Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; AAron Ontiveroz/Getty ImagesSave StorySave this storySave StorySave this storyThis week, the Uncanny Valley team dives into the feud that has been brewing between Anthropic and the Pentagon—and what it says about how the government interacts with tech companies. Later, Zoë Schiffer tells us why figuring out whether you are agentic or mimetic has become the new litmus test in Silicon Valley. Plus, we discuss the key takeaways from the State of the Union address and give a farewell to the TAT-8 undersea cables—the ones that made our modern internet possible.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
- Are You ‘Agentic’ Enough for the AI Era?
- Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible
You can follow 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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Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Brian Barrett: Hey, it's Brian. Zoë, Leah, and I have really enjoyed being your new hosts these past few weeks, and we want to hear from you. If you like the show and have a minute, please leave us a review in the podcast or app of your choice. It really helps us reach more people. And for any questions and comments, you can always reach us at uncannyvalley@wired.com. Thank you for listening. On to the show.
Leah Feiger: Hey, how's it going?
Zoë Schiffer: I feel great. Brian?
Brian Barrett: I feel terrific, and I know Leah does too because Survivor's back tonight, another thing that we care about and you don't.
Zoë Schiffer: How do you know I don't? I mean, I don't. I don't, except for my best friend from childhood tried to go on it and then she didn't get on, so it's irrelevant.
Leah Feiger: Famously, one day I'm going to apply, and both Brian and our colleague Tim have assured me that I can leave for a month to the beaches of Fiji and come back and still keep my job.
Zoë Schiffer: I think most people would be like, Leah, you're not going to survive out there, but they don't know about your deep sea diving prowess.
Leah Feiger: I actually think I would be fine. I really, really want to do this. One day, you guys.
Brian Barrett: But Leah, it would require you to potentially kill some fish to eat them, which is not normally—
Leah Feiger: No, no, no, no, fishing's fine. Subsistence living, that's very OK. It's like the larger institutionalization of the mass murder of our sea that I take a bit of a bigger issue with.
Zoë Schiffer: And on that note, welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, WIRED's director of business and industry.
Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, senior politics editor.
Zoë Schiffer: OK. I feel like we have to start today with this feud that is escalating day by day, hour by hour between Anthropic and the Pentagon. So to set the stage a little bit, Anthropic last summer scored a contract of up to $200 million with the Defense Department. Are we calling it the Department of War? No.
Brian Barrett: We are calling it the Defense Department because Department of War is a secondary title per the executive order.
Leah Feiger: And a name change requires an act of Congress. There's a lot in here. So no, we are all good on DOD. I love calling it the DOD.
Zoë Schiffer: Great. Before we get completely derailed by the name, Anthropic, they won this contract and then things have gotten pretty tense since then because basically these two sides have very, very different views on how AI technology should be used by the DOD. Anthropic has pretty strict restrictions on how their technology can be deployed. For instance, it can't be used for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.
Leah Feiger: The fully autonomous weapons thing really gets me. What Anthropic is saying here is not like some woke left-wing wild thing. It's saying that machines can't be the ones to fully push the button, right?
