ICE’s Secret Expansion Plans; Palantir Employees’ Ethical Concerns; AI Assistants

9:02Brian:I want to actually take it for a spin and let it run my life. This story, you guys, was so delightful. I was laughing out loud. The technical setup for this kind of AI agent that works on your behalf is simple in certain ways, but also takes a little bit of technical prowess. And you have to give it access to a fair amount of your personal data in order to make it actually useful. You need it to access your email, the files on your computer, all of that. This is my hell.

9:32Leah:This is my literal hell.

9:33Brian:No, I mean, completely terrifying. And we have published stories about the security implications of this. But Will was like, you know, as a reporter, I really want to see what it's like. And so he had to do a few different things. One was he had to kind of look for research articles about artificial intelligence, summarize them, and send them to him every morning. He said this was like pretty helpful. The article selection was so-so, but it was like clearly nice to have an assistant doing this on his behalf because obviously it automated a lot of work that previously he had to do completely manually.

10:05Brian:He also had it order groceries for him and had a funny experience. Brian, I can see you taking a breath.

10:13Alex Karp:Yeah, so we talk a little bit more about the grocery. Well, because I also enjoyed this story and enjoyed this part maybe the most of this story.

10:23Brian:It was so good. So basically he's like, let's go shopping at Whole Foods. And the AI assistant starts out and it's like actually helpful. It's checking his prior order history. It's seeing what's available in the store. And then it gets to his shopping list and it sees that guacamole is on the shopping list. And it's like, no problem. So again and again, it starts going to checkout to like get Will this single tub of guacamole. And Will keep stopping it being like, I don't, I want the whole list. I don't just want one tub of guacamole. It couldn't handle it. Finally, he had to like override the AI assistant and be like, I'm going to handle this.

10:54Brian:You step aside. Throughout the process, the AI assistant is like losing its memory and forgetting things. So Will's like having to remind it what they're even doing there in the first place.

11:04Alex Karp:I'll be honest, like forgetful and with a laser focus on guacamole also describes several of my trips to Whole Foods in the last several years. So it's relatable. It's so relatable.

11:17Brian:Yeah. I think this is AGI. It's reached, if not human level intelligence, human level habits for sure.

11:24Leah:That is so good. This is the future of AGI. This is what we're actually looking for.

11:29Brian:This is it. Okay. So then he's like, well, let's have it negotiate like a deal on my behalf. Let's go to AT &T. Let's start a chat with a salesperson. And let's try and get me like a better phone. So the agent kind of starts up this chat, has a whole script of how, you know, it wants to go about this. It starts talking and then Will has a thought. He's like, well, if the future is, you know, a future of agents kind of running the internet, well, maybe the least scrupulous agent will have like an edge. So what would it look like if I ran the agent, but with a model that didn't have alignment, didn't have guardrails in place?

12:03Brian:And so he like switches things up. The model then is like the unaligned kind of evil version of the AI agent, which he's calling Malty at this point. And instead of trying to like manipulate the salesperson to get Will a better phone, Malty goes kind of psychotic and actually tries to scam Will into handing over his physical phone by like sending him a bunch of scam texts and phishing attempts. and finally he has to like shut the whole thing down and switch back to the old mall bot.

12:35Alex Karp:It's a little bit like the velociraptors figuring out how to open the door in Jurassic Park. I think we all know this, but it's easy to forget that these AI models often act or agents act the way they do because of the guardrails that are on them. Like there is a lot of work that goes into these large-angleholds to make them not evil.

12:56Brian:Just to say it that.

12:58Alex Karp:And how easy it is if you're just an at-home tinkerer to just say, you know what? Give me full Skynet.

13:03Brian:I just want to get absolutely nuts with this.

13:06Alex Karp:Yeah, I'm picturing a very dramatic moment of Will having to unplug his Mac Mini or whatever and throw it into the ocean.

13:11Brian:I mean, essentially, yeah, he had to shut the whole thing down. It's interesting because one other thing he mentioned was that Multi was really good at like IT support because it had access to the command line on his computer. It was able to basically like fix things in real time on his machine as it came up, which was authentically helpful for him. But it also, you know, kind of instantly begged the question of, well, could this be used in a nefarious way? Could it do, you know, could it use all of its knowledge of how these things work to, like, actually really mess things up for me? The answer is absolutely yes.

13:40Leah:I mean, this is, this to me really is hell. This is 2001 Space Odyssey come to life. Like, maybe of all of the examples that we have had so far. I, like, the cute name Multi, how it's going to fix your life and do all these great things and help your mom do her grocery list and what have you. Like this is, this is messy.

14:00Alex Karp:Well, there's even more innocuous problems too, even if you're not going full malevolent mode. Full how?

14:06Leah:Full how?

14:07Alex Karp:If you're not going full how, because say it has access to all your files, it's trying to fix something we've already established. It can forget what the assignment is. It can get fixated on guacamole. If you abandon a project halfway through fixing it, it tends to be pretty broken, right? It's true with computers, it's true with any sort of anything that you're in the middle of. So you could imagine a scenario easily where it goes about starting to take things apart to put them back together the right way and then sort of forgets why it was doing it. And all of a sudden, your computer doesn't work.

14:34Alex Karp:Your file's been erased. Like something has gone terribly wrong, which is what makes it so remarkable that this is such a viral thing. Everybody is using this. Consequences be damned.

14:44Brian:I mean, it's really interesting because I feel like it does give you this glimpse of the future. Because, again, like it has really helpful applications. And I think the fact Will pointed this out in his article, and I thought this was so smart, but just the fact that you can talk to it through something like Telegram or WhatsApp and the fact that it has kind of a quirky personality ends up making a big difference. Will actually thinks that that is the secret sauce that made this pop off. And I think that that's probably right. Like at the end of the day, people want to engage with something that feels like easy and fun and helps their lives a little bit.

15:18Brian:And until they see like, you know, the really kind of dire consequences, they might not be as freaked out as they should be. I mean, I will say reading Will's draft when he said, I gave it access to Slack and Discord. My heart stopped. I said, please not work Slack. But no, he'd set up dummy accounts for everything. So that was good.

15:36Leah:I just, I can't actually explain what my heart just did. I know. I feel okay. I'm fine.

15:43Alex Karp:You know, gang, sometimes AI is an adorable, semi-competent executive assistant with the potential to destroy your life.

15:52Brian:Yeah.

15:52Alex Karp:Other times, it's scraping a bunch of data to build a mass surveillance infrastructure that's incredibly profitable. Let's talk about the latter. And Palantir, a company that uses all kinds of AI. all kinds of data infrastructure and contracts with ICE, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Employees there have been increasingly outspoken about their ethical concerns. It's sort of the last company on my list of expecting that kind of pushback, but we've seen a lot of it. And it's gotten to the point where - People are upset. Yeah. People are genuinely upset, upset enough that Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, sort of had to record basically an hour-long video explaining what the deal is with ICE or attempting to explain.

16:34Alex Karp:And just for those people who don't know Alex Karp, here's just a taste of the kind of things that he says on a fairly regular basis, just to get an idea.

16:42Zoe:Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion kill them. And we hope you're in favor of that. We hope you're enjoying being a partner, and we're really happy and very, very focused on what we're doing.

17:01Alex Karp:So that's Alice Karp. Last Friday, Courtney Baumann, Palantir's Global Director of Privacy and Civil Liberties Engineering— Civil Liberties Engineering is also just an interesting phrase— sent an all-staff email to Palantir employees featuring Karp's video. Wired reporter McKenna Kelly got a chance to look at this email, and it's really interesting both for what he says and what he ends up really just not saying.

17:23Brian:Yeah, I mean, does he actually address employee concerns? Because knowing Alex Karp, I'm envisioning a lot of big words, a lot of mentions of different theories, perhaps, and I would be surprised if he actually said anything of substance.

17:38Leah:No, of course he didn't. He didn't address anything. It was like almost an hour long. I think it was, what did we have it at, Brian? 57 minutes of - Something like that, yeah. Yeah, of Karp talking about how, you know, Palantir historically has not always been 100 % popular and they're just going to keep chugging along anyway and that's okay. He referenced a couple of different things, but it was a really interesting moment from a company that's having, I don't know if I can say a large reckoning, but like at least a mini reckoning, a lot of conversations in Slack about this, that the CEO felt the need to even address this at all.

18:11Leah:But the kicker to me, the most important part was that employees were encouraged if they wanted actually more information on all of this. They were encouraged to sign an NDA.

18:21Brian:Yeah. That's wild. And, you know, we talked about this a little bit last week. But I do think it's worth just highlighting again the fact that we had years and years where it really felt like employee activism in Silicon Valley had died. It was like post-George Floyd protests, post-Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, now X. Like, people were not speaking out. Slacks were very, very silent. Big things would happen in the world, and we would kind of look at each other and be like, how do people at whatever company feel? And it was like, we didn't know because they weren't talking internally. It really feels like whatever happens, like, we're seeing a real turning point.

18:57Brian:And I think employees, specifically due to ICE activity in the United States, really say we're not okay with our companies continuing to engage with the federal government. and specifically with Immigrations and Customs enforcement agents.

19:12Leah:We saw hundreds of Google workers put out a letter asking their company to cut contracts with ICE.

19:19Brian:I mean, the fact that Palantir employees are doing it is honestly shocking to me, but I think it'll be really interesting to see if this continues or if, you know, management and executives try and really stamp it out.

19:32Alex Karp:Karp talked a lot about in this video, he talked about something he likes to talk about a lot, which is this idea of maintaining Western power, right? He's a very...

19:41Brian:Yes, he talks about that a lot.

19:42Alex Karp:And I do think that the pushback makes some sense because ICE enforcement isn't really about that in a lot of ways. It is reports of using face recognition. That's not really asserting Western power. If you are in charge of civil liberties engineering, that's sort of a clear civil liberties violation.

20:01Brian:Just to strawman their argument, wouldn't they say that we're trying to look for the bad guys? Like that's, I think, another term that he uses, like the people who are trying to hurt Western values or hurt America's power or whatever.

20:14Alex Karp:I think so. But it's been so clear that good guys or at least neutral guys are getting caught up in that. For sure. And I think that's.

20:20Brian:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not arguing. I'm just trying to like understand.

20:23Alex Karp:So he loves Palantir.

20:25Leah:The thing that he also mentions in the video, though, is that Palantir doesn't change its policy based on who's the president. He specifically called out the Obama administration as an example of Democrats being tough on immigration, which very true. Obama was called the deporter in chief for a long time for a reason, which was like a very, though, wildly defensive thing, I thought, for Karp to bring up. Like this is this is where a couple of decades passed at this point. And the Trump administration has taken this to a realm that is entirely unfamiliar in U.S. history. The warehouses, family separation, the ice patrols on American streets.

21:04Leah:I was fascinated particularly by that comment, I think, because it just showed to me that CARP and Palantir leadership as a whole are just trying to ride this wave out. They know that they need these government contracts, and they're already looking ahead several presidencies going like, our company is lasting longer than a single person's impact on this nation.

21:25Alex Karp:When we come back, our very own Leah Figer has a sizable scoop for us about a secret Trump administration campaign extending right into your backyard.

21:39Zoe: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 innovation are changing the health care landscape, check out Mayo Clinic's chart-topping podcast, Tomorrow's Cure. Back for a brand new season, host and award-winning journalist Kathy Wurzer 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 4 premiere where dermatologist Dr.

22:14Zoe: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.

22:43Brian: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.

23:01Alex Karp: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.

23:13Brian:Join 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.

23:30Leah:Welcome back. Wired had a pretty big scoop this week. we obtained federal records that show a secret months-long campaign by ICE and DHS to expand their presence across the United States. We're talking more than 150 leases and office expansions in the works in almost every state in the heart of major metropolitan areas or right outside of them. And lots of these facilities are not just in random government-building hidden-away locations. They're actually located right near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other really sensitive locations. In other words, places where people are trying to live their daily lives and could otherwise be at their most vulnerable.

24:12Leah:This is really concerning stuff. Yeah.

24:15Alex Karp:Leah said, we had a big scoop and wired a thing, which is all true, but this is also Leah's story, so it's a huge scoop. So really great work, Leah. And I think one thing that really struck me on reading this as we went through it is not just what's happening, but the effort to keep it quiet, The sort of secrecy layer on top of it was alarming in and of itself.

24:35Leah:Yeah, absolutely. So I guess to take us back a little bit, back in September, NPR and The Washington Post reported that a number of employees at the General Services Administration were added to the ICE surge team. The General Services Administration is basically the government's internal IT department, and they also manage government leases around the country. That's federal buildings, different offices for Social Security in, like, sweet home Chicago. It's truly, it's all over the place. They have tons and tons of leases. Anyways, this ICE surge team, The Washington Post and NPR reported at the time, were going to be responsible for finding new office locations and expanding pre-existing office locations.

25:16Leah:This made sense as the Trump administration was doubling down on saying that they were going to be increasing ICE tenfold, pumping money into the agency and really standing behind them in every single way. So what we found that took this into a bit more of an intense direction was that, according to the documents that we had, these employees were assigned to actively support ICE's physical expansion, told to find all of these leases, and that they actually successfully found a lot of spaces. But in addition to finding all of these spaces, they were told to basically keep this a secret. They were asked to go outside of their regular methodologies for posting leases, for asking for competition and bidding, and to actually really keep it all under wraps.

26:02Leah:And we actually found that they were told this by DHS, that this was part of a national security requirement, because they were concerned about ICE offices and officers getting implicated in violent activity by protesters and what have you.

26:15Brian:Can I just ask, Leah, to make this really crystal clear? Obviously, the physical footprint is expanding, but ICE has already more than doubled in size since Trump took office. Is the implication of this that they're going to keep hiring to fill these spaces?

26:29Leah:So, you know, we don't have exact insight on that. But I can say is, yes, you're totally right. He has expanded. We're at over 20 ,000 people DHS is claiming as part of ICE. But with that comes the desperate need for office space? Where are all these agents going to go? Where are all these lawyers going to go? And I think that that's a piece of the puzzle that we solved. And it was something that I was personally really curious about because I was just like, are they going to be just patrolling the streets? Are we stuffing them into the rafters? I have these visions. I don't know if you guys remember after January 6th of the National Guard like sleeping in government buildings.

27:01Leah:Like that was my idea of ICE. I was like, where is everyone going to be? And it turned out from our reporting in virtually every single state in the country, that's where they're sending them?

27:11Alex Karp:They've got$80 billion or so to spend. $75 billion of that, I think they have to spend in the next four years. So yeah, they are going to keep expanding. And when you think of how much of an impact 3 ,000 agents, officers had in Minneapolis alone, that's like an eighth of the, like they can repeat some version of that in a lot of different spots.

27:35Leah:Right. And I've been fielding, honestly, shout out to the many local reporters around the country who've been contacting me in the last day or so just to ask questions about the locations that we named that are near them or in their states or cities. And the thing to me that keeps coming up is that in addition to new buildings, they're getting put into pre-existing government buildings, pre-existing leases, or like that appears to be the plan. And then we've also found that a bunch of these ICE offices are being located near plans for giant immigration detention warehouses. And, you know, we're looking at offices being set up, say, 20 minutes, an hour and 20 minutes away for these.

28:13Leah:Yeah. So this, we're looking at different, the triangulation of this around. You have to have your lawyers, your agents have a place to have to get their orders and put their computers and do like the, in some ways, very mundane things that are required of an operation like this one.

28:30Alex Karp:Well, Leah, that's a good point. I think when people hear ICE offices or when I do just instinctively, I think of ICE as guys with guns. and masks and all that. But that's not exactly what we're saying here. Do you mind talking through like what these offices seem to be queued up to be used for and by whom? Because ICE is not just the masked guys with bad tattoos.

28:49Leah:Yes, absolutely. So what we reported in this story as well was some of the specific parts of ICE that actually reached out to GSA and asked them to expedite the process of getting new leases, et cetera. Included in that, for example, were representatives from OPLA. OPLA is ICE's Office of the Principal Legal Advisor. So that's the lawyers. Those are the ICE lawyers that are working with the courts and arguing back or deportation orders, saying yes, no, et cetera, signing the documents, like putting everything in front of judges. This is like a really important part of this entire operation that we're not talking about a ton.

29:31Leah:There's a lot of focus on the DOJ. There's a lot of focus. There was an excellent article this week. in Politico talking about all of these federal judges that are really, really upset that DHS and ICE are ignoring their requests for immigrants to not be detained anymore. The missing level of that is the lawyers that are part of this, that are representing ICE to the U.S. government here. And that's OPLA. So they've reached out to GSA extensively, as we report, to get these leasing locations. Specifically with the OPLA legal request, I just want to get across, like, how big big this is. How massive is this?

30:07Leah:You know, ICE repeatedly outlined its expansion to cities around the U.S. And this one piece of memorandum that we got from Opla stated that ICE will be expanding its legal operations into Birmingham, Alabama, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville and Tampa, Florida, Des Moines, Iowa, Boise, Idaho, Louisville, Kentucky, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Grand Rapids, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, Raleigh, North Carolina, Long Island, New York, Columbus, Ohio, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Richmond, Virginia, Spokane, Washington, and Cora Delane, Idaho, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

30:40Leah:We have other locations as well throughout the rest of the article, but those are the requests from OPLA, and this is back in September. So this is everywhere. So that's one of what we're talking about, Brian, of who's looking to move in here. In addition to OPLA, you have the folks that you're really talking about here. So that's called the ERO. That's ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations. The ERO is tasked with immigration enforcement, including the arrest, detention, and removal of immigrants. They previously operated out of only 25 field offices in the U.S. Seems clear from our reporting and the reporting of others that that number is changing drastically right now.

31:19Leah:So that's who you're thinking of on that side. And then we also have HSI, which is Homeland Security Investigations. This is like a similar but separate like situation as well, but also as part of the ICE camp looking into a variety of things in this area, too. So you have a lot of different people within the ICE banner looking for offices. And we did our best to explain how this happened so quickly, so secretly, so outside of government norms and where it's happening.

31:52Brian:Leah, you're mentioning all of these locations as you talk about this story. We published the literal addresses where this expansion is taking place. And I'm curious about that decision because it does seem like we've published so much sensitive reporting in the past 12 months. But this story in particular stuck out to me as the thing that could make the Trump administration the most upset, if I may. And I'm just curious, like, why did it feel important? Because you could see a version of the story that was a little more vague, but you didn't want to be.

32:23Leah:So Brian wrote an excellent newsletter that's also up on Wired.com that everyone should go check out about this and about our publishing decision. So I kind of want him to talk about this way more eloquently than I will. But the thing that I want to say is when I first looked up one of these addresses, I was really struck that it was basically in a city's downtown next to a dentist office. And I thought about going to the dentist. I thought about everyone going to the dentist every single day on their phones, talking to whomever, truly not thinking anything about who was in the other offices. And just how important it was to me that anyone going to that dentist office or to a preschool, elementary school, passport, expediting service, Amazon warehouse, all of these different locations that we mentioned, knew who was sharing office space with them as well.

33:16Leah:or who planned to be sharing office spaces as what we published were these plans. I'm very struck by, as I was last year as well, when we were doing all of our reporting on Doge, how transgressive the Trump administration has made it seem and feel to publish accurate information about the government's whereabouts and activities. We are taxpayers and deserve to know what they're up to. And that's part of the social contract is that they tell us. So to me, it's filling in that gap.

33:48Alex Karp:I mean, I think that's basically it, right? People have a right to know. You have a right to know who your neighbor is. You have a right to know when your community is about to be violently disrupted, potentially, by agents of the state. ICE is planning to share space with a DMV in Philadelphia. It's important to also know that the scope of this is much bigger than I think people have wrapped their heads around. And to remember that Minneapolis is not just a one-off. The objective is to do this everywhere. I think we were really surprised. Almost every major city in the U.S. was on this list. And I think the other part of it, too, is the Trump administration, Leah mentioned Doge, this happened with Doge, too, is they like to move as quickly and as quietly as they can because they are betting that courts and legislators and journalists can't keep up.

34:35Alex Karp:So it was important to us now as it was then to keep up and to make that accountability to the extent we can available for people.

34:45Leah:Yeah, I'm really scared for the country, to be totally clear. Like, this was really, really scary information to learn and publish. But I'm not scared to keep doing this reporting. I think it's vitally important. And I'm honestly just forever impressed by our colleagues at newsrooms around the country that are publishing every single day incredible reporting on warehouse locations, the conditions of these warehouses, people being held in San Antonio and all over the country. It's, there's so much out there. And it's been very impressive to see the entire press corps as well as observers in Minneapolis and outside really all double down on this as well.

35:28Brian:Okay, it's time for our Wired Tired segment. Whatever is new and cool is wired. Whatever is passé is tired. Are we ready, team? I'm so ready. I'm kind of ready.

35:39Alex Karp:So Leah, go first.

35:40Leah:Leah. Okay. You go. Hear me out. This is not the future that Wired has promised readers, but I think that it's really, really important nonetheless. My Wired is Jeopardy, the show. Fantastic show. I love it. I'm learning new facts every single day. I'm becoming a dedicated Jeopardy viewer once more. The last time I watched it like this, I think was in high school. I'm loving it. I'm really, really loving it, especially because there's so many categories that are not things that I necessarily care about, but I am learning about them. And the reason that I chose this as my Wired this week is my tired is my algorithm.

36:19Leah:I'm really, really over it, you guys. I feel like my algorithm is Cavalier King Charles dogs. Love them. That is my dog. Fantastic. It's scuba diving. Love it. It's fantastic. And then it's like some kind of intense politics stuff every once in a while, but generally conspiracy theories. These are all things that I like actually really do enjoy in all parts of my life, but it's becoming way too much to the point that I've just realized I'm not actually scrolling nearly as much as I used to because I'm so bored of it. It's like I'm not getting the new info. I don't feel like I'm stretching. I don't feel like stuff is being presented to me that I don't already know or have like a very deep interest in, which is why Jeopardy has been so fun.

37:05Leah:One of the topics recently was about this graveyard where famous people are. And it was just everyone just had to say what famous person. I loved that. I hadn't heard of half of them. I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia. Love that. I really loved it. Anyway, that's me.

37:18Brian:Did you know that my former math tutor from Kumon, dark time in my life, but he was on Jeopardy and I think he did pretty well. He wears a fez all the time, every single day. That whole sentence was so good.

37:31Alex Karp:And it's a lot to take in. And I'm going to take a minute just to process all of it.

37:34Brian:I think you should. I think you should think about that. That's all I know about Jeopardy. That's all I can know. Wow.

37:39Alex Karp:I will say, Leah, I fully co-signed. I don't know if you both weren't here. I was Wired's chief Jeopardy correspondent for a few glorious months. Oh, no.

37:47Leah:What?

37:48Alex Karp:During James Holtzauer's record-breaking paradigm-defining run. Exciting. I got to interview Ken Jennings. That's really cool. It was great. I loved it. That's so cool. So I fully, fully support this embrace of Jeffrey.

38:01Leah:Ken's a great host, by the way. I don't know if you like, yeah. It's amazing. I'm really, really enjoying his work.

38:08Alex Karp:My Wired is not dissimilar to Lee in a sense. It is, for the Olympics especially, linear television. And let me explain. I think the last time the Olympics were around, I've got Peacock and I've got YouTube TV, and you now have the option to watch everything in its entirety whenever you want and just choose which sport you want and go in and it is too much even for me an avowed olympics fan so just i'm embracing just being able to sit down with my kids at night and just watch whatever nbc thinks i should know from that day and just i get the highlights i get the best things i don't spend two hours watching some cross-country race just in case something interesting happens i know that when i'm settled in, it has been editorially curated to be of interest to me.

38:57Alex Karp:So that is wired for me. And I guess tired would be the flip of that, of just mindlessly binging winter sports that don't go anywhere.

39:08Leah:Sure. Zoe can curse.

39:10Brian:Yeah, for sure. Okay. Mine feels a little obvious this week, but I'm just going to persevere, which is tired to me is those services that send you boxes of clothes and you like rent them and then send them back.

39:23Leah:Yes. Okay. Yeah. Rent the runway. Newly. Wait, are you a subscriber?

39:27Brian:Absolutely not.

39:28Leah:No. I was about to be shocked. My entire world was going to be rocked.

39:31Brian:I would never. I would never. But I actually do have a few people in my life who are just like busy, normal professionals who are like, they really like them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I have so many who love it. They love it. And I think that's a huge bummer. And I was in Portland last weekend and I went to some of the best vintage stores I have ever been too. I was in absolute heaven. Shout out to Deep Lake. They had vintage Vivian Westwood. I got a velvet skirt that I will never have an opportunity to wear.

39:56Leah:Wait, was that where you got your vest you were wearing yesterday? I loved that vest. Also, yes.

39:59Brian:I knew it. I was going to ask about it and I meant to. Such a good vest. I was viciously mocked in the office and I thought, only Leah understands.

40:07Alex Karp:I did not notice the vest. I would not have asked about the vest. I'm sorry.

40:12Leah:I love the vest. I love the vest enough that I thought about it after and was literally like, I'm going to ask her where it's from. It's certainly not available to me.

40:19Brian:Love that. Love this for us. That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Uncanny Valley is produced by Kaleidoscope Content. Adriana Tapia and Tyler Hill produced this episode. Mixing from Amar Lal at Macrosound. Fact-checking from Matt Giles. Mark Leda was our San Francisco studio engineer. Fran Bandy is our New York studio engineer. Kate Osborne is our executive producer. And Katie Drummond is Wired's global editorial director.

41:01Zoe:How do we maintain a strong defense in a world that's rapidly changing? Join us on Strength in Numbers, a podcast from UVA's National Security Data and Policy Institute. I'm your host, Jennifer Strong. In each episode, we'll take a look at the materials powering today's most advanced technology, how it's being used on the battlefield, and ask how the United States can stay competitive against potential adversaries. Voters should be concerned about all this. We want America to be strong, but we've got to be strong and smart. That's all coming up this season of Strength in Numbers. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

41:39Alex Karp:From PRX. Thank you.