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

13:25Uncanny Valley Team:Like, agentic people will succeed, and mimetic people are fucked. 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 playgrounds 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.

13:55Zoë Schiffer:I think the people who embrace this, is it fair to say, all think of themselves as agentic, right?

14:01Uncanny Valley Team:Without a doubt. 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 Chris 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 are 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 Cluelly and like the average tech person has no idea what you're talking about.

14:43Uncanny Valley Team: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. Are you a self-starter, Zoe? Like, that's what this is. I, oh, God.

15:01Zoë Schiffer: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?

15:17Uncanny Valley Team: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 talking about.

15:22Zoë Schiffer:That's exactly what a word cell would say.

15:24Uncanny Valley Team:Oh no, I'm a medic and a word cell?

15:27Zoë Schiffer:Yeah, well, they're very similar concepts. It like breaks things down in a similar way. 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.

15:47Uncanny Valley Team:Where do these words even come from?

15:51Zoë Schiffer:I don't know. I think word cell, probably derogatory because it maybe builds off incel,

15:57Uncanny Valley Team:but I am not, I'm making that up as I go along.

16:00Zoë Schiffer:I don't remember where it came from exactly. But even Sam Altman was tweeting about word cells and shape rotators back in the day?

16:08Uncanny Valley Team: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 things. it becomes kind of like a trend. I hate that this is like a cultural talking point right now. The way that you like divide people becoming, it's just like one more way.

16:46Uncanny Valley Team:One, one more way. 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?

16:56Zoë Schiffer:Oh, so you're wrong.

16:58Uncanny Valley Team: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. She hates the Oxford comma. She's also memetic. She's a word sell. And she's a... She's a memetic word sell. 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. Members of Congress and my fellow Americans, Our nation is back. Bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before. It was the longest State of the Union address to date. It lasted almost two hours.

17:44Uncanny Valley Team:And it was exactly what you would expect. Trump was boasting about his performance in office. He doubled down on immigration. He said the U.S.'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 U.S. 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.

18:26Uncanny Valley Team: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.

18:38Zoë Schiffer:I not only watched, I made my kids watch.

18:42Uncanny Valley Team:Oh, that is unkind.

18:44Zoë Schiffer:Yeah, at least, well, they watched the first hour or so, which is a lot. All right. And then we switch over to an old episode of The Muppet Show as a palate cleanser.

18:52Uncanny Valley Team:Nice.

18:52Zoë Schiffer: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 has not watched Donald Trump as much as we have, I think they were pretty shocked by it that this was how our president acts.

19:29Uncanny Valley Team:And that's 100 percent fair. You know, when I say boring, I'm coming at this from we're looking at what he's posting on True 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 going to do that?

20:02Uncanny Valley Team: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 of 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? This is obviously not my area, but my immediate reaction was like, that's the job you give someone you hate. I just feel like, am I wrong? I'm just like, that feels...

20:27Zoë Schiffer: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 going to do it is a kind of hilarious, like, backup plan. In practice, yeah, that's not going to go anywhere other than a bunch of posts on X.

20:51Uncanny Valley Team:Oh, yeah. 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. 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 success being like anti-establishment and now they're the establishment. I know this is well-trodding ground, but like it feels like Nicki Minaj getting the Trump card and appearing at the White House and all of that.

21:36Uncanny Valley Team: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. 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 ways. Brian, what do you think?

21:57Zoë Schiffer:I don't know. The point is taken, but rebrand to me feels like it suggests that these cultural touchstones, the U.S. men's hockey team, other spots, weren't already MAGA. Like, you know what I mean?

22:11Uncanny Valley Team:So reinvigoration?

22:12Zoë Schiffer:Maybe.

22:13Uncanny Valley Team: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. There was just a long spread there when they were not. Like MAGA was not talking about anything that someone who was not reading the news every single day would be able to relate to.

22:27Zoë Schiffer: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.

23:02Zoë Schiffer:It's something I love even more than biathlon. It is undersea internet cables.

23:08Uncanny Valley Team: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 tenure as executive editor. And you're like, Leah, do you know what I love? And it's undersea internet cables.

23:21Zoë Schiffer: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 14th, 1988. The top movie in theaters is Twins starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

23:40Uncanny Valley Team:Legitimately never heard of it. Wait, Zoe, what?

23:43Zoë Schiffer:Anyway, Arnold is agentic and Danny DeVito is mimetic.

23:47Uncanny Valley Team:The top song is Look Away by Chicago.

23:51Zoë Schiffer: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.

24:09Uncanny Valley Team:That is crazy.

24:10Zoë Schiffer:It was like relatively recent. The reason we're writing about it now is that that original cable, which is called TAT-8, 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 changed the world, basically. And we take for granted. But the reason 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.

24:50Zoë Schiffer:So yeah, TAT8, any other fond memories of TAT8? Or no, what did you guys think reading this feature?

24:56Uncanny Valley Team:Well, famously, we were not alive in 1998. Yeah, sorry, you're older than us. That hurts.

25:01Zoë Schiffer:That hurts.

25:03Uncanny Valley Team: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. Oh, yeah. 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 under seas, like there will be wind, there will be changes, things will get moved around.

25:40Uncanny Valley Team: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.

26:12Uncanny Valley Team:The sharks were innocent.

26:14Zoë Schiffer:Justice for sharks. If there's one thing this podcast is about, it is justice for sharks.

26:18Uncanny Valley Team:They're so wonderful. They didn't disrupt the cables. But it is such an interesting thing because like obviously this piece, it gets into so much of like the physical building of all of this and having to like grapple with the natural world and changing currents and temperatures. And like what does that look like? This is still how it kind of runs, right? Like satellites and wireless networks are there. They're relevant. But the actual physical cables, this is still the backbone of the Internet.

26:46Zoë Schiffer:And 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. This was around the time that the EU was just gearing up to support Ukraine. And there was a little bit of 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.

27:28Zoë Schiffer: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.

27:44Uncanny Valley Team: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 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 4 premiere, where dermatologist Dr.

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30:12Uncanny Valley Team:It's called Terms of Service.

30:14Zoë Schiffer:This technology is so crazy powerful.

30:17Uncanny Valley Team:Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.

30:24Uncanny Valley Team:It's time for our Wired Tired segment. Whatever is new and cool is Wired. Whatever is passé is tired. Are we ready? So ready. So excited. Wow. Okay, Leah, you go first. So my Wired is the show Survivor, which is airing Wednesday night. So excited. 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 going to 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.

31:04Zoë Schiffer:Which, if you were to make Zoe watch a historical episode of Survivor in isolation, what one hour of Survivor would you show her?

31:11Uncanny Valley Team:Wait, can I say a season or does it have to be an episode?

31:14Zoë Schiffer:I want to go with that because I don't think you're going to get it for a whole season.

31:16Uncanny Valley Team:So I'm going to 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 um 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 um 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.

32:14Uncanny Valley Team: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 like read books and stuff too. I do not want this to be my only brand on this show. Certainly not. Brian, shag us out. I need to get on firmer ground.

32:41Zoë Schiffer: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.

33:20Zoë Schiffer: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. That 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.

33:56Uncanny Valley Team: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 bestselling author. I just don't know what it means anymore when someone like talks about this, but I did pick up my first Agatha Christie book the other day. I've never read her. Flipped to the back and her author bio, you guys, says, Agatha Christie is a best-selling author, blah, blah, blah, has been only outsold by the Bible and Shakespeare. And I thought, boss move, lady. Agatha's incredible. I'm, wait, did you start reading? Which book is it? Yeah, I'm reading and then there were none, which previously had a more offensive title that I think was changed.

34:38Zoë Schiffer:Oh, it sure did. Yeah, it really, really did.

34:40Uncanny Valley Team:I went through an Agatha Christie, 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. I'm having fun. Wait, what's your tired? I said tired is calling yourself a bestselling author. Wired is being Agatha Christie and being like, I'm actually the best, most bestselling author of all time. You get it? I get it. It wasn't great. Yeah, I get it. I accept it. Yeah, that's fine.

35:02Zoë Schiffer:It was, it was, you know what? It was mimetic.

35:04Uncanny Valley Team:It was so mimetic. Oh my God.

35:12Uncanny Valley Team: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 transcripts at Wired.com 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 WIRE's global editorial director.

36:06Zoë Schiffer:And in our new audiobook, The Kink Machine, The Hidden Business of Adult Entertainment, you'll hear our investigation into the power and influence that drives the most taboo corners of the internet. Find The Kink Machine, The Hidden Business of Adult Entertainment at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or at Audible, Spotify or wherever you get your audiobooks.

36:33Uncanny Valley Team:This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. From PRX.