Pentagon v. ‘Woke’ Anthropic; Agentic v. Mimetic; Trump v. the State of the Union

Summary

Uncanny Valley | WIRED – Episode Summary
Episode: Pentagon v. ‘Woke’ Anthropic; Agentic v. Mimetic; Trump v. the State of the Union
Date: February 26, 2026
Hosts: Zoë Schiffer, Brian Barrett, Leah Fieger

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Episode Overview

This episode of Uncanny Valley dives into three major tech-and-culture flashpoints of the week: the escalating showdown between AI startup Anthropic and the Pentagon over military use restrictions; Silicon Valley’s latest obsession with whether people are “agentic” or “mimetic”; and President Trump’s latest State of the Union, with its tone and implications discussed. The hosts bring a blend of reporting, analysis, and on-the-ground industry insights, examining how values, branding, and power plays are shaping Silicon Valley and national politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: The ‘Woke AI’ Showdown

[01:40–08:16]

• Context:
  Anthropic, an AI company, signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) but imposed strict restrictions on how its AI could be used—most notably, banning applications for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

• Escalating Conflict:

  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei to issue an ultimatum: remove all restrictions or risk losing the contract.
  • The DoD also threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA)—typically reserved for emergencies and physical goods—to potentially force Anthropic’s compliance.
  • Host analysis suggests this is as much performative posturing as practical negotiation; it sends a message that government contractors cannot write their own value-based restrictions (04:01).

"It seems like a little bit performative… they're trying to make a point that companies that want big military contracts...aren't allowed to put their kind of company values in those contracts."
— Zoë Schiffer [04:13]

• Branding and AI Industry Competition:

  • Standing firm could be a branding victory for Anthropic, differentiating it from OpenAI and X.AI.
  • “If Anthropic were to cave at this point, it would be completely disastrous for the company.” — Zoë Schiffer [07:27]
  • OpenAI insiders are poised to call out any hypocrisy if Anthropic shifts its stance.

• Notable Pentagon Quote:

  • Defense Secretary Hegseth:

  “Department of War AI will not be woke. It will work for us.” [05:55]

• Wider Implications and Irony:

  • Even as the DoD could easily use other AI vendors (like Grok/X.AI), the standoff is about principle and precedent as much as technology (03:33).
  • The concept of “alignment” (tuning AI to human values) itself is becoming politicized as “woke.”

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2. (Mis)Alignment, AI Wargames, and the “Woke” Debate

[08:16–10:24]

• AI in the War Room:

  • New research: When different state-of-the-art LLMs (GPT 5.2, Sonnet 4, and Gemini 3 Flash) were put through hundreds of simulated war games, 95% of the time, they opted for nuclear weapons.

  “They couldn't get enough of nuclear weapons.” — Brian Barrett [08:50]

• Political Framing of Alignment:

  • Alignment with “human values” is becoming a charged debate: whose values should AI respect—the military’s, the company’s, the public’s?

  “The question is, whose values? Right. That's a broad range. So again, getting back to this, this is the Pentagon saying, 'No, the alignment is with the Department of Defense.'”
  — Brian Barrett [10:11]

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3. “Agentic” vs. “Mimetic”: Silicon Valley’s New Personality Test

[10:24–15:24]

• Definitions:

  • Agentic: Action-oriented, decisive, “just makes things happen,” self-driven.
  • Mimetic: Hesitant, deliberative, looking to others for cues before acting.

• Silicon Valley Hiring Trends & Satire:

  • “Are we hiring someone who’s agentic? Or mimetic? ...In a world where AI agents take over vast swaths of the economy... agentic people will succeed. Mimetic people are fucked.” — Zoë Schiffer [11:34]
  • Leah Fieger lampoons this as another Silicon Valley “BuzzFeed quiz turned hiring fad”:

  “Of course, Silicon Valley took a basically college BuzzFeed personality test, added a couple of extra fun keywords, and we're like, we have figured out a new way to rate people.”
  — Leah Fieger [11:43]

• Parallel Fads:

  • References to past Silicon Valley “types": Word Cells vs. Shape Rotators (13:13)
  • “Even Sam Altman was tweeting about Word Cells and Shape Rotators back in the day.” — Brian Barrett [14:03]

• Online Culture Tangents:

  • Noted that such discourse is “chronically online” and often irrelevant to regular tech workers (14:20-14:49).

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4. State of the Union 2026: Trump’s Tone and Takeaways

[15:24–20:39]

• Summary:

  • Trump’s address was the longest to date—nearly two hours.
  • "It was exactly what you would expect.” — Leah Fieger [15:52]
  • Reiterated key Republican talking points: immigration, economic success, Supreme Court grievances.
  • Spoke at length about Republican victories and attempted to “reinvigorate” MAGA with cultural touchstones like the U.S. men’s hockey team.

• Tone and Rhetoric:

  • “I was more struck by how venomous his comments were. Vitriolic towards Democrats and anyone he doesn't like. It was more aggressive than I think we've seen on this stage in a long time.” — Brian Barrett [17:04]
  • There were few concrete policy announcements; new details, like Vice President J.D. Vance leading fraud investigations, were met with skepticism.

  “That's the job you give someone you hate.”
  — Zoe Schiffer, on appointing J.D. Vance to fraud investigations [18:31]

• Branding Attempt:

  • Discussion around whether the administration is pushing a “rebranding” of MAGA by emphasizing cultural cachet (Nicki Minaj, hockey, etc.).
  • Brian Barrett: “The coolest thing you can do is insist to everybody how cool you are. That's what got me through high school.” [20:09]

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5. Undersea Internet Cables: Myths, Geopolitics, and Shark Exoneration

[21:20–25:56]

• Historical Milestone:

  • The first undersea fiber optic cable linking the US, UK, and France (TAT8) is being retired, marking the end of an era and highlighting the physical infrastructure behind the Internet.
  • “This was the day that the Internet went global, which is crazy.” — Brian Barrett [22:01]

• Engineering Myths:

  • Early unexplained cable damage was wrongly blamed on shark bites; ultimately, sharks were exonerated.
  • “The sharks were innocent, you guys. The sharks were innocent.” — Leah Fieger [24:20]

• Modern Significance:

  • Undersea cables remain vital and are targets/victims in modern geopolitical struggles (e.g. Russia-Finland incidents in 2024).
  • “These are…integral to all kinds of geopolitical…another time the sharks didn't do it.” — Brian Barrett [24:59]

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6. Wired/Tired Picks

[27:48–32:29]

• Leah’s Picks:

  • Wired: Survivor Season 50 — Excited for former contestants’ return. Recommends the “Micronesia Black Widow” episode. [28:00–28:39]
  • Tired: Love Is Blind — Reality TV gone toxic, MAGA vibes, and body shaming abound. [28:39–29:59]

• Brian’s Picks:

  • Tired: “AI overload in phones”—Latest Samsung phones pack in generative AI to a tiresome degree; “at this point, what’s the point of taking photos anymore?” [30:03–31:19]
  • Wired: New Muppet Show with Sabrina Carpenter — Deserves more episodes.

• Zoe’s Picks:

  • Tired: The “Bestselling Author” label—“I just don't know what it means anymore.” [31:19]
  • Wired: Agatha Christie’s enduring success and humility—“Agatha Christie is a bestselling author… only outsold by the Bible and Shakespeare. And I thought, boss move.” [31:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think the issue of setting yourself up as the good AI company is that the second you falter...people are very, very quick to call you a hypocrite.”
  – Zoë Schiffer [07:27]

• “Is it woke to not use nukes? We'll find out. Is that woke AI?”
  – Brian Barrett [08:52] (on LLMs favoring nuclear options in war games)

• “They're still being deployed. I think Google and Meta both have their own giant undersea cable projects… These are integral to all kinds of geopolitical [events]… another time the sharks didn't do it.”
  – Brian Barrett [24:59]

• “She hates the Oxford comma. She's also mimetic.”
  – Leah Fieger [15:16]

• “It was… mimetic.”
  – Brian Barrett [32:24] (in callback to earlier typologies, joking about Zoe’s Wired/Tired picks)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Anthropic v. Pentagon, AI ethics in defense: 01:40–08:16
• AI alignment, LLM wargame simulations: 08:16–10:24
• Agentic vs. Mimetic, Silicon Valley hiring fads: 10:24–15:24
• State of the Union recap & analysis: 15:24–20:39
• Undersea cable history & myths: 21:20–25:56
• Wired/Tired picks: 27:48–32:29

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Tone and Style

Conversational, humorous, and often irreverent. The hosts blend news reporting, industry gossip, and cultural critique with candor and wit, providing listeners with context and attitude in equal measure.

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Transcript

[Brian Barrett]

Hey, it's Brian. Zoe, Leah and I have really enjoyed being your new host 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@ uncannyvalleyired.com thank you for listening onto the show.

[Leah Fieger]

Hey, how's it going?

[Zoe Schiffer]

I feel great, Ryan.

[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.

[Zoe 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 that, you know, it's irrelevant.

[Leah Fieger]

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.

[Zoe Schiffer]

And, you know, I think most people would be like, leah, you're not gonna survive out there. But they don't know about your deep sea diving prowess.

[Leah Fieger]

I actually think I would be fine. I really, really wanna 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. Oh, okay.

[Leah Fieger]

No, no, no, no, no. Fishing's fine. Like subsistence living, like, that's like, very. Okay. It's like the larger, you know, institutionalization of the mass murder of our sea that I take a bit of a bigger issue.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, Wired's Director of Business and Industry.

[Brian Barrett]

I'm Brian Barrett, Executive Editor.

[Leah Fieger]

And I'm Leah Fieger, Senior politics editor.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Okay. 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?

[Brian Barrett]

No, we are calling it the Defense Department because Department of War is a secondary title per the executive order, and

[Leah Fieger]

a name change requires an act of Congress. There's, like, a lot in here. So. No, we are. We are all good on dod. I love calling it the dod.

[Zoe 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 view 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 Fieger]

You know, 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.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Right? Right.

[Leah Fieger]

They can't kill people just themselves. They have to do it with the help of people that feels reasonable.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Right. This is a stance that is not okay with certain members of the DoD, namely Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei earlier this week, and he basically gave Dario an ultimatum. The company has until Friday to comply with the Pentagon's demands, basically saying that the AI can be used however the DoD want without restrictions, or the DoD might actually cancel their contract.

[Brian Barrett]

Zoe, what's fascinating to me about this, among many things, including the DoD's threat to use the power of the state to force Anthropic to give them access to its AI to do whatever it wants. The DoD has options here, right? They've got a contract with XAI. They work with all the big players. Other companies do not have these restrictions. So why is it so important to them that Anthropic specifically has to be able to do this? Can't they use Grok?

[Zoe Schiffer]

They've already signed a deal with xai. I mean, my feeling about this and Brian and Leigh, I'm curious what you think about this is it seems like a little bit performative. I think they're trying to make a point that companies that want big military contracts or big contracts with the government at all aren't allowed to put their kind of company values in those contracts. Like, basically, if you want this money, you have to do whatever it takes to win.

[Brian Barrett]

So I want to go back to what I alluded to before, which is that in terms of, yeah, making a show of it and demonstrating their power here, they suggested they might invoke the Defense Production act, which is normally what you do in wartime. If you say we need more tires for our Humvees, we're going to go to Goodyear and have them make more tires for us. And we saw the Defense Production act invoked during COVID to make people make masks like that. Is it is normally tied to physical goods. It is normally tied to a state of emergency. This is just, we want to play with your shiny toy and you won't let Us, which just sort of seems like an outrageous use of that potentially.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah. I will say, like, it's not completely clear to me that this is a horrible position for Anthropic to be in, purely because the company is really differentiating itself in this moment. Not really because of its technology, but because of its brand. And its brand is a little bit like, holier than thou, a little more values based than some of its competitors. And so while this is a lot of money on the line and I think like Anthropic wants to be a government contractor, you know, it really is cementing this vision of the company as being like, we're different, we're better, we're willing to take a stand. Stand where, say, Sam Altman might not be.

[Leah Fieger]

What you're saying really keys into exactly what Secretary Hegseth said when he was announcing this partnership with X AI. You guys have to listen to this.

[Brian Barrett]

We will judge AI models on this standard alone. Factually accurate, mission relevant without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications. Department of War AI will not be woke. It will work for us.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Right, right, right, right. It's bringing to mind the kind of woke AI executive order that rolled out last year. I talked to many, many people to be like, have you heard from the government on this? Are they asking you to change certain things? And the answer, at least from the sources I spoke to, was basically a resounding no. Which told me one thing that was for show, that was about making a point. It wasn't necessarily about literally changing the product that these companies are building.

[Brian Barrett]

I'm trying to think of a corollary. If this were not lines of code in a physical product. I feel like it's almost like going to IROBOT and saying, look, we need your Roombas to explode. We need exploding Roombas. We need to deploy them in the Kremlin. That's sort of the level of overreach here. To me.

[Leah Fieger]

No, this is like wild overreach. We are obviously, the news feels like it's breaking every hour or so on this. This person' said this and Amadai said this. And I don't know, this really does feel like it's going to be heading to a breaking point. And so far we haven't actually seen. Correct me if I'm wrong, this is your world.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Zoe.

[Leah Fieger]

We haven't actually seen any tech companies face down the Trump administration in any meaningful way whatsoever.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I mean, yeah, certainly it's been more normal for them to simply fall in line. I think that if Anthropic were to Cave at this point, it would be completely disastrous for the company. Like, I think the issue of setting yourself up as the good AI company me is that the second you falter, the second they said they were gonna try and fundraise in the Middle east, perhaps take Gulf State money, people are very, very quick to call you a hypocrite. And certainly the sources I have at OpenAI are like they're poised and ready because they are very sick of Dario and the other anthropic executives essentially saying that they're better than OpenAI because they're willing to have values and OpenAI and some of the other companies are not. So I'll be so curious to see how this plays out. But in my mind, there' only one way for Anthropic to play this.

[Brian Barrett]

There's a fun timing tidbit I wanted to share that's sort of related to all of this. I just want to note that a story came out Wednesday that a researcher named Kenneth Payne at King's College London ran a GPT 5.2 cloud, Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 flash against each other in war game simulations. Ran a bunch of simulations, like I think hundreds in all. And 95% of the time they opted to use nuclear weapons. No, they couldn't get enough of nuclear weapons.

[Leah Fieger]

So unbelievable.

[Brian Barrett]

That's not to say that that's what happened in a real world situation, but in terms of is it woke to not use nukes? We'll find out. Is that woke AI?

[Leah Fieger]

That's the title of Brian Barrett's new book coming at you this fall 2027.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Would read, would click.

[Leah Fieger]

I mean, okay, but play this out with me for just one second. As someone who does not spend a ton of time with AI models in any way, shape or form, but that makes sense to me that everything I have seen and everything like, you know, inputting make this better, actually add this to it. Of course, the final scenario here is, you know what, we're gonna just pick the best option. It's the nukes. This will fully end it. Then we will stop being asked for things like does that actually make sense? Explain to me why we would even get there.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah, I think that that's what alignment is supposed to prevent. The whole idea of alignment is that you're supposed to bend the AI model in such a way that it like conforms to human values and doesn't do what's good for the AI necessarily. But I think alignment in and of itself has become seen as kind of woke. And companies have been trying to implement, like the minimum level of guardrails that they can get away with because it's, you know, frankly, politically toxic to do otherwise.

[Brian Barrett]

And like, when you say alignment with human values, the question is, whose values? Right. That's a broad range. And so again, getting back to this, this is the Pentagon saying, no, the alignment is with the Department of Defense.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Right. I have a question for you guys and I just want to ask it, and then I'm going to unpack it.

[Brian Barrett]

Do it.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Do you think that you're agentic or mimetic?

[Brian Barrett]

Never mind, don't do it. Take it back.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Is it because you're memetic?

[Brian Barrett]

Can I, can you explain what that means before I commit?

[Zoe Schiffer]

So Silicon Valley has become obsessed with the idea of being agentic, hiring agentic people. And this is in contrast, as you might imagine, to being mimetic. So someone who's agentic is action oriented. It's a person who just like, does things. They have this inner drive. They just make things happen. They don't really doubt themselves or the process. In contrast, someone who is mimetic. I think we can all agree I'm in this category. They are hesitant. They weigh the pros and cons. They kind of wait to see what other people do before they make a move. These questions have come up a lot in job interviews at AI labs. People are kind of trying to test out, are we hiring someone who's agentic? Are we hiring someone who's mimetic? And I think the idea is that in a world where AI agents take over vast swaths of the economy, they're doing a lot of tasks. Like agentic people will succeed. Mimetic people are fucked.

[Leah Fieger]

This just feels like kind of another Silicon Valley way to describe something that already exists. It's like when you're like, oh, are you a kicker or a puncher? Like, these are conversations that have been, like, happening on playground since we were like, babies. I, of course, Silicon Valley, like, took a basically college buzzfeed personality test, added a couple of extra fun keywords, and we're like, we have figured out a new way to rate people.

[Brian Barrett]

I think the people who embrace this, is it fair to say all think of themselves as agentic, right?

[Leah Fieger]

Without a doubt.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Oh, for sure. But okay, here's what's funny to me about this. I mean, the reason that this has been kind of taking over Silicon Valley and Maxwell Zeff, one of our great AI writers, he's writing about this this week. But there was an essay in Harper's by Sam Kriss That I think kind of went viral last week and it kind of touched on this idea. It kind of chose three people, a few of whom, you know, really exemplified agentic tendencies and kind of profiled them, talked about kind of this new world that we supposedly. Entering into. My confusion in the piece, in addition to the fact that I think media people tend to over index the importance of things like Slate Star, Codex and the guy who started cluly and like the average tech person has no idea what you're talking about. These are completely irrelevant people. But I'm like, I feel like you're just saying we like people who are successful. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, don't we all want to hire people who can like get stuff done? Like, I'm a little confused.

[Leah Fieger]

Why are you a self starter, Zoe? Like, that's what this is.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I. Oh God.

[Brian Barrett]

I also want to say this is not the first time Silicon Valley has been captured by the idea of dividing people into categories. Who can forget the frenzy of early 2022 when everyone was either a Word Cell or a Shape rotator? Does anyone remember this? Am I the only one?

[Zoe Schiffer]

I kind of feel like you're making this up to like test if I'm going to agree with like, I have genuinely no idea what you're saying.

[Brian Barrett]

That's exactly what a word cell would say.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Oh, no. And then that is a word cell.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah, well, they're based the kind. They're very similar concepts. It like breaks things down. Word cells are. And I'm not going to get this exactly right. It was a long time ago, but as the name suggests, like people who are more language driven and talk through things. Whereas Shape Rotators. Wow. They are action oriented. Can probably.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Where do these words even come from?

[Brian Barrett]

I don't know. I think wordcell probably derogatory because it maybe builds off incel. But I am not. I'm making that up as I go along. I don't remember where it came from exact. Even Sam Altman was tweeting about Word cells and Shape Rotators back in the day.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Well, Sam Altman, as this Harper's article suggests, is I think a little chronically online. He has a whole section where there was like a Twitter troll or an ex troll who's like going after people, kind of making fun of them, telling them to buy him things. And Sam Altman kind of makes the trend go mainstream by actually buying this guy a gaming laptop and like sending it to him. And then all these other famous tech people feel like they also need to Buy this random guy thing. So it becomes kind of like a tre. I hate that.

[Leah Fieger]

This is like a cultural talking point right now. The way that you, like, divide people, becoming. It's just like one more way. One. One more way.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah. Whenever people feel really passionately about the Oxford comma in their bio, they're like, I'm pro Oxford comma. Like, what? Who cares?

[Brian Barrett]

Oh, so you're wrong.

[Zoe Schiffer]

No, no. I mean, I do like it, but I'm like. To make your personal brand aligned with the Oxford comma. Okay. I don't know.

[Leah Fieger]

She hates the Oxford comma. She's also mimetic.

[Brian Barrett]

She's a word cell. She's a memetic word cell.

[Leah Fieger]

Okay. I think that we need to move on to another major bit of news that happened this week. The State of the Union address delivered by President Trump on Tuesday evening.

[Brian Barrett]

Members of Congress and my fellow Americans, our nation is back. Bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.

[Leah Fieger]

It was the longest State of the Union address to date. It lasted almost two hours, and it was exactly what you would expect. Trump was boasting about his performance in office. He doubled down on immigration. He said the US's economy was going swimmingly. Did not obviously talk about his very low approval numbers right now, but really spent a lot of time just celebrating the Republican agenda. He brought in members from the US hockey team celebrating their victory. He talked about immigration and what an important thing this was going to be. Going into the midterms. He really went after the Supreme Court and after their decision to deny him the tariffs he so deeply wants. It was honestly, you guys, so boring. I was so bored. What were your reactions? Did you watch? Did you just see the news that came out the next day? Tell me what you're thinking.

[Brian Barrett]

I not only watched, I made my kids watch.

[Leah Fieger]

Oh, that is my kind.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah. At least.

[Brian Barrett]

Well, they watched the first hour or so, which is a lot.

[Leah Fieger]

All right.

[Brian Barrett]

And then we switched over to an old episode of the Muppet show as a palate cleanser.

[Leah Fieger]

Nice.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah. I think they got more out of the Muppet show than they did out of the State of the Union. Other than that you mentioned he was, like, boosting Republican talking points. I was more struck by how venomous his comments were. Vitriolic towards Democrats and anyone he doesn't like. It was more aggressive than I think we've seen on this stage in a long time. It's not surprising and it's boring by now, but I think through the eyes of a child who is not watching Donald Trump as much as we have. I think they were pretty shocked by it that this was how our President

[Leah Fieger]

acts and that's 100% fair. You know, when I say boring, I'm coming at this from. We're looking at what he's posting on Truth Social on a daily basis. This is, it's so much more of the same that like perhaps the most complimentary thing I can say is that like while parts of this were, you know, just like streaming on and on and vaguely nonsensical, he very much stuck to his talking points that he has been saying throughout his term, throughout the last month. Nothing was shocking. You know, he didn't bring up too many pieces of like exact legislation he was going to, but did we actually think he was gonna do that? I'm more interested in like some of the forward looking things he promised again of which there were very few. But like a couple things that we can look at. For one, he said that J.D. vance, Vice President J.D. vance was going to be taking the lead on fraud investigations. Was that new to you guys? How did you feel about that one?

[Zoe Schiffer]

This is obviously not my area, but my immediate reaction was like, that's the job you give someone you hate. It just feels like, am I wr?

[Leah Fieger]

I'm just like, that feels.

[Brian Barrett]

Hasn't the Trump administration also fired or not rehired people who resigned? Like they had a bunch of people who were actually responsible for finding and prosecuting fraud who no longer work there. Right. So to say, oh well, JD's gonna do it is a kind of hilarious like backup plan in practice. Yeah, that's not gonna go anywhere other than a bunch of posts on X. Oh yeah.

[Leah Fieger]

But all to say it was there wasn't a ton of new information, like I didn't come out of this going like, ah, perfect. I know the day that we will be going to war with Iran. And so it was like very, you know, he hit the talking points we thought he was going to hit and I think if anything probably showed as chaotic as so many different parts of this administration appear, it's focused.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Can I ask? It feels a bit like they're attempting a bit of a rebrand. I'm not sure if this is just because they had so much being like anti establishment and now they're the establishment. I know this is well trodden ground but like it feels like Nicki Minaj getting the trump card and appearing at the White House and all of that. Like we're seeing these attempts to say like, no, no, no, we're still cool, we're still fun. Like, to rebrand MAGA a bit in this moment.

[Leah Fieger]

The rebrand is not going well if you're looking at so many different, you know, polling numbers, et cetera, at least in this moment. But it feels like they're pushing it in some different. Brian, what do you think?

[Brian Barrett]

I don't know. I. The point is taken. But rebrand, to me, feels like it suggests that these cultural touchstones, the US Men's hockey team, other spots weren't already maga, like, I. You know what I mean?

[Leah Fieger]

So reinvigoration, maybe. Maybe. Maybe the word isn't rebrand, but it feels like they're talking about things that aren't just, like, how much Trump hates immigrants right now.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah.

[Leah Fieger]

There was just a long spread there when they were not like, MAGA was not talking about anything that someone who is not reading the news every single day would be able to relate to.

[Brian Barrett]

I think that's fair. Yeah, I think it's maybe more. They are highlighting the pockets of cultural relevance that they have. There is this sort of broader effort of culture capture through the Ellison empire, you know, through the acquisition of TikTok, through the potential acquisition of Warner Brothers by Paramount. So there is a lot of, like, we are the cool ones, which, as we all know, the coolest thing you can do is insist to everybody how cool you are. That's what got me through high school. Guys, before we go to break, there's something that very near and dear to my heart that Wired wrote about this week. It's something I love even more than biathlon. It is undersea Internet cables.

[Leah Fieger]

I love when you talk about this. I think that the first time you brought this up to me was approximately one week into your tender as executive editor. And you're like, leah, do you know what I love? And it's undersea Internet cables.

[Brian Barrett]

Yeah. I was like, number one, undersea Internet cables. Number two, my children, Number three. That was sort of the gist of it. That's how I always introduce myself. I want to take Everybody back to December 14, 1988. The top movie in theaters is Twins, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Legitimately never heard of that. Wait, Zoe.

[Leah Fieger]

What?

[Brian Barrett]

Anyway, Arnold is agentic and Danny DeVito is mimetic. The top song.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Now I get it.

[Brian Barrett]

The top song is Look Away by Chicago. Now that I also am not. I don't remember that one at all. And the first undersea fiber optic cable connecting the United States, UK and France went live. This was the day that the Internet went global, which is crazy. That is crazy that it was, like, relatively recent. The reason we're writing about it now is that that original cable, which is called TAT8, is being pulled up. It's out of commission, it's old, it's decrepit. So I identify. And it's being pulled up and put out to pasture because the technology's gotten better. But in this great feature that we published, it is a look at how this change the world, basically. And we take for granted. The reason I care, like, I am so into undersea cable stories, is because it's so easy to forget that the Internet is a physical thing and that the maintenance of those things is really what makes all this connectivity happen. So, yeah, TAT8. Any other fond memories of TAT8 or. No? What did you guys think reading this feature?

[Zoe Schiffer]

Well, famously, we were not alive in tat 8.

[Leah Fieger]

Yeah, sorry, Brian, you're older than ever.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Just to remind you. But the part of this story that I wanted to talk about, which felt like a real intersection of both of your interests, was the myth of the shark attacks.

[Brian Barrett]

Oh, yeah.

[Leah Fieger]

Okay. So to back up a little bit, these cables, at the very beginning, when they were put in, Brian would be able to talk about this way more because he's kind of a freak about cables. If you haven't realized already, these cables would sometimes have, like, unexplained damage. And looking back on it years later, engineers figured out, right, that, like, this kind of happens. That, like this, you know, if you are putting cables underseas, like, there. There will be wind, there will be changes, things will get moved around. Like, of course there will be damages, but that is not how they felt at the time. These engineers assumed that it was sharks, that sharks were biting their cables, that they were destroying the Internet. The cables were reinforced with all these protective layers, all of these things, because they were like, oh, my God, the sharks are quite literally ending all of this for us. But this article goes into great detail of how they figured out it wasn't the sharks. And by thinking that it was the sharks, it actually helped make all of this technology that much better and stronger. But the sharks were innocent, you guys. The sharks were innocent.

[Brian Barrett]

Justice for sharks. If there's one thing this podcast is about, it is justice for sharks.

[Leah Fieger]

They're so wonderful. They didn't disrupt the cables, but it is such an interesting thing. Cause, like, obviously this piece, it gets into so much of the physical building of all of this and having to grapple with the natural world and changing currents and temperatures, and what does that

[Zoe Schiffer]

look like this is still how it kind of runs, right? Satellites and wireless networks are there, they're relevant. But the actual physical cables, this is still the backbone of the Internet and

[Brian Barrett]

they're still being deployed. I think Google and Meta both have their own giant undersea cable projects. They're still launching new ones, faster connections, and they're also very political. I think in 2024 there was a spate of severed undersea cables that people have traced back to allegedly Russia sort of severing ties to Finland, Estonia as they this was around the time that the EU was just gearing up to support Ukraine and there was a little bit of like infrastructure mayhem going on at the bottom of the ocean. These are, you know, integral to all kinds of geopolitical. And again, that wasn't sharks. So it's another time the sharks didn't do it. Coming up after the break, we'll share our Wired Tired picks for the week. Stay with us.

[Kathy Werzer]

As a listener of Uncanny Valley, we know you want to stay on top of today's biggest stories in tech. And if you're curious about how tech and innov are changing the healthcare landscape, check out Mayo Clinic's chart topping podcast, Tomorrow's Cure. Back for a brand new season, host and award winning journalist Kathy Werzer dives into the breakthroughs, challenges and human stories shaping the future of medicine, from advances in AI and cancer research to the rise of chronic disease and autoimmune disorders. Not sure where to start. We Recommend the season four premiere where dermatologist Dr. Saranya Wiles and biomedical engineer Dr. Adam Feinberg explore how 3D bioprinting is revolutionizing medical research and accelerating breakthroughs in healthcare. Whether you're a healthcare professional, patient, or simply curious about what's ahead, Tomorrow's Cure invites you to imagine what healthcare could look like and shows you the future is already here. Find tomorrow's cure on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.

[Lizzie O'Leary]

Now more than ever, technology is a dominating force in our lives. Then there's the threat of AI everywhere. And yet tech can be inspiring and help level playing fields. I mean, a YouTuber with a self funded debut movie just dominated the box office.

[Brian Barrett]

I thought, hey, if you interview me, it'd be good for your publication. And that's not ego. I just have a lot of followers. But it's that stigma. It's like YouTubers, they're not real.

[Lizzie O'Leary]

Joining me, Lizzie O', Leary, the host of what Next TBD, Slate's podcast focused on technology, power and the future. Follow what next? Tbd. Now, wherever you get your podcasts,

[Zoe Schiffer]

It's time for our Wired Tired segment. Whatever is new and cool is wired. Whatever is passe is tired. Are we ready?

[Leah Fieger]

So ready. So excited. Wow.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Okay, Leah, you go first.

[Leah Fieger]

So my Wired is the show Survivor, which is airing Wednesday night.

[Zoe Schiffer]

So excited.

[Leah Fieger]

This is going to be incredible. It is season 50, so we have Survivor players of eons past that are coming back to compete for the million dollars. I am so excited. It's gonna be incredible. Zoe, my goal in the next few months is just to make you watch one. One of the episodes. Like this is very important to me,

[Brian Barrett]

which if you were to make Zoe watch a historical episode of Survivor in isolation, what one hour of Survivor would you show her?

[Leah Fieger]

Wait, can I say a season or does it have to be an episode?

[Brian Barrett]

I wanna go with that. Cause I don't think you're gonna get it for a whole season.

[Leah Fieger]

So I'm gonna do the second to last episode of the Micronesia season of Survivor. Absolutely incredible season. Known for the Black Widow brigade. Zoe, I actually think you would really like it. Well, anyway, that is my Wired, my tired. And I'm like, kind of devastated to say this is Love is Blind, which is. I know that my theme was reality shows this week. Look, I have a lot. I wouldn't say love for love is blind, but I have a lot of interest in love is Blind. I am an avid Love is Blind watcher. I think it is a super interesting concept and a very weird show and produces a lot of very weird people. But there is a excellent Wired article coming out about how MAGA it's gotten and that those are the people that are going on the show right now. And the conversations that are happening between these couples who met behind a wall and are off to get married several weeks after knowing each other. The conversations are, like, quite sad. They're making me sad. There's like a lot of body shaming and like, some. It's just like very. It's weird. There's. So this season it's not doing it for me, which that's okay because Survivor is here to lift me out of the doldrums that is my Wired and tired. I stand by it. I swear that I read books and stuff too. I do not want this to be my only brand on this show.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Certainly not. Brian, drag us out. I need to get on firmer ground.

[Brian Barrett]

Okay, well, I'm gonna go tired. Samsung just announced some new phones. Those aren't tired. But I tired is AI overload in phones. There's too much. So at this point, the new Samsung Galaxy S26 smartphones, similar to Google's Conversational photo editor, they have a photo assist thing that lets you use natural language so you can just type in. If you have a photo that you took, you can say like, hey, give my dog a party hat and then there will be a party hat on the dog. What's the point of taking photos anymore? Why not just prompt something instead like from scratch or just go touch some grass. I am curious about. They've got agents built into the phone, so you can use the phone. You can just say, hey, order me a pizza and the phone will just do that for you. We'll see if it works. I don't know. It seems like it might go off the rails anyway. Too much too soon for me. That's my tired. I didn't plan a wired. I was so caught up on the phone. But because it came up earlier, I'll say the new Muppet show episode with Sabrina Carpenter is really quite good. And I hope that it got a good enough response that Disney makes more of them.

[Zoe Schiffer]

Further proving that I'm barely on the Internet, but I really like this. Okay, my tired is. This is what I wrote calling yourself a best selling author. I just don't know what it means anymore when someone talks about this. But I did pick up my first Agatha Christie book the other day. I've never read her Flip to the back and her author bio. You guys says Agatha Christie is a bestselling author, blah blah, blah. Has been only outsold by the Bible and Shakespeare. And I thought, boss, move.

[Leah Fieger]

Lady Agatha's incredible. I'm. Wait, did you start reading which book is it?

[Zoe Schiffer]

Yeah, I'm reading and then There Were none, which previously had a more offensive title that I think was changed.

[Leah Fieger]

Oh, I really, really did. I went through an Agatha Christie.

[Brian Barrett]

Don't Google it.

[Leah Fieger]

Yeah, no need. I went through a really intense Agatha Christie phase in high school. I really think that you're going to enjoy this.

[Zoe Schiffer]

I'm having fun.

[Leah Fieger]

Wait, what's your tired?

[Zoe Schiffer]

I said tired. Is calling yourself a best selling author. Wired is being Agatha Christie and being like, I'm actually the best, most bestselling author of all time. You get it?

[Brian Barrett]

I get it.

[Zoe Schiffer]

It wasn't great. Yeah, I get it. Did what I could. I accept it.

[Leah Fieger]

Yeah, that's fine.

[Brian Barrett]

It was. It was. You know what? It was mimetic.

[Leah Fieger]

It was so mimetic.

[Brian Barrett]

Oh my God.

[Leah Fieger]

That is our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show Notes. If you have any comments, you can find the episode [e-mail] to discuss. Uncanny Valley is produced by Kaleidoscope Content. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. It was mixed by Amar Lal at Macrosound. It was fact checked by Matt Giles. Jake Loomis is our New York studio engineer, Kate Osborne is our Executive producer, and Katie Drummond is Wired's Global Editorial Director.

[Brian Barrett]

If there was a big red button that would just demolish the Internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC this is the Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. World.

[Leah Fieger]

This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

[Brian Barrett]

It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the Internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts

[Zoe Schiffer]

from. PRX.