‘Uncanny Valley’: Donald Trump’s Davos drama, AI midterms and ChatGPT’s last resort

Welcome back to Uncanny Valley! This week, WIRED’s Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger join the show as new co-hosts, alongside Zoë Schiffer. And our attention has been drawn to the drama unfolding in the picturesque little town of Davos. Zoë tells us how at the World Economic Forum event in Switzerland, major AI players like Anthropic were the protagonists, sharing the spotlight with President Donald Trump, who insists on invading Greenland. Brian has been studying how ICE’s business is evolving, and Leah is forcing us to think about this year’s midterm elections, as tech giants are already investing millions in them. Additionally, we explain why OpenAI’s decision to deploy ads in ChatGPT has been a long time coming.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• The Pro-AI Super PACs are already all present at the midterm
• ‘I witness a lot of emptiness’: How ICE uprooted normal life in Minneapolis
• Advertisements arrive on ChatGPT. This is how they will work

You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrettZoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschifferand Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.

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Transcription

Note: This is an automated transcription and may contain errors.

Zoe Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED Uncanny Valley. I’m Zoë Schiffer, WIRED’s director of business and industry.

Today we start a new chapter here on the show, and I want to introduce you to my newest co-host, Brian Barrett, our editor in chief here at WIRED, and Leah Feiger, our senior political editor. Brian and Leah, welcome to the show.

Brian Barrett: Hi Zoe.

Léa Feiger: Hello guys. I’m so excited to be here.

Zoe Schiffer: So long-time listeners know that the show has taken on many different formats since its launch. We had the Gadget Lab days, the round table, the current affairs episodes. We really created this podcast because we want to bring you the best stories and takes on what’s happening in tech and politics.

Léa Feiger: All of this will remain the same, but this time we are going to go even further. We pull back the curtain and tell you what we’re hearing from our sources across Silicon Valley and in Washington DC. What trends you should be watching, what news has already happened or is about to break, and how we think about it all. Basically, you’re going to be added to the group chat on Slack.

Brian Barrett: God, help us all. No, it’s going to be great. What we mainly hope for is to be able to give you a sense of this rapidly changing world from a WIRED lens. We’re going to be honest, we’re going to be curious, we’re going to look to the future and take you there with us.

Zoe Schiffer: ALL RIGHT. So we have a bunch of things to discuss today. The World Economic Forum kicked off this week in Switzerland and has already produced a ton of drama.

Léa Feiger: Honestly, I can’t turn away from it.

Brian Barrett: I can. I can and I do.

Léa Feiger: Can you turn it off immediately?

Brian Barrett: Quite. It’s so easy to say “no.”

Léa Feiger: No, Al Gore boos people. He heckles the Commerce Secretary. How can you not talk about it all the time?

Zoe Schiffer: I know. I know. But also, ChatGPT announced that it’s going to start running ads, and Leah is going to force us to start thinking about the upcoming US elections with reports about Silicon Valley already pumping in big money in the midterms.

I think we should start with one of the key stories. At least Leah and I watched this…

Brian Barrett: No.

Zoe Schiffer: —the World Economic Forum conference in Davos. So every year in January, world leaders from around the world, titans of business and government, gather for a week in this very picturesque mountain town in Switzerland to discuss pressing global issues.

Léa Feiger: I think it’s always been something that allows tech billionaires and world leaders to come together, the CEOs. Honestly, it’s really a combination of everything WIRED. But what makes this Davos particularly interesting is, for me at least, the way in which the United States has positioned itself in the world in recent times, I say this without any judgment.

Brian Barrett: That’s such a sweet way to say it, Leah. And yes, I’ll give it a try.

Léa Feiger: Pursue him.

Brian Barrett: This is interesting because of how the United States attempts to take back a country from a NATO ally and uses threats of violence to achieve its goals.

Léa Feiger: Right there. Let’s go.

Donald Trump, archival audio clip: We probably won’t achieve anything unless I decide to use excessive force and force, but I won’t.

Zoe Schiffer: Trump actually traveled to Switzerland to address everyone in person.

Donald Trump, archival audio clip: I don’t need to use force. I don’t want to use force. I will not use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.

Léa Feiger: Look, during his speech he seemed to rule out using military force to acquire Greenland, which is a crazy thing to say out loud, because he talked about it and didn’t say it exactly like that and kept saying, “I want Greenland. I want Greenland. Give it to me.”

Brian Barrett: I have to say though, it’s the same thing as if you’re on a playground and you want someone’s lunch money, it’s like, “I won’t hit you for lunch money, but I might.” I might hit you if you don’t give me the lunch money, but I won’t, but you should give me the lunch money so I don’t hit you, but I won’t. You know what I mean? It’s like he said he wouldn’t use force, but it was also, “By the way, I absolutely will if I don’t get what I want.”

Léa Feiger: 100 percent. 100 percent. And talking about NATO like it’s a T-shirt that’s maybe out of fashion or just not the show you want to watch on a Saturday is crazy. It’s wild.

Zoe Schiffer: I have the impression that every year we ask ourselves if this conference is still relevant? Does this go through the TED cycle where no one will care anymore? But actually, this year I feel like it might be more important than ever.

Trump was there, all the leaders in artificial intelligence were there, and that’s kind of what we were hearing, it was the big subject that everyone was talking about, even more than Greenland. Sorry, Leah. But all the AI ​​guys were there, Satya Nadella, Dario Amodei, they spoke on stage, and what everyone was concerned about was the AI.

My favorite story so far, not to mention complete gossip, was that you know, tech companies have houses? That’s what we call a brand activation in Davos, and the Anthropic house was definitely the cool place to be, but they were very picky about who could attend their parties.

Léa Feiger: Oh my God, I hate it.

Zoe Schiffer: So prominent officials would walk up to the door and the anthropic person would say, “You’re not on the list. Sorry.

Léa Feiger: Stop. This did not happen.

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah, no, I swear.

Léa Feiger: No, that didn’t happen. Who was turned away? Do we know?

Zoe Schiffer: I can’t say any names.

Brian Barrett: What is the rescue house? Is everyone saying, “Oh, sorry, you have to go to the Mistral.”

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah, you’re more of a Meta house vibe. Sorry.

Léa Feiger: ALL RIGHT. But to come back to that for a second, to me this would have meant absolutely nothing seven months ago, and tell me if I’m misinterpreting this, although this may be the Davos of NATO, is NATO going to continue, and also, I guess we all love AI now, question mark? Anthropic is not exactly that. They may be an AI company, but they’re also convicts in many ways, so the fact that they’re the cool kids here, what does that mean? What does this mean in concrete terms for this conference?

Zoe Schiffer: Yes, it’s pretty remarkable, because one thing that hasn’t been a big topic of conversation for the people I spoke with in Davos is AI safety. It’s kind of a rah-rah vibe.

But I feel like Anthropic is kind of having a moment with their coding agent, Claude Code, who everyone is really using and loving right now, I feel like he’s able to kind of be the only voice in the room, to be a little more pessimistic about technology while still maintaining his place as the cool kid on the block. I heard that Anthropic hats are very popular this year. They have good products.

Brian Barrett: This is how we do it. I will say, I think one thing about AI companies being here and being the cool kids and all that, is that it shows how geopolitical AI is right now. And Anthropic, even the headlines from Anthropic, other than having the house cool and turning people away, was their CEO Dario saying, “It’s crazy that we’re selling chips to China. We shouldn’t be doing that. Why the hell would you do that?” Which is a pretty big statement.

It fits with other things he’s said, but it’s about these companies, these startups, some with questionable financials going forward, are really shaping geopolitics and informing them in a really impactful and meaningful way.

Léa Feiger: Look, obviously the AI ​​Cool Kids Club is in the news for a certain section of society, a lot of our readers, I guess. The things I couldn’t tear myself away from, sorry to bring it back here, were Trump’s speech and just his whole presence there.

I mean, in terms of what comes out of this politically, I have a lot of questions, but keeping that in mind, when I look at everything that’s going on in the United States, while Trump is out there making these overtures, ICE is everywhere, right? They plan to eventually expand to other blue states. And right now, the situation on the ground in Minnesota is terrible.

While Trump is literally talking about invading other countries, there is already a ground invasion in the United States. And it’s very shocking to see this come and go right now.

Brian Barrett: Yeah. Let’s talk a little about Minneapolis. It’s been two weeks, a little more than that, it’s hard to believe, since an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Nicole Good. There had already been a strong backlash against ICE’s presence in Minneapolis, it has only intensified since then, ICE’s response has only grown since then. They have over 2,000 people there, agents there, and they’re expected to reach 3,000.

It really is a model of how the US government would occupy its own cities in a way that seemed truly unimaginable just a few weeks, I would say even months, ago.

Léa Feiger: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Our wonderful features desk published this story on Wednesday where the They interviewed 10 different residents in Minneapolis just to delve into everyday life.

So they talked to teachers who had to figure out how to get kids out on the playground and inside when it was time to go in and all the while being aware of helicopters buzzing them, as well as volunteers who were detained by ICE.

We have some really scary stories in there. There are quotes that will stay with me forever. Again, we’re only a few weeks away from Renée Nicole Good, and in one of the stories we have, an officer said to this group of people who were in a car, “You guys have to stop. You’ve got to stop getting in our way. That’s why that bitch lesbian is dead.” It’s back and forth on the field at the moment. It’s disastrous. It’s really very disastrous.

Zoe Schiffer: Do we know what support for ICE looks like? I read an article in Puck that said support for this agency had plummeted following the shooting. Is this what you’re hearing, Leah?

Léa Feiger: Yeah, it’s low. It’s not a popular thing to use right now. This is really not the case. Honestly, I don’t want to be rude about this, but I’m very curious about the next steps. We had reports last week about what’s happening to New York, what’s happening to California, and I’m very curious if that will continue through the midterms, to be quite frank.

It requires a lot of people to do a lot of things. It is not enough to be a democrat and say: “We stand with our neighbors”. No, you have to say abolish ICE if you want to be elected in a lot of these districts right now, at least that’s what the polls are showing right now and that’s what public opinion is showing right now. This could change in a few months if they don’t commit these kinds of violent invasions. I’m very curious how the Trump administration will play this role in the midterms.

Brian Barrett: I mean, it doesn’t look like they’re going to back down on anything.

Léa Feiger: No.

Brian Barrett: And they have an infinite budget to work with practically. In our own reporting, we broke a story this week that they plan to spend up to $50 million to create a Minneapolis-based center where they can ship inmates hundreds of miles across the Midwest, depending on where they need them.

These types of procurement plans are underway. That’s a ton of money. Recruitment continues, a ton of money for people who sign up. So I think there’s not enough ICE to actually occupy New York or Los Angeles right now, but they’re working toward having enough resources to do something like that. And I think the subject of elections is a really serious one, not to condemn it too much, but one could easily imagine a group of masked, ID-less ICE agents standing outside a polling place in a politically sensitive precinct.

Léa Feiger: Absolutely. The Trump administration and DHS are now encouraging citizens and residents to treat them as police officers. They are your friendly neighborhood police officers. And that’s not true for a variety of reasons, one of which is that they don’t live in those communities, they’re not your neighbors. They are employed by the federal government. They are not cities. They are not state. And even the accountability requirements are incredibly different.

The nameless, faceless agent is currently becoming ubiquitous in American society, which is wild. The United States has been dealing with police brutality for many, many years, but this nameless, faceless situation has taken a very different turn, I would say, this year.

Brian Barrett: Well, also, the anonymity and the facelessness I find interesting too because ICE also took away so much stuff… ICE values ​​one’s privacy a lot and they still wear masks and still don’t show ID.

At the same time, they use facial recognition on anyone they arrest for any reason. They follow people to their homes to intimidate them. They’re using every lever of the state to really go after people… If you speak out against ICE, there’s a good chance you’ll get an audit or a visit from someone.

So yes, it’s a sort of mirror world that they create for themselves, in which they have complete immunity from identification. Everyone is totally subject to a deep dive into everything you have in your past.

Zoe Schiffer: I think this is often the case when it comes to privacy. I feel like this kind of reminds me of the asynchronous privacy relationships in the tech industry where, for a company like Apple that takes its customers’ privacy very seriously, if you talk to people at the company, they’ll often tell you that internally they have very little.

They’re encouraged to do things like link their Apple ID to their work account and such, and so there’s a lot of perceived corporate-level oversight to enforce the kind of branding that they want externally. So it’s interesting to see this reflected in politics.

And I don’t want to steer us so hard on technology, but I’ve been very curious about the situation or how tech leaders and workers are speaking out or not speaking out about this situation. We’ve seen tech leaders in particular stay notably silent about ICE and the shootings and killings.

This is really different from the George Floyd protests years ago, when we saw a lot of these same people speaking out quite forcefully. Whether you think they were sincere in those statements or they were forced into it and kind of came back to it later, they were much more vocal about politics at the time, and I really feel like we’re in this era now where they’ve made their decision and their decision is, “I’ll do what I need to do to put my business first, and right now it’s being kept quiet.” As the layer below them, people become a little more vocal. We see managers and technicians speaking out, signing letters saying: “This is untenable. The situation must change. »

Léa Feiger: I mean, which Silicon Valley CEOs were actually at the airport in 2017, with the Muslim ban, to protest Trump’s policies? It’s a different world. It shocks me that this happened less than 10 years ago.

Brian Barrett: I think it’s interesting, and so you mentioned that people below CEOs, sort of high-level managers, are starting to have more of a say in this. That also played a big role around the George Floyd protest and the Black Lives Matter protest, because within their own companies, there were these huge labor movements that were promoting social justice, promoting Black Lives Matter.

And I think, to some extent, the CEO’s response was both politically advantageous to them at the time, but also, internally, they had to respond to their employees’ revolt over this. Until we see something similar, I don’t know if we’ll get… Well, I don’t know if Tim Cook will ever say…

Zoe Schiffer: I don’t think we’ll ever get there. I think we’re in a really different moment. I actually think that in some ways, just in terms of tech culture, the current moment that we’re in is a reaction to this moment earlier in 2018.

I think in 2018, if you talk to technology leaders, they’ll say, “Look, we did the things that our employees wanted us to do at the time.” We organized a mental health day for them every month.

And their perception was that employees were becoming more and more demanding, they were saying, “We have the right,” behind closed doors, off the record, off the record. They didn’t feel like they achieved much from that point on. And now they’re making a very different calculation to say, “Look, we’re in a moment where Trump is extremely transactional.” If you give something to Trump, you might actually get something in return. » It wasn’t true with Biden, it didn’t seem true with our own employees, and so they are the ones choosing.

Léa Feiger: I’m not even sure that’s true with Trump 1.0. It’s a different presidency, it’s a different president, but all that to say is that everything you’re saying is absolutely true, but it’s still political. They always make these political choices.

I think can we talk about how Silicon Valley is already getting involved in the midterms? For me it’s January, midterms are in November, get ready guys. I’m going to be the worst.

Brian Barrett: No, no, Leah, no. I need more time. I need at least until Groundhog Day.

Léa Feiger: No, no, no.

Brian Barrett: At least until Groundhog Day.

Léa Feiger: When everyone said goodbye to me for December vacation, I said to myself, “Half-way through the year,” because I chose violence.

But these tech companies and Silicon Valley investors continue to choose politics. Even if they don’t make 2016, 2017, or even 2020, they make these decisions. Max Zeff wrote this excellent article for us this week for WIRED about the pro-AI super PACs that are all already at the midpoint.

Zoe Schiffer: Wait, so tell me about this, Leah. Are they choosing questions and candidates that are specifically about technology, technology issues, technology policies, or is it a little more diffuse than that?

Léa Feiger: IIt’s interesting. I think we let’s get closer to this point. We are here at the starting point. And I’m vaguely sick of saying it, the starting point is still tens of millions of dollars. So there is a lot of money circulating.

But basically, and I know you already know this, in the absence of a lot of federal and regulatory action on AI, state legislators across the country, New York, California, Colorado, et cetera, passed laws last year requiring these large AI developers to disclose their security practices and assess risks in a variety of different issues.

As we know, the Trump administration is extremely anti-regulation on AI, as are a group of larger Silicon Valley companies and investors, who argue that all of these types of state laws could actually hinder AI progress. So that’s really one aspect of the problem.

On the other hand, you have concerned lawmakers, AI researchers, security-focused startups, nonprofit groups pushing for more AI regulation. So the battle lines are very drawn there, and I think everyone’s been getting closer to it for a while.

They remind me a lot of how we talked about crypto heading into previous election cycles. And I guess the super PAC that I really want to draw your attention to is leading the future, which is to say it has the backing of over $100 million from venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz.

Zoe Schiffer: I knew it. Leading the future was so difficult for techno-optimism.

Brian Barrett: Oh yeah.

Léa Feiger: Oh yes. It had to be. And then OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, are involved. The group has launched television ads targeting a few congressional elections. These aren’t the races that are, I would say, the most divisive right now, but they’re in some really interesting states, we’re looking at Texas, we’re looking at New York, and I’m very curious where they’re going to go from here. This is very clearly the beginning. This is the test case.

Brian Barrett: We mentioned cryptography earlier and how it harkens back to this. A lot of the same people work for, a lot of it, I think, was the…

Léa Feiger: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Brian Barrett: – and so many of these same people are now working to lead the future. I think it’s also interesting that we’ve seen Meta get more directly involved, saying we’re going to go… Companies that I think are relatively new, especially for a company that for a long time has said, “We can’t do politics because people get upset about it in their news feeds.” They really pulled out all the stops when it suited them. And then finally, can I say? We’ve come this far without mentioning Elon Musk, but this is a perfect opportunity.

Zoé Schiffer: I was literally going to say.

Brian Barrett: Zoe, do it. Zoe, do it. Go ahead, Zoe, go ahead.

Zoe Schiffer: ALL RIGHT. So Musk donated $10 million last week to a super PAC affiliated with Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Nate Morris?

Léa Feiger: Yes.

Brian Barrett: Uh-huh.

Zoe Schiffer: Basically the person who is running to try to replace the retiring Mitch McConnell. I mean, that’s a lot of money to give to this one race, right?

Léa Feiger: It’s so much money. It’s a very, very interesting look at this particular race and McConnell’s history as well as Elon Musk’s history in race finance. I mean, we need to talk about how Elon Musk’s America PAC raised over $170 million for Trump’s 2024 candidacy.

And obviously, WIRED spent all of 2025 covering Musk’s foray into the federal government and what it means. We spent a lot of time as a society, I would like to say, talking about how Musk and Trump had their big fallout, how he completely left governments X, Y, and Z.

Zoe Schiffer: He said he was going to start the America Party. This did not happen.

Léa Feiger: Uh-huh.

Brian Barrett: Not yet. Not yet, Zoe.

Zoe Schiffer: Not yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet.

Brian Barrett: It happens.

Zoe Schiffer: I know. I know. Don’t even say that. Now that I’ve said it, it’s going to happen immediately. Not yet.

Brian Barrett: As soon as he can present Optimus as a candidate, he will have the America Party.

Zoe Schiffer: It’s so true. Oh my God.

Léa Feiger: But Elon Musk is very clearly back. I’m curious what that money is going to do for this race, how much he’s going to try to put his name on it. I mean, I think we can easily say that he flew a little too close to the sun in a lot of ways, but along the way, Elon got pretty much everything he wanted, just like many of these tech billionaires.

So I wouldn’t say that last year was a deterrent for them. And watching these tens of millions of dollars pour into the midterms 11 months before they are scheduled to take place is a really interesting look that we’ll definitely be watching closely.

Zoe Schiffer: After the break, we explain why OpenAI rolling out ads to some ChatGPT users is a move that’s been a long time coming, even though Sam Altman once called it the company’s last resort.

OK, I’m going to move this conversation away from Leah’s little clause and we’re going to discuss something that I want to talk about.

Brian Barrett: Let’s do it.

Zoe Schiffer: ALL RIGHT. We have another big AI-related headline to discuss, and that’s the fact that OpenAI announced last week that it will begin rolling out ads to ChatGPT in the coming weeks.

The company said the ads would not influence ChatGPT’s responses. They will appear in a separate, clearly labeled box directly below the chatbot’s actual response. So, if a user asks ChatGPT for help planning a trip to New York, they will get a regular response and may also see an ad for a hotel in the area.

Léa Feiger: It’s disgusting. You know, it’s me who won’t have an impact. In any way, shape or form.

Zoe Schiffer: Leah, again, has never used it and never will.

Brian Barrett: It can’t hurt you if you never acknowledge it or use it in any way.

Léa Feiger: Keep your eyes closed, guys.

Zoe Schiffer: So this change will affect users who don’t pay for ChatGPT, so they’re on the free or Go tiers. And so people who have paid plans won’t see advertising, at least not yet, but it still represents a huge change from the business model that OpenAI has stuck to until now. In fact, not two years ago, Sam Altman said that advertising would be a last resort for business.

Sam Altman, archival audio clip: I kind of view advertising as a last resort for our business model. I would if it meant it was the only way to give everyone access to quality services, but if we can find something that doesn’t do that, I would prefer that.

Léa Feiger: When was that? It was recent, right?

Zoe Schiffer: It was two years ago, I think.

Léa Feiger: It’s recent. It’s recent. It’s ridiculous. It’s a reversal. It’s so fast.

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah. This is how he speaks. It’s a little hard to pin him down because he doesn’t say, “We would never do it.” He says, “I mean, if we absolutely had to give everyone access to economic prosperity and happiness for the rest of their lives, sure.”

Léa Feiger: I’m doing this for you. My ad choice is for you.

Brian Barrett: The good news is that we will now experience economic prosperity and happiness for the rest of our lives thanks to OpenAI serving ads.

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah.

Brian Barrett: Zoë, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to use one of my favorite words.

Zoe Schiffer: Hypocritical?

Brian Barrett: Enshitification.

Zoe Schiffer: Oh.

Brian Barrett: No, enshitification. Hypocrite is good too. Enshitification is a term coined by Cory Doctorow, who is an author and technologist, an overall smart guy. And that’s the word he used to describe that feeling you get when every tech platform starts feeling worse and worse because they’re putting their own business interests ahead of your experience there. RIGHT?

Facebook launched without any advertising. Google Search used to be usable in some way, but as you continue to fill it with ads, it gets worse.

What interests me is not that OpenAI advertises. It was inevitable, right? But it’s going to happen soon, at least in terms of timing. Yeah.

Léa Feiger: I have a stupid question. Do they need money? Are they boring? I don’t think I understand. Everyone keeps telling me how rich they are, that’s where the money is. I’m confused.

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah. It’s confusing because by some measures they’re the best-funded startup of all time, by other measures they’re burning through millions and millions, hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars a year. So they both make a lot of money but lose a ton of it, a common situation in Silicon Valley, but on a scale we’ve never seen before.

Another thing we should note is that even though ChatGPT has hundreds of millions of users, I think 800 million weekly active users, it seems like the company is sort of at a point where it has to look at other ways to shore up its moat if you will, and try to beat the competition. So I think it makes sense that ads are running right now.

Brian Barrett: I also think part of it is that they have to make money, but more importantly, they have to show that they can make money, right? To show investors if they want to do an IPO in a year or two, which they do, they need to be able to demonstrate that there is a business model. Even though they’re not going to shore up their balance sheet overnight with this, they need to show, “Yes, we have 800 million active users.” If even 1/2 of 1 percent of those link clicks, that’s a significant amount of money, and so you need to show that growth potential.

Léa Feiger: Zoë, you talk to people about OpenAI all the time. You recently interviewed Fidji Simo. Were you surprised that this arrived ?

Zoe Schiffer: No, I mean, that’s all I wanted in life, was for Fidji Simo to break the news about the commercials in this interview, and wow, wouldn’t she do that. I tried everything possible. She said to me, “Well, if commercials were ever to come along, they could hypothetically look like this.” So no, I think they were very strategic.

So to back up a little bit, Fidji Simo was previously CEO of Instacart, and before that she spent a very long time at Meta. She was something of a top lieutenant to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. And so when we saw her become CEO of applications at OpenAI, a lot of people were like, “Oh, OpenAI is in its enshitification era. They’re going to roll out ads. That’s the whole Fiji Simo thing.” I think she’s very, very sensitive to that perception.

And to be clear, during my conversation, she is also very attentive. She doesn’t seem like someone who just wants to insert ads into the feed willy-nilly. She wants to make sure they are useful.

I think the term the company is looking at is the commercial intent of the conversations. If it looks like someone is having a conversation about trying to buy a product, then they think maybe that’s a good time to show them an ad, whereas if you’re having a sensitive conversation, they say, “Look, we won’t be showing ads at that time.”

But I think it’s interesting, I feel like we’ve all been covering Silicon Valley long enough to see all the companies go through this process where at first they’re like, “Subscriptions only, we absolutely would never do that.” »And then, because they need to show a return to investors, they start to compromise.

And so even when we see things like, “Look, the ads are only going to run at very specific times, we’re going to be really, really thoughtful,” in the back of my mind I’m like, “OK, for now, but you’re already on this path and you’ve said you probably won’t continue, so I feel like it’s just a matter of time.”

Brian Barrett: Ooh, can we just, and Zoë, you’re referring to this, can we go back really quickly in terms of compromises and things that they’re doing that they said they wouldn’t do?

The fact that they started rolling out age verification this week in search of chatbots that you can have AI sex with, right? They’re explicitly deploying explicit chatbot experiences, which I believe is something they’ve said, “We’re not going to do that.” But then again, it feels like another xAI, for better or worse, has shown that this is something people want. So, for me too, it smacks of desperation.

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, CEO Sam Altman, I think, already tried to compare himself to Elon and OpenAI versus xAI by saying, “Well, we don’t do that.” And yet it feels like, and this is something that Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, said earlier, I think, that the person who is doing the least in terms of security and risk assessment is pulling the industry towards their level, because allowing people to engage romantically and have more fringe conversations with chatbots, that’s actually a popular thing. There are a number of people who want to do this. And so if you’re pretty buttoned-up, you can only engage in these very specific ways, you’re going to lose users. And so these companies are making strategic decisions to try to attract more people to their platforms.

Léa Feiger: Looks like they need a new clientele. I am not available.

ALL RIGHT. It’s time for our WIRED, TIRED segment. Everything that’s new and cool is WIRED, and everything that’s outdated and we’re great at is TIRED. Are you ready for this?

Zoe Schiffer: I’m so ready. I’ve actually never been ready, period, but this time I’m really ready, so that’s nice.

Léa Feiger: Okay, Zoë, take it off. What do you have?

Zoe Schiffer: ALL RIGHT. TIRED, Pascal’s wager, Fermi’s paradox, the orthogonal word. I say that because I was at, yeah, a tech dinner last night, and wow, were people just using… Well, actually, I’m not clear. It was Chatham House rules, so I can’t say anything specific about who was there, but I will say…

Brian Barrett: Zoë, can you add Chatham House rules to your list of words you also want to get out of here?

Zoe Schiffer: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Actually, I can. The number of frameworks that people were using to evaluate certain ideas, and then when I asked what that framework was, you would get a whole other explanation that was based on a different framework.

Léa Feiger: Awful.

Zoe Schiffer: It was a lot. And I think WIRED is about short declarative sentences, which is also the best writing advice I’ve ever received, thanks to Casey Newton. And I would say that’s good oral advice too.

I think if you could say something more directly, you wouldn’t sound stupid. In fact, it can make you look smart. I think you could probably use the word distinct or independent in place of orthogonal most of the time and it would have positive implications for your social life, or at the very least your ability to interact specifically with me. So it’s mine.

Léa Feiger: Life lessons from Zoë Schiffer, guys. This is why we are here.

Zoe Schiffer: Yes, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Brian Barrett: It’s embarrassing. My WIRED is orthogonal thinking.

Zoe Schiffer: Ooh.

Brian Barrett: No, that’s not the case. Zoë has me because her WIRED and TIRED are directly related to each other, not mine. They are just two completely independent things. My TIRED—

Léa Feiger: Is this allowed? I guess it’s allowed.

Brian Barrett: Of course.

Léa Feiger: We will allow it. This episode will allow it.

Zoe Schiffer: He’s our boss. He can do whatever he wants.

Léa Feiger: Yeah, there you go.

Brian Barrett: I’m the editor-in-chief of WIRED, I can… My—

Léa Feiger: Flexion of this power.

Brian Barrett: My TIRED is age verification systems. Sorry it’s a bit boring, but no one does it right. These automatic AI-driven things are a waste.

We recently posted this on Discord about how 12 year olds draw mustaches on their faces and beards with a marker and are approved at 26. Thirty-year-olds are compared to 15-year-olds. No, it’s a disaster, especially if companies try to do it in the first place, which is a pretty strong argument to say you shouldn’t do it. At least find out how to do it.

And then my WIRED saves people time. So I’ll explain a little. I was watching the Golden Globes, and you know when people are giving speeches and the orchestral music starts swelling in the background when they’re over their time? This is sometimes a controversial practice, but I have come to appreciate it in life.

And what I’m saying, what I’m saying is that this should apply to all contexts. So when I see Donald Trump giving a press conference on Tuesday for an hour and a half, or even two hours, what if we had a little music to remind him that it’s time to move on? Davos speech as well. So I think you have to play with people to save time, let’s do it. For world leaders, let’s do it for everyone. Let’s keep people on a schedule.

Léa Feiger: I like it. I think you could honestly bring back the umbrella coat rack or something from Looney Tunes. I think it’s a combination, first you play them and then you hook them.

Zoe Schiffer: Yeah.

Brian Barrett: I love him.

Léa Feiger: It’s good.

Zoe Schiffer: Totally agree.

Léa Feiger: I’m going to tell Karoline Leavitt at the White House press office.

Brian Barrett: THANKS.

Léa Feiger: So just make sure she has her hook ready to go. Yeah.

Brian Barrett: Yeah.

Léa Feiger: Can I go there? Can I share my WIRED, TIRED?

Zoe Schiffer: We wait with bated breath.

Brian Barrett: Please.

Zoe Schiffer: Please.

Léa Feiger: ALL RIGHT. Yours was smart, mine is stupid, but I stand by it. TIRED makes fun of millennials, not because it wasn’t funny or because it was mean, it’s just, it’s TIRED, it’s over. How many times can you speak to one side or the other?

WIRED is the TikTok trend dedicated to millennial optimism, which is just very intensely presented sepia photos and reels set in Williamsburg with a song that sounds like (singing), and it’s so fun and takes you right back to 2016, although I guess that was a mediocre year too. But it’s a really fun thing that’s happening and I can’t get enough of the bow-tie mustache and striped shirt era. Take me back right away—

Zoe Schiffer: You hear that Generation Z? We are fun. We’re cool.

Léa Feiger: – in my veins. So it’s my turn for the week, guys.

Zoe Schiffer: To like.

Léa Feiger: Brian, are you a millennial? What are you?

Brian Barrett: Hey.

Zoe Schiffer: Wow.

Léa Feiger: I don’t know.

Zoe Schiffer: And that’s why he hates age verification, because they aged him inappropriately, so.

Brian Barrett: I keep drawing beards on my face. No, I’m a millennial, I think…

Zoe Schiffer: He’s a millennial older.

Brian Barrett: We prefer the great millennium, thank you very much.

Zoe Schiffer: Great millennium. You’re right. You’re right. You’re right. You’re right.

Brian Barrett: Get out of here. I’m a millennial, I’m proud of it. The fact that you had to ask hurts my feelings just a little, but it doesn’t matter.

Léa Feiger: Sorry.

Zoe Schiffer: We are not clear about the years and generation.

This is our show today. We’ll link to all the stories we talked about in the show notes. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. Amar Lal from Macro Sound mixed this episode. Matt Giles and Daniel Roman fact-checked this episode. Kate Osborn is our executive producer and Katie Drummond is WIRED’s global editorial director.