others did not, and not only that, Alpha actually had often targeted individuals without teaching backgrounds, going instead for folks that were in the entrepreneurship space, because nothing screams early childhood education like Series A funding. I’m so confused as to what the entire point of this is.

    Brian Barrett: It feels reductive, right? It is the idea that school is about grades and grades are about numbers and coding is all that matters. When obviously school is about learning to interact with people, it is a social thing as much as it is a numbers thing. I think too, how do you quantify and nextify art class and finger painting and all the other things that are good for social development, good for mental development that aren’t crunching numbers. And it just feels like that’s not part of the calculus here, which is a shame.

    Leah Feiger: And we didn’t even get into a core WIRED area of interest, which is surveillance issues. These kids are being surveilled.

    Brian Barrett: Yeah. There was a report that our reporter, Todd found that there was eye tracking software involved in this. Again, for some parents, I am sure that this is great, and again, Alpha School has a lot of parents who say, “Yes, this is what we want.” They’ve got a lot of great reviews, a lot of glowing press. What we found in Brownsville was not that.

    Leah Feiger: And as that last little surveillance anecdote, there’s one piece of reporting that Todd shared that really freaked me out of this one student who at home received a notification that she’d been flagged for an anti-pattern or a distraction by the Alpha system while she was working on her schoolwork. It turns out she says that Alpha system sent a video of her in her pajamas, taken from the computer’s webcam that showed her talking to her younger sister. Again, she’s at home. This doesn’t end the minute that they leave the classroom either. This is so beyond. And I’m sure there’s the case that everyone’s making, oh, they’re collecting data. This is a holistic experience. That’s still creepy to me.

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    Brian Barrett, Leah Feiger

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  • How to Hack a Poker Game

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    Michael Calore: Yeah. My favorite indiscreet product placement was in the show Entourage from HBO. It was on TV, I don’t know, 15 years ago.

    Lauren Goode: Oh, I remember it.

    Michael Calore: And the characters used to say to each other, “I’ll BBM it to you.”

    Lauren Goode: No. Time capsule.

    Michael Calore: Yeah. Which is like, even if you had a Blackberry—

    Lauren Goode: Yeah, you never said that.

    Michael Calore: Nobody ever said that.

    Lauren Goode: No, it’s so true.

    Michael Calore: They would text it to you.

    Lauren Goode: Incredible.

    Michael Calore: But no, I’m going to BBM it to you.

    Andy Greenberg: Just the fact that we even know what BBM-ing is just kind of means it worked.

    Lauren Goode: Or maybe it’s more, “What is that, guys? I don’t remember that. I’m too young.” All right, Andy, give us your WIRED, TIRED.

    Andy Greenberg: Well, I am not a video game reporter, but I did buy the—everybody has been talking about this game Silksong. It was $20 on the Switch. I bought it for my 9-year-old son, and I thought that I would play this cute little game and I just cannot believe how fricking hard it is. Nobody is talking about the fact that this incredibly popular game—it makes you want to cry. Like me, not my son, like me, the adult. I cannot stop playing it.

    But I have been more frustrated playing this game than I have been maybe in anything else in my life or work for years. This is my extremely amateur video game trend watching observation that for a while all these games got really easy like Candy Crush and Farmville and Angry Bird stuff where you just basically can’t lose. And people seem to love that and games got incredibly easy. And now it feels like we’re in this era where games are just absurdly hard, including these—what look like casual games for kids are in fact some of the most challenging things you will do in your life. And actually I think it’s great. So yeah, I would say TIRED are easy games and WIRED is games that are ridiculously hard and making me want to cry.

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    Lauren Goode, Michael Calore, Andy Greenberg

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  • WIRED Roundup: AI Psychosis, Missing FTC Files, and Google Bedbugs

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    Louise Matsakis: Oh God, you would not see me in the office for weeks if there was a bedbug infestation. How did they find out about this?

    Zoë Schiffer: So basically, they received this email on Sunday, saying that exterminators had arrived at the scene with sniffer dogs and “found credible evidence of their presence.” There, being the bedbugs. Sources tell WIRED that Google’s offices in New York are home to a number of large stuffed animals, and there was definitely a rumor going around among employees that these stuffed animals were implicated in the outbreak. We were not able to verify this information before we published, but in any case, the company told employees as early as Monday morning that they could come back to the office. And people like you, Louise, were really not happy about this. They were like, “I’m not sure that it’s totally clean here.” That’s why they were in our inboxes wanting to chat.

    Louise Matsakis: Can I just say that if you have photos or a description of said large stuffed animals, please get in touch with me and Zoë. Thank you.

    Zoë Schiffer: Yes. This is a cry for help. I thought the best part of this is when I gave Louise my draft, she was like, “Wait, this has happened before.” And pulled up a 2010 article about a bedbug outbreak at the Google offices in New York.

    Louise Matsakis: Yes. This is not the first time, which is heartbreaking.

    Zoë Schiffer: Coming up after the break, we dive into why some people have been submitting complaints to the FTC about ChatGPT in their minds, leading them to AI psychosis. Stay with us.

    Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. I’m Zoë Schiffer. I’m joined today by WIRED’s Louise Matsakis. Let’s dive into our main story this week. The Federal Trade Commission has received 200 complaints mentioning OpenAI’s ChatGPT between November 2022 when it launched, and August 2025. Most people had normal complaints. They couldn’t figure out how to cancel their subscription or they were frustrated by unsatisfactory or inaccurate answers by the chatbot. But among these complaints, our colleague, Caroline Haskins, found that several people attributed delusions, paranoia, and spiritual crisis to the chatbot.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Louise Matsakis

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  • WIRED Roundup: Satellites Data Leak, Cybertrucks, Politicized Federal Workers

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    Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean, I was talking to someone before these recent layoffs who’d worked at the CDC previously and had been pretty involved in efforts to study the impact of certain diseases or pandemics specifically on pregnant populations, and this person had told me a while ago, that entire team was gone. They didn’t have many people in place anymore who could look at particularly vulnerable populations from a health perspective, which I found pretty sad and disturbing, but now, I mean, it’s just getting so much worse. It’s getting so much worse.

    Jake Lahut: And Russell Vought seems to be quite happy about each additional version of this that keeps coming down the pike, so.

    Zoë Schiffer: Right. Okay. We’ll talk more about these federal layoffs and how they’ve affected other agencies too in our next segment. But before we go to break, I’ve got a fun and very tech bro scoop for you, Cybertrucks.

    Jake Lahut: Yeah. Honestly, I should be paying you to be on the show today, Zoë, so tell me more about it.

    Zoë Schiffer: Okay. Well, I found this story so charming because essentially our Features Director Reyhan had said, “Let’s do a photo essay of Cybertruck owners.” And I was like, ‘I volunteer as tribute. I really want to do this.” So I contacted a bunch of people, I was actually going around, and when I saw Cybertrucks, I would leave little notes on their car. Not a single person ever responded to me, I was like.

    Jake Lahut: Stalker behavior.

    Zoë Schiffer: “Okay, all right.” But eventually I got in contact with this guy who runs Cybertrucks Owners Only, which is this 50,000 person Facebook group that’s really, really active. And he, while very suspicious of the media, like many Cybertrucks owners was like, “I’m game. If you come to Palm Springs on this weekend, we can have a Cybertrucks meetup and you can go meet people, you can take photos and interview them.” I love reporting where your original thesis is completely disproven in the course of the reporting, and the Cybertrucks owners really see themselves as the victims of this campaign. They’re being spit at, they’re being targeted, people yell that they’re Nazis. And to a lot of people who I talk to, they don’t see their purchase of this car as at all political. They’re like, “I just like the car. It’s a cool car, it’s fun and all of these crazy liberal people are screaming at me all day. I have my kids in the car and they’re chasing after me calling me a Nazi.” The article came out today, there’s some really cool photos. I’m curious to hear what you thought.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Jake Lahut

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  • The New Power of Far-Right Influencers

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    In this episode of Uncanny Valley, we discuss the impacts of antifa’s designation as a domestic terrorist group as author Mark Bray faces new harassment from the far-right.

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    Michael Calore, Leah Feiger, David Gilbert

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  • WIRED Roundup: Are We In An AI Bubble?

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    In this episode of Uncanny Valley, we talk about one author’s journey to flee the US, social media surveillance, chatbots and the world of AI, and conspiracy theories for an autism cure.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger

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  • How China Is Hoping to Attract Tech Talent

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    Lauren Goode: What’s an example of that?

    Louise Matsakis: So, for example, there were some Chinese influencers who were spreading these conspiracy theories that Indians were plotting to use the visa to immigrate to China en masse.

    Lauren Goode: Interesting. You’ve both covered China’s businesses and workforce for years. Was this backlash surprising to you?

    Zeyi Yang: I would say yes, but also no. The no is because I know China has never been an immigrant country, so the idea to introduce a lot of foreign talents to the country, giving them some kind of preferential treatment over others, it’s definitely going to cause some kind of outrage from the population. That part I am sure. The thing is that I feel that after China has been trying to open up to the world for quite a few decades at this point, I was expecting there to be a little bit more patience from the Chinese people because China also wants to be an AI leader at this age. And right now, the only model they can look after is the United States, which has been building on a ton of immigrant talent to build the AI industry. So, I was thinking maybe that kind of policy orientation will push them over the xenophobic obstacles that we are seeing, but unfortunately, the situation that seems to have happened is that it cannot.

    Lauren Goode: So there are some cultural challenges to this. I mean, what do you think are some of the other challenges that China will face as it tries to roll out this K visa and attract foreign talent?

    Louise Matsakis: I mean, I think the main thing is just that China, like Zeyi said, is absolutely not a country of immigrants. In 2020, only about 0.1% of the mainland population was made up of foreigners, according to one estimate. And it’s also worth noting that that estimate includes people from Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong. These are places that are very culturally similar to China. So, the number of people who come from Africa, or North America, or Europe is just astonishingly small compared to the population size of China. In the US, about 15% of the people who live in this country are immigrants. That’s a huge difference. So, I think that it can be hard for new arrivals to adjust. It’s a difficult language. There’s an entirely different ecosystem of apps and programs that you have to use. I remember the first time I went on a business trip to China, I needed to get the receipt for my expenses, and I was like, “Can you email me a PDF of my receipt?” And the people at the hotel looked at me like I was crazy. And they were like, “We’re just going to send it over WeChat.” And I was like, “Oh.” There are a lot of small things like that that are really different, whereas, because for the last few decades, American culture and American tech companies have been so ubiquitous in the rest of the world, someone who comes to the US from India or from Europe, they’re probably going to be using the same email platforms, the same social media networks. And a lot of the business norms are similar, right? Of course, there’s still cultural differences. And if those people get homesick, they can find an immigrant community wherever they are. They can find food that reminds them of home. That’s not necessarily the case in China. And so, I think the idea of a city like Shanghai or Beijing becoming a truly cosmopolitan hub that is a mix of different cultures is something that I think is really far off from now. I think it could happen, and I think it’s likely that it will happen as the shifts of global power tilt away from the US. I think in this era where we’re not making a lot of good choices, and we’re not really making a lot of friends around the world, it’s certainly possible, but China is just starting from a really different place than a city like San Francisco.

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    Lauren Goode, Louise Matsakis, Zeyi Yang

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  • Patreon CEO Jack Conte Wants You to Get Off of Your Phone

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    Before we really get too far into it, we always start with a little bit of rapid-fire questioning, some warmup. Jack, what is the most active text thread that you’re on?

    I am not on any active text threads. I try to do as little of that as possible.

    OK, we may come back to that later. What does the algorithm know about you?

    Way too much.

    Oh yeah, I know the feeling.

    It knows that I got a new dog recently.

    What kind of dog?

    She’s a mutt. She is a little bit of a golden retriever, a little bit of Chihuahua, some pit bull. She’s the most beautiful creature in the world.

    I also have a pit bull mutt. Are you getting ads for dog food now?

    Yes.

    I get it. What is a piece of tech that changed your life?

    DAWs, digital audio workstations. The transition from having to have half a million dollars of recording gear to make an album to being able to make an album on your laptop is the most beautiful, wonderful thing in the world.

    What is your favorite way to spend a Saturday in the Bay Area? I have to ask, you’re from here, and of course we are here.

    Sorry to bring up the dog twice, but she just learned that she can run straight into the ocean. And it’s so great. I love it. And so I throw sticks for her into the ocean. She bolts into the ocean, totally fearlessly swims around, looking for it. Best thing in the world.

    What music app do you use the most?

    Spotify.

    Let’s give our audience a little bit of your backstory, just in case they don’t have it. So you were born and raised here in San Francisco, and music has always been in your life. You studied music at Stanford, you founded Patreon with your old college roommate in 2013, and that was in response to a personal experience, right?

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    Katie Drummond

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  • WIRED Roundup: The New Fake World of OpenAI’s Social Video App

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    Manisha Krishnan: Yeah, this season has … I mean, this is the first time I’ve watched in 15 years. But this season has been pretty spot on. It’s almost like they’re reading WIRED and satirizing everything. I feel like if Trump and Eric Adams started a talk show, maybe that could be the catacomb.

    Zoë Schiffer: I like that.

    Manisha Krishnan: Because everyone would find it funny across political lines.

    Zoë Schiffer: So maybe South Park will save us after all. Switching gears literally for our next story. Our colleague Aarian Marshall reported that Tesla has been encouraging drowsy drivers to use the full self-driving or FSD mode on their cars. Contrary to its name, this feature does not actually allow cars to drive themselves, it just assists drivers in doing a variety of basic tasks. The manual for the car says that the driver needs to be ready to take over at all times. But drivers are reporting that in-car messages are appearing to tell them to do just the opposite. The messages say things like “Drowsiness detected, stay focused with FSD.” Or, “Lane drift detected, let FSD assist you so that you can stay focused.”

    Manisha Krishnan: Yeah, that sounds dangerous. It sounds like they’re kind of like, “Hey, you want to take a nap right now? Let FSD kick in.” No, they should be blasting music, blasting the AC, make it like a spin class in there to wake you up. Tesla has made changes to its technology to make it more difficult for inattentive drivers to use FSD. Back in 2021, the company started using in-car driving monitor cameras to determine where their drivers were sufficiently paying attention while using FSD.

    Zoë Schiffer: It seems at odds with their past efforts to build more safety around their self-driving features. This is like a pretty delicate time for Tesla. For years, the company has been accused of making products that can be allegedly defective in certain ways. This past August, a Florida jury found that the company was partly liable for a 2019 crash that killed a 22-year-old woman. The crash occurred when a Tesla model S driver was using an older version of the company’s driver assistant software called Autopilot. At the same time, Elon Musk and the company’s board of directors have put FSD at the center of the automakers strategy. So Musk has promised that the feature will transform into a truly autonomous driving system by the end of the year, although that’s looking unlikely. And Elon Musk is generally known for promising pretty aggressive timelines that then he blows pass again and again. One more before we go to break. WIRED Science reporter, Emily Mullin reported this week that scientists made human eggs from skin cells, and use them to form embryos. This is a huge deal because it could mean a new way to treat infertility for people who want kids. But to be clear, none of the embryos were actually used to try and establish pregnancy. And it’s unlikely that they would’ve developed much further than the womb. But it’s still a really big deal because it could one day be used as an alternative to IVF.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Manisha Krishnan

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  • Your Delivery Robot Is Here

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    Louise Matsakis: Yeah, I think that that’s an incredibly good point. It’s often about modifying the labor rather than eliminating it.

    Michael Calore: All right, we’re going to take a quick break and then we’ll come right back with recommendations. Thank you, both, for a great conversation about robots. We might not be DoorDash’s cute new Dot, but we are here to deliver some recommendations for our listeners. Do you like that? Is that good? Don’t answer. Aarian, you get to go first. What do you recommend this week?

    Aarian Marshall: That was really good Mike. I’m going to recommend the JBL Clip 5, which is a Bluetooth speaker. I will caveat this by saying I’m not an audiophile. I’m not one of those really picky people, but I think it has really great sound. I got one recently for my birthday and I like to carry it around. It has this very handy clip that you can clip onto your shower, you can clip onto a backpack. If you’re traveling, you can clip onto, I don’t know, your dog and have traveling pretty good sound, and it’s a relatively inexpensive for I think a pretty good speaker and I’ve really enjoyed using it.

    Michael Calore: Nice. How much is it?

    Aarian Marshall: It is currently 69.95.

    Michael Calore: That’s so cheap for a good Bluetooth speaker.

    Aarian Marshall: I think so too.

    Michael Calore: I mean, I’m sure there are cheaper ones, but that one is actually pretty good. It’s like my second favorite, I would say, of the ones that when people ask me which Bluetooth speaker should I get, I tell them the UE Boom or the JBL Xlip. I make it sound like people ask me that all the time, but really it’s only a couple of times a year.

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    Michael Calore, Louise Matsakis, Aarian Marshall

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  • Is Silicon Valley Still the Tech Capital?

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    On this special episode of Uncanny Valley recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco, our hosts discuss Silicon Valley’s history and future.

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    Lauren Goode, Katie Drummond, Jason Kehe

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  • WIRED Roundup: The Right Embraces Cancel Culture

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    Zoë Schiffer: Right.

    Manisha Krishnan: … which some human design followers believe that your spleen is a better guide than your gut. And so he ended up breaking it off with one of the women that he was dating in Love Is Blind because he said, “His spleen was silent.”

    Zoë Schiffer: I was locked in for the first part of this. And then we got to the spleen thing. What does that mean? Is it literally a gut sense? What are they tapping into?

    Manisha Krishnan: Honestly, it is really confusing because they have all of these rules around deconditioning yourself from essentially forces within you that don’t jive with who you really are, but the way that you decondition yourself seems to be in some cases very rigid. I saw one person on Reddit posting about how they only eat polenta because that’s the only ingredient that will allow them to become their truest self according to human design.

    Zoë Schiffer: I do want to know, do you know what I am?

    Manisha Krishnan: Yes.

    Zoë Schiffer: Because you asked me my birthday yesterday, so I’m on the edge of my seat.

    Manisha Krishnan: I did. I plugged it in. And you are a generator, which is an energy type defined with a sacral center characterized by a consistent self-sustaining life force—

    Zoë Schiffer: Wow.

    Manisha Krishnan: … that provides stamina and the capacity to do fulfilling work.

    Zoë Schiffer: Did WIRED write this?

    Manisha Krishnan: I know, I was just thinking that.

    Zoë Schiffer: Well, great. I love that for myself. Coming up after the break, we’ll dive into the backlash that some people from graphic designers to high-profile entertainers have received after commenting on Charlie Kirk’s death.

    [break]

    Zoë Schiffer: Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. I’m Zoë Schiffer. I’m joined today by senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan. Manisha, the story that keeps on reverberating this week is that of Charlie Kirk’s death. Our colleague, Jake Lahut, has been covering how the Trump administration in the general right-wing base has maintained their position that Kirk’s death was a result of leftist ideology and maybe even a coordinated attack. Both of these claims have been debunked, but it’s done little to change people’s minds. And this week, you reported that different artists have been facing professional retaliation for voicing their opinions on Kirk. What did you find in your reporting?

    Manisha Krishnan: There’s been a bunch of people from different industries that have lost their jobs over posting unsympathetically about Charlie Kirk’s death, from journalists to video game developers. But one that stuck out in my mind was I interviewed this trans writer who was doing a comic series for DC Comics. She referred to Charlie Kirk as a Nazi bitch after he died, and she was suspended on Bluesky for a week, and DC fired her and they’ve canceled the series. And that really stuck out to me because she has said that Charlie Kirk, he was staunchly anti-trans. I mean, he was anti a lot of things that weren’t a straight Christian white male, and he was pretty loud and proud about those views. And so I think it really does stick out to me because it’s almost like, are people expected to perform grief for someone who espoused hateful views towards the community that they’re part of, but it almost feels like this really, really hard line that a lot of corporations have taken. Making someone apologize is one thing, but literally disappearing art, canceling an entire series or South Park deciding not to re-air an episode about Charlie Kirk that he himself loved. He said he really liked it. I just think it goes a little bit beyond just reprimanding people.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Manisha Krishnan

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  • WIRED Roundup: How Charlie Kirk Changed Conservative Media

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    Zoë Schiffer: So where does that leave traditional right-wing media, like Fox News, for example? Is this a replacement of that or is it working in tandem?

    Jake Lahut: I think it’s more in tandem. Fox’s programming was dominated by Kirk’s assassination last night. I think that for a lot of the mainstay Fox personalities, people like Charlie Kirk, and I guess in the Turning Point USA broader cinematic universe, these younger figures are really important, actually, for I think a lot of the more established conservative media TV hosts to build that audience and start to introduce themselves to people who are not throwing on the old-school tube on the couch at home every night. And this is also just something interesting, because Democrats have been trying to do versions of this for a while, and like we mentioned earlier, the conventional wisdom had held that Democrats would always have this advantage of younger voters. So I think it’s very interesting to see what Turning Point USA is going to become after this; and then to what extent this door that he opened could be taken up by just a figure with a different kind of profile, a different kind of charisma, maybe more extreme on some issues. So there is a very legitimate, almost a power vacuum that is opened here because he was such a singular figure in this aspect of conservative politics.

    Zoë Schiffer: Absolutely. So creating a new branch of right-wing media geared toward a younger audience is definitely a key part of Kirk’s legacy. And there’s also the legacy that he left in politics at large, like his rhetoric toward trans people, immigrants, his rhetoric on abortion rights. These things really stick out to me. Talk to me about that, that imprint that he might’ve left.

    Jake Lahut: Yeah, I think the imprint has some contradictions that we’re seeing in the aftermath of this horrific incident. There’s certainly this almost saintly way that he’s being painted after his death, and I think part of that is that he was an organizer and not a candidate, so he never got the kind of scrutiny or had to really make hard choices on policy. He was always more in the attention economy realm, the fundraising realm, and the voter turnout area. So I think right now he’s being mostly remembered for his genuine commitment to freedom of debate and wanting to actually have uncomfortable in-person interactions with people who may otherwise never talk to each other or disagree about politics. But then you have a lot of the things that he said about gun control, for example, that effectively it is worth having some amount of gun deaths, to paraphrase what he said here, in order to protect the Second Amendment. He was asked one time if one of his daughters, who at the time was 10 years old, that if she were sexually assaulted and became pregnant, would he want her to carry the pregnancy to term? And he basically said yes, that there would have to be a baby there. The other area where I think he may have made the biggest impact, to add real quickly, is that his view of what college and what young adulthood is for, very different than what we’ve generally heard from younger people involved in politics. He painted a positive vision of going to college for young people. Now, that vision was effectively for women, like you should go to college just to find a husband, and that’s pretty much it. But he was offering this view of like, “Hey, actually you’re told in America that your career and hustling and grinding is most important. I’m actually here to tell you that just have a family and have kids.” And we’ve seen polling that came out recently from NBC News where Gen Z men ranked having children as their number one priority, and no other demographic did. Whereas Gen Z women listed a litany of other issues ahead of that in terms of having a stable career, mental well-being, all those things. So that’s a thread of his legacy that I think is worth keeping track of, because he really was just this one man sensation on the college campuses. And I don’t think anyone’s going to replace that role right away, but if we want to understand how he really changed our politics beyond looking at one election or a series of quotes he gave, I would look to that, that there are a lot of young people who really admire this guy, who you may know a lot of them, but you just haven’t heard from them about it until this happened, and that could very well end up being what the long-term memory of Charlie Kirk is.

    Zoë Schiffer: Jake, thank you so much for joining me today.

    Jake Lahut: Zoë, thanks so much.

    Zoë Schiffer: That’s our show for today. We’ll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. Amar Lal at Macrosound mixed this episode. Kate Osborn is our executive producer. Condé Nast head of global audio is Chris Bannon, and Katie Drummond is WIRED’s global editorial director.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Jake Lahut

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  • Hasan Piker Will Never Run for Office

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    Are you gonna collaborate?

    Yeah.

    All right. What’s your favorite sandwich?

    That’s a tough one because I love all of them. I would say a New Jersey sub from this institution called Sorrento’s around Freehold. A Number 14, which is a combination, I believe, of like Number 7 and Number 12. [Eds. note: Sorrento’s menu says the Number 14 is a combo of a Number 5 and a Number 12 called the Pig Special.] So an Italian sub from a real New Jersey institution, and if not that, then a Wawa Club sandwich.

    I really appreciate how specific that was. Thank you. First video game you ever bought?

    I pirated a lot because I was in Turkey growing up, so it was virtually impossible for us to get like a lot of video games. As far as purchase, it could be Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PlayStation 2, or I guess a Pokémon game.

    So let’s rewind 34 years. You were born in New Jersey. You spent the majority of your childhood in Turkey.

    Yeah.

    You’ve talked before about that upbringing. You’ve characterized it as a very privileged one. How did that experience, now that you’re able to look back and reflect, affect your worldview? How does that turn you into the person that you are today?

    There’s massive income inequality in Turkey that almost resembles America now, but that’s still far worse in Turkey. For that reason, if you’re above board, if you’re relatively affluent, you come across as very wealthy in comparison to the average person.

    I’ve never sheltered people from that truth, but I did grow up fairly affluent. It was very positive in the sense that I didn’t have to worry about making ends meet or having to take on a job or anything like that. My parents’ main concern was to make sure that I wasn’t spoiled, so I didn’t get everything I wanted.

    Outside of that, I would say that as a young boy I was sent to public school in Turkey. I think it was a good thing that my parents did that because it made me understand that there were very different income brackets with people living in very different conditions.

    You moved to the United States for college, right? What was surprising to you about that transition?

    When I came to college, this is literally what I wanted. Other people were like, “I want to be an astronaut,” “I want to be a teacher,” “I want to be a race car driver.” I was like, “I want to go to college in America.”

    So I loved it. I was so stoked to be here, and I had all of these beliefs. You know, this is a land of freedom, land of prosperity, right?

    Right.

    This is where I’m gonna make a name for myself, make a career for myself.

    Slowly but surely, experiences growing up or going to college and then onwards living in America, slowly chipped away at that dream. Piece by piece.

    Yeah.

    It’s interesting because in comparison to other fresh-off-the-boat immigrant stories, I did it. I am living the American dream, but I just realized that it’s not something that is readily accessible for all.

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    Katie Drummond

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  • Where’s the Fun in AI Gambling?

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    On this episode of Uncanny Valley, we break down the role of AI in the online gambling scene.

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    Lauren Goode, Michael Calore, Kate Knibbs

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  • Join Us for WIRED’s “Uncanny Valley” Live

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    With original reporting and sharp analysis, WIRED’s Uncanny Valley podcast covers today’s biggest stories in tech. We demystify companies like Palantir, trends like vibe coding, and figures like Sam Altman; we break down our essential coverage of DOGE and ICE; we guide listeners through breakthrough innovations like generative AI and sweeping policy changes like the Trump administration’s tariffs.

    On September 9, at 7 pm PDT, WIRED is partnering with KQED for Uncanny Valley’s first live show of the podcast. The first part of the event will feature WIRED editor in chief Katie Drummond in conversation with Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon. As a founder and musician, Conte has been at the forefront of adapting and harnessing the power of changing technological landscapes to the advantage of creatives. This summer, Patreon reached a milestone of $10 billion in payments to creators since the company was founded in 2013.

    The roundtable conversation with our cohosts Michael Calore and Lauren Goode will center around how San Francisco grew to be the tech hot spot it is today, and how that role has changed in recent years. Emerging technologies like AI and machine learning have allowed the Bay Area to retain its leadership position—but can it keep it?

    You won’t want to miss this event. Get your tickets here.

    For those not based in the Bay Area, you can tune in via the livestream on this page:

    And if you’re not yet a listener, you can check out past episodes below.

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    WIRED Staff

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  • WIRED Roundup: Meta’s AI Brain Drain

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    On this episode of Uncanny Valley, we look back at the week’s biggest stories—from the researchers leaving Meta’s new superintelligence lab, to the dark money group funding Democratic influencers.

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    Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger

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