Podcasts · Technology

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

300 episodes

Welcome to Uncanny Valley—an insider look at the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley—where each week, WIRED’s writers and editors bring you original reporting and analysis about some of the biggest stories in tech.

More about the show

On Tuesdays, The Big Interview with WIRED’s Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond in conversation with influential figures in culture, politics, business, science, and beyond for a discussion captured through the WIRED lens.

On Thursdays, WIRED writers and editors Zoë Schiffer, Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger add you to the Slack group thread to let you into what they’re hearing from sources in Silicon Valley and D.C, read you into what trends you should be watching for and how WIRED is thinking about it all.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. UK Politician Jess Asato Got Deepfaked. Now She’s Taking xAI to Court

    · 38 min

    Jess Asato’s public campaigning for victims of online abuse put her in the crosshairs of Grok’s deepfake scandal. Then the UK Member of Parliament became a victim of the abuse herself. Join WIRED’s best and brightest…

  2. Will Musk Give Your Kid a SpaceX Share?; Inside the Secret Nathan Fielder Interview

    · 34 min

    This week, the team speaks with Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond to go behind the scenes of her viral interview with Nathan Fielder about his latest documentary, You Can See Everything — she tells us why she…

  3. Sexual Assault Is a Free Speech Issue

    · 40 min

    Mary Anne Franks has spent years fighting against online abuse. When people are abused with impunity, she says, the message becomes “We do not care about women's voices.” Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny…

  4. From The Big Story: Nathan Fielder Tells Us Everything

    · 50 min

    Including what Elizabeth Holmes said to him last week. A WIRED exclusive interview with the comic auteur, as his first feature film hits theaters. The conversation between Katie Drummond and Nathan Fielder is…

  5. Meta’s Muse Won’t Stop Sexting

    · 32 min

    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…

  6. Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk Documentary Has a Unique Perspective on Daddy Issues

    · 34 min

    When asked, Elon’s father Errol Musk agreed to be interviewed immediately. Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from Alexis…

  7. Inside Elon Musk's Midterm Spending Spree; What Is Effective Altruism Exactly?

    · 29 min

    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…

  8. Kevin Roose Didn’t Use AI to Write His Book About AI

    · 36 min

    The author of The AGI Chronicles says his book “was written by a very tired, overworked, under-slept human being.” Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics,…

  9. Are AI Agents Worth the Risk? and Trump’s Pinky Swear AI Safety ‘Accord

    · 43 min

    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…

  10. There Is No ‘Existential Threat’ From AI Says Timnit Gebru

    · 32 min

    One of AI’s fiercest critics believes the doom talk is about founders making money, not saving humanity. Check out the new WIRED app. Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of…

  11. Inside the Network of Anonymous Men Destroying Young Women's Lives

    · 19 min

    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…

  12. Patti Harrison Grew Up With Tech As Her North Star. Not Anymore

    · 35 min

    Comedian Patti Harrison hates social media. She wishes she didn't have to use it at all. To her, the internet is a slop factory. One of her biggest concerns: intentionally created confusion meant to drive engagement…

  13. What Would the AI Apocalypse Look Like? We Went Looking for Answers

    · 37 min

    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…

  14. If the US Collapses Soon, Don’t Blame Emily St. John Mandel

    · 34 min

    Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, Station Eleven, turned her into something of a pandemic prophet. This month, she’s releasing her newest novel, Exit Party, which imagines two possible American futures—totalitarian…

  15. So, Can AI Kill Us All?; Apple’s Foldable iPhone; the Census’ Bad Data Problem

    · 30 min

    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…

  16. MS NOW Wants to Turn Its Viewers Into a Fandom

    · 29 min

    When Rebecca Kutler accepted the job as president of cable news channel MS Now, formerly known as MSNBC, she knew what she was getting into. The top 3 cable news channel, MS was about to go into a massive re-brand…

  17. How Flock Cameras Actually Work; George Santos' Kalshi Ban; AI Rogue "Civilizations"

    · 32 min

    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.…

  18. LegalEagle, the Internet’s Favorite Lawyer, Makes Sense of ‘Multiple Watergates per Week’ (Re-air)

    · 40 min

    Devin Stone, the lawyer better known as LegalEagle on YouTube, has been breaking down legal cases - and assessing the accuracy of legal procedurals in film and television -- for years. He talks to Katie about the…

  19. AI Agents Are Hacking Systems. Could That Push the US and China to Cooperate?

    · 22 min

    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…

  20. Fallout Director Jonathan Nolan Says He's Still a Techno-Optimist (Re-air)

    · 53 min

    Katie sits down with the Westworld showrunner, Jonah Nolan for a wide ranging conversation about what keeps him coming back to sci-fi storytelling about technology and human nature. After decades of writing about Ai,…

  21. What Happens if China Hacks the US Water Supply?

    · 23 min

    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…

  22. Can AI Coexist With Privacy? Proton CEO Says It Will Have To

    · 41 min

    Andy Yen is co-founder of Proton, a Geneva-based company that operates a suite of privacy focused products like email, calendars, password managers and more. A former physicist and economist, Yen is a champion of…

  23. Zuckerberg's AI Manifesto Explained; Inside Black Hat and DEF CON's Best Hacks

    · 33 min

    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…

  24. Zohran Mamdani, the Internet’s Mayor (Re-air)

    · 37 min

    Before he burst through the 2025 primaries, Zohran Mamdani was polling at the same level as literally "someone else." Then-candidate Zohran Mamdani sat down with Katie to talk about building a social media juggernaut,…

  25. How ICE Has Been Collecting DNA; SpaceX’s Rocket Crashes Into the Moon

    · 33 min

    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…

  26. Everyone Is Using AI in Hollywood

    · 52 min

    When Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported on Amazon MGM Studios decision to dump their Sam Altman biopic mere months after announced an enormous investment into OpenAI to the tune of $50 billion – the news sent a bit of a…

  27. How Claude Chats Got Exposed on Google; Inside Trump's AI Policy Chaos

    · 30 min

    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…

  28. Can the New York Times Save Journalism From Our AI Overlords?

    · 44 min

    A.G. Sulzberger, who took on the publisher role at The New York Times a decade ago and has been an influential leader in the Times’ much-lauded push into digital innovation, has no shortage of defending to do lately.…

  29. Did China’s Moonshot AI Steal From Anthropic?; OpenAI Loses Control of Two Models

    · 35 min

    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…

  30. Stanford Grads Say Big Tech Is Creating a 'Modern-Day Draft’

    · 42 min

    More than a hundred Stanford students left their own graduation to protest Google’s military contracts and deals with ICE. Two organizers, Amanda Campos and Eva Jones, tell us why. Join WIRED’s best and brightest on…

  31. Why Apple Sued OpenAI; New York Takes On Data Centers; Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

    · 38 min

    This week, the team discusses the details behind Apple suing OpenAI over alleged stolen hardware secrets. And the company's headaches don't stop there — a group of OpenAI employees just started a Super PAC to advocate…

  32. We Interviewed a Puppet and It Made A Lot of Sense

    · 41 min · Explicit

    Attitudes around social media are changing. A Pew Research study found that about half of teens surveyed in 2024 felt that social media had a mostly negative impact on their age group. A group advocating a more…

  33. Meta’s Threads Rivals Musk’s X; Trump Phone Review; Maine's Senate Race Implodes

    · 19 min

    Threads recently hit 500 million monthly users, putting it on par with X — but is it really competing, or just filling a different niche? Meanwhile, the reviews have been coming in for the Trump-branded T1 phone in…

  34. From Mixed Signals: Bluesky COO Rose Wang on building a better social network

    · 40 min

    Bluesky COO Rose Wang joins our friends at Semafor's Mixed Signals to talk about the platform’s reputation as a politically charged space — and betting on a decentralized approach to social media. Semafor's media…

  35. Bernie Sanders Wants You to Own Half the Profits from AI

    · 38 min

    While many politicians are still getting their bearings around AI, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has taken a leading stance. He’s proposed a sovereign wealth fund, to allow Americans to share in half of the financial…

  36. Why Amazon Dropped Its OpenAI Movie; Data Center Workers Are Fighting Back

    · 35 min

    This week, the team discusses Amazon’s controversial decision to drop Luca Guadagnino’s film about OpenAI’s Sam Altman — which reportedly did not paint him in a favorable light. Alongside Google DeepMind’s $75 million…

  37. Until Trump Fires Her, Anna Gomez Will Fight for Press Freedom

    · 40 min

    President Trump probably can’t get rid of her yet, but FCC commissioner Anna Gomez still checks her email every day to see if he has. Until then, she wants to stand up for the First Amendment. Anna Gomez, the only…

  38. Tim Heidecker Thinks Twitter Should Be a World Heritage Site

    · 43 min · Explicit

    The satirical news publication The Onion is trying to take over Infowars, formerly owned by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and planning to put comedian Tim Heidecker in charge. Their vision is to turn…

  39. Why Anthropic Shut Down Its Best AI (Special News Update)

    · 22 min

    Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed export controls on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — their most advanced AI models — citing national security concerns. This effectively leading the company to…

  40. Why You Might Already Own SpaceX Shares; Inside the Knicks' Owner's Surveillance Machine

    · 43 min

    This week, the team discusses Apple’s Siri AI brand new release, SpaceX officially going public — and who will benefit the most from it. They also get into how Meta removed a facial recognition feature after a WIRED…

  41. Trump Foe Mounts Competitive Senate Bid in Florida

    · 44 min

    When Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, a key witness in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, announced he was running for one of Florida’s senate seats, he was considered a longshot. But a recent poll…

  42. The AI IPO Race Gets Weird; Elon Musk Sued By DOGE Whistleblower; Instagram's Hacking Incident

    · 30 min

    This week, the team discusses why the race among the top AI companies to go public has just gotten started but it is already creating bizarre repercussions — including numerous San Francisco real estate listings…

  43. The Tech Behind McLaren Racing’s F1 Dominance

    · 42 min

    Formula 1 racing is a global phenomenon. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown joins Katie to break down the historic turnaround of one of motorsport’s most iconic legacy teams. After turning around a decades-long drought to…

  44. How Crypto Scam Compounds Use Romance to Make Billions

    · 19 min

    Last year, a mysterious source reached out to WIRED’s senior writer Andy Greenberg — someone who claimed to be an engineer trapped in a scam compound in Laos. According to the whistleblower, the compound’s illicit…

  45. How the Internet Could Help the Iranian People

    · 48 min

    It has been nearly three months since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Journalist Jason Rezaian, a former detainee of the Iranian regime, talks about its brutality - and his hopes for the future of the…

  46. Why Is Meta In Crisis?; Google Search Is Over; AI Gets Booed by Graduates

    · 43 min

    This week, the team discusses Meta’s recent layoffs and what they’ve been hearing from employees about the increasingly grim vibes at the company. They also talk about Musk losing his lawsuit against OpenAI, and Brian…

  47. Tom Steyer Makes His Case for Billionaires

    · 39 min

    California’s gubernatorial race is drawing national attention, with several Democrats and two Republicans vying for incumbent Gavin Newsom’s seat. Among them is hedge fund billionaire turned gubernatorial candidate Tom…

  48. Trump’s Tech Posse in China; Who’s Winning in Musk v. Altman?; Hantavirus Conspiracy Theories

    · 32 min

    The team dives into Trump’s selected entourage for his high-stakes visit to China — from Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires to Melania director Brett Ratner. Plus, we break down the latest developments in Elon Musk’s…

  49. The Creators of Hacks Really, Really, Really Hate AI

    · 47 min

    The hit HBO Max comedy series Hacks follows the tumultuous relationship between a young comedy writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) and legacy comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart). The show has also had a lot to say…

  50. Trump Pivots On AI Regulation; What Is Hantavirus?; Worker Ousted by DOGE Runs for Office

    · 30 min

    This week, the team discusses the surprising reports of the Trump administration seemingly reversing its stance when it comes to AI safety and regulation. They also look into what exactly is going on with the…

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