内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-podcast-trump-davos-ice-ai-midterms-chatgpt-ads/

内容总结：

《连线》杂志旗下播客节目《诡异谷》近日迎来全新主持阵容，资深编辑布莱恩·巴雷特与政治编辑莉亚·费格将联合原主持人佐伊·希弗共同主持。本期节目聚焦达沃斯世界经济论坛、人工智能监管、美国中期选举及科技行业动态等多重议题。

在瑞士达沃斯举行的世界经济论坛上，人工智能成为核心议题。Anthropic等头部AI公司不仅主导技术讨论，其举办的交流活动更成为论坛焦点。值得注意的是，美国前总统特朗普在演讲中公开宣称有意收购格陵兰岛，引发国际舆论关注。

与此同时，美国移民与海关执法局在明尼阿波利斯等地的行动持续升级。据《连线》调查报道，当地居民日常生活受到严重干扰，执法人员与民众冲突事件频发。随着中期选举临近，移民政策可能成为关键政治议题。

科技巨头已提前布局中期选举。由知名风投安德森·霍洛维茨基金支持的“引领未来”超级政治行动委员会获得超过1亿美元资金，计划通过电视广告影响关键选区选举。特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克近期亦向肯塔基州参议员竞选注入1000万美元政治献金，显示出科技资本对政治格局的深度介入。

人工智能领域同时迎来商业模式变革。OpenAI宣布将在免费版ChatGPT中引入广告系统，标志着该公司商业策略的重要转向。尽管公司首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼两年前曾称广告是“最后手段”，但面对巨额运营成本及竞争压力，平台商业化进程正在加速。

本期节目同时探讨了科技行业政治立场转变、AI内容审核机制等衍生议题，呈现了技术发展与社会治理交织的复杂图景。

中文翻译：

欢迎回到《诡异谷》！本周，WIRED的布莱恩·巴雷特和莉亚·费格将作为新任联合主持人，与佐伊·希弗一同加入节目。我们的注意力被吸引到了风景如画的小镇达沃斯上演的戏剧性事件上。佐伊将告诉我们，在瑞士举行的世界经济论坛活动中，Anthropic等主要人工智能参与者如何成为焦点——与坚持要入侵格陵兰的前总统唐纳德·特朗普同台争锋。布莱恩一直在关注ICE（美国移民和海关执法局）行动的进展，而莉亚则迫使我们思考今年的中期选举，因为科技巨头们已经投入了数百万美元。此外，我们还将深入探讨为什么OpenAI决定在ChatGPT中推出广告是迟早的事。

本期节目提到的文章：

• 《支持人工智能的超级政治行动委员会已全力投入中期选举》
• 《“我目睹了许多空虚”：ICE如何颠覆明尼阿波利斯的正常生活》
• 《广告即将登陆ChatGPT。运作方式如下》

您可以在Bluesky上关注布莱恩·巴雷特（@brbarrett）、佐伊·希弗（@zoeschiffer）和莉亚·费格（@leahfeiger）。欢迎给我们写信：uncannyvalley@wired.com。

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文字记录
注：此为自动生成的字幕，可能存在错误。

佐伊·希弗：欢迎收听WIRED的《诡异谷》。我是佐伊·希弗，WIRED的商业与产业总监。
今天，我们的节目将开启新的篇章，我想向大家介绍我的全新联合主持人：WIRED的执行主编布莱恩·巴雷特，以及我们的高级政治编辑莉亚·费格。布莱恩、莉亚，欢迎来到节目。

布莱恩·巴雷特：嗨，佐伊。
莉亚·费格：嘿，大家好。非常高兴来到这里。

佐伊·希弗：长期听众都知道，自开播以来，节目已经尝试过多种不同形式。我们有过“Gadget Lab”时期、圆桌讨论、新闻专题。我们创办这个播客，正是希望为您带来关于科技与政治领域正在发生之事的最佳报道和最犀利的见解。

莉亚·费格：这些核心不会改变，但这次我们会挖掘得更深。我们将揭开幕后，告诉您我们从硅谷和华盛顿特区的消息来源那里听到了什么。您应该关注哪些趋势、已经发生或即将爆发的新闻，以及我们如何看待这一切。基本上，您将被拉进我们的Slack群聊。

布莱恩·巴雷特：天哪，大家自求多福吧。不，这会很棒的。我们主要希望的是，能够通过WIRED的视角，让您感知这个瞬息万变的世界。我们将保持坦诚、充满好奇，展望未来并带您一同前往。

佐伊·希弗：好的。那么，我们今天有很多内容要讨论。世界经济论坛本周在瑞士拉开帷幕，并且已经制造了大量戏剧性事件。

莉亚·费格：说实话，我简直无法移开视线。
布莱恩·巴雷特：我能。我能，而且我做到了。
莉亚·费格：你能立刻关掉它吗？
布莱恩·巴雷特：非常容易。直接说“不”就行了。
莉亚·费格：不，阿尔·戈尔在嘘人。他在质问商务部长。我们怎么能不时刻谈论这个呢？

佐伊·希弗：我知道，我知道。但还有，ChatGPT宣布将开始推送广告，而莉亚将迫使我们开始思考美国即将到来的选举，因为有报道称硅谷已经为中期选举投入了大量资金。
我想我们应该从一个关键故事开始。至少莉亚和我一直在关注这个——
布莱恩·巴雷特：不。
佐伊·希弗：——达沃斯的世界经济论坛会议。每年一月，来自世界各地的全球领袖、商业和政府的巨头们，都会聚集在瑞士这个风景如画的山城一周，讨论紧迫的世界问题。

莉亚·费格：我认为这一直是科技亿万富翁、世界领袖和CEO们聚会的场合。这确实是WIRED非常关注的众多领域的结合。但对我来说，这次达沃斯特别有趣的地方在于，美国最近在世界上的定位如何——我这么说毫无评判之意。

布莱恩·巴雷特：莉亚，这说法可真委婉。要不，我来试试。
莉亚·费格：说吧。
布莱恩·巴雷特：有趣之处在于，美国正试图从一个北约盟友那里夺取一个国家，并利用暴力威胁来实现其目的。
莉亚·费格：直击要害。我们来深入谈谈。

唐纳德·特朗普，档案音频片段：除非我决定使用过度的力量和武力，否则我们可能什么也得不到，但我不会那样做。

佐伊·希弗：特朗普实际上亲自去了瑞士向所有人发表讲话。
唐纳德·特朗普，档案音频片段：我不必使用武力。我不想使用武力。我不会使用武力。美国所要求的只是一个叫格陵兰的地方。

莉亚·费格：听着，在他的演讲中，他确实似乎排除了使用军事手段获取格陵兰的可能性，这话说出来就很离谱，因为他绕来绕去，没有明确那样说，却一直不停地说：“我想要格陵兰。我想要格陵兰。把它给我。”

布莱恩·巴雷特：但我得说，这就像你在操场上想要别人的午餐钱一样，“我不会为了你的午餐钱打你，但我可以。如果你不给我午餐钱，我可以打你，但我不会，但你应该把午餐钱给我，这样我就不会打你，但我不会。”你懂我的意思吗？就像他说他不会使用武力，但同时又像是：“顺便说一句，如果得不到我想要的，我绝对会。”

莉亚·费格：百分之百。百分之百。还把北约说得像是一件可能过时的T恤，或者不是你周六想看的节目，这太疯狂了。这太疯狂了。

佐伊·希弗：我觉得每年都有这个问题：这个会议还有意义吗？它是不是正在经历TED那样的周期，以后没人会在意了？但实际上，今年感觉它可能比以往任何时候都更重要。
特朗普在那里，所有人工智能领域的领导者都在那里，我们听到的消息是，这是每个人都在谈论的大话题，甚至比格陵兰更重要。抱歉，莉亚。但所有AI大佬都在那里，萨提亚·纳德拉、达里奥·阿莫代，他们在台上发言，每个人心中所想都是AI。
到目前为止，我最喜欢的故事——不是要完全进入八卦模式——是，你知道科技公司在达沃斯有“会所”吗？这是品牌在达沃斯进行推广活动的叫法，而Anthropic的会所真的是最酷的去处，但他们对于谁能参加他们的派对非常挑剔。

莉亚·费格：天哪，我讨厌这样。
佐伊·希弗：所以，知名官员走到门口，Anthropic的人会说：“你不在名单上。抱歉。”
莉亚·费格：停。这不可能。
佐伊·希弗：不，我发誓，是真的。
莉亚·费格：不，这不可能。谁被拒之门外了？我们知道吗？
佐伊·希弗：我不能说名字。

布莱恩·巴雷特：那备选会所是哪个？是不是大家都说：“哦，抱歉，你得去Mistral那边。”
佐伊·希弗：是的，你更像是Meta会所的风格。抱歉。

莉亚·费格：好吧。但稍微剖析一下，对我来说，七个月前这毫无意义，但是——告诉我我是不是理解错了——即使这可能是关于“北约是否会继续存在”的达沃斯，而且，我想我们现在都爱AI了，问号？Anthropic并不完全是那样。他们可能是一家AI公司，但在很多方面他们也是AI末日论者，所以他们是这里的酷孩子，这意味着什么？这对这次会议实际上意味着什么？

佐伊·希弗：是的，这有点突出，因为据我在达沃斯交谈过的人说，AI安全并不是一个主要的讨论话题。气氛有点像在欢呼助威。
但我觉得，因为Anthropic目前正凭借其编码助手Claude Code风头正劲，每个人都在用并且非常喜欢，所以我觉得它能够成为房间里那个更悲观的声音，同时仍然保持其街区酷孩子的地位。我听说今年Anthropic的帽子很受欢迎。他们的周边产品不错。

布莱恩·巴雷特：这就是成功之道。我想说，关于AI公司在这里成为酷孩子等等，有一点说明了此刻AI的地缘政治属性有多强。而Anthropic，除了拥有酷会所和拒绝人之外，他们制造的头条新闻是他们的CEO达里奥说：“我们向中国出售芯片是疯狂的。我们不应该这样做。到底为什么要这样做？”这是一个相当重大的声明。
这与他之前说过的话一致，但它说明了这些公司，这些初创公司，其中一些未来的财务状况存疑，正在真正塑造地缘政治，并以非常有影响力和有意义的方式影响它。

莉亚·费格：听着，显然，“AI酷孩子俱乐部”是社会上某一部分人的头条新闻，我猜也包括我们的许多读者。我无法让自己移开视线的事情——抱歉又回到这里——是特朗普的演讲以及他在那里的整个存在。
我的意思是，从政治上来说，这会产生什么后果，我有很多疑问，但考虑到这一点，当我审视美国正在发生的一切时，特朗普在那里做出这些姿态，而ICE无处不在，对吧？他们正在谈论可能扩展到其他蓝州。目前明尼苏达州的实地情况很糟糕。
所以，当我们看到特朗普几乎是在字面意义上谈论入侵其他国家时，美国本土已经发生了地面入侵。看到这种来回切换，现在非常令人不安。

布莱恩·巴雷特：是的。我们来谈谈明尼阿波利斯。ICE特工开枪打死蕾妮·妮科尔·古德已经两周多了，有点难以置信。在明尼阿波利斯，对ICE存在的强烈反对早已存在，自那以后只增不减，ICE的回应也只增不减。他们现在在那里有超过2000名特工，正朝着3000人迈进。
这真的是美国政府如何占领自己城市的一个模式，就在几周前——我敢说几个月前——这还让人觉得不可思议。

莉亚·费格：哦，绝对是的。绝对是的。我们出色的特稿部门周三发表了这篇报道，他们采访了明尼阿波利斯的10位不同居民，只是为了了解他们的日常生活。
他们采访了老师，这些老师必须想办法让孩子们在操场上玩，并在该进来的时候把他们带进来，同时还要意识到直升机在他们头顶盘旋；还采访了被ICE拘留的志愿者。
我们在那里得到了一些非常可怕的故事。有些引述会永远留在我脑海里。再次强调，距离蕾妮·妮科尔·古德事件才几周，在我们的一个故事中，一名特工对车里的一群人说：“你们需要停止。你们需要停止妨碍我们。这就是那个女同性恋婊子死掉的原因。”这就是目前地面上的来回交锋。这很危急。真的非常危急。

佐伊·希弗：我们知道对ICE的支持情况如何吗？我在Puck上读到一篇报道说，枪击事件后，对该机构的支持率暴跌。莉亚，这和你听到的情况一致吗？

莉亚·费格：是的，支持率很低。现在拿这个来竞选并不受欢迎。真的不。说实话，我不想说得太直白，但我非常好奇下一步会怎样。我们上周有报道谈到纽约会怎样，加州会怎样，而且我非常好奇这会如何延伸到中期选举，坦白说。
这需要很多人做很多事。仅仅作为一个民主党人说“我们与邻居站在一起”是不够的。不，如果你想现在在这些选区当选，你必须说要废除ICE，至少目前的民调和公众舆论是这么显示的。如果几个月后他们不再进行这种暴力入侵，情况可能会改变。我非常好奇特朗普政府在中期选举时会如何利用这一点。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我的意思是，他们似乎不会在任何事情上退缩。
莉亚·费格：不会。
布莱恩·巴雷特：而且他们实际上有无限的预算可供使用。在我们自己的报道中，我们本周刚刚披露了一个故事，他们计划花费高达5000万美元，在明尼阿波利斯建立一个中心，可以将被拘留者运送到数百英里外的中西部各地，根据需要而定。
这类采购计划正在进行中。这是一大笔钱。招募也在继续，给签约者一大笔钱。所以我认为，目前ICE还没有足够的人手来实际占领纽约或洛杉矶，但他们正在朝着拥有足够资源来做类似事情的方向发展。而且我认为选举这一点非常严重，不是要过分悲观，但你很容易想象一群戴着面具、没有身份标识的ICE特工站在政治敏感选区的投票站外。

莉亚·费格：绝对是的。特朗普政府和国土安全部正在鼓励公民和居民将他们视为警察。这些是你友好的社区警察。但事实并非如此，原因有很多，其中之一是他们不住在这些社区，他们不是你的邻居。他们受雇于联邦政府。他们不是市级的。也不是州级的。甚至连问责要求都大不相同。
无名无姓、面目模糊的特工现在在美国社会变得无处不在，这太疯狂了。美国多年来一直与警察暴力作斗争，但今年这种无名无姓、面目模糊的性质，我认为，已经呈现出非常不同的倾向。

布莱恩·巴雷特：嗯，还有，这种无名无姓、面目模糊也让我觉得有趣，因为ICE也剥夺了太多……ICE非常重视其隐私，他们总是戴着面具，总是不出示身份证件。
与此同时，他们对任何因任何原因被拦下的人使用面部识别。他们跟踪人们到家里进行恐吓。他们利用国家的一切杠杆来深入挖掘人们的……如果你公开反对ICE，你很有可能会被审计或有人上门拜访。
所以，是的，这有点像他们为自己创造的镜像世界，在那里他们对自己的身份有完全的豁免权。而其他所有人都完全受制于对你过去一切行为的深度挖掘。

佐伊·希弗：我认为隐私问题往往如此。感觉这让我想起了科技行业中的非对称隐私关系，对于像苹果这样非常重视客户隐私的公司，如果你和公司里的人交谈，他们经常会告诉你，内部他们的隐私非常少。
他们被鼓励做一些事情，比如将他们的苹果ID与工作账户关联等等，所以公司在企业层面进行了很多感知上的监控，以强制执行其对外想要的品牌形象。所以看到这种情况在政治中上演很有趣。
并不是要如此生硬地切换到科技层面，但我真的很好奇科技领袖和科技工作者对此情况是如何发声或不发声的。我们特别注意到，科技领袖们在ICE、枪击、杀戮问题上保持了明显的沉默。
这感觉真的和几年前乔治·弗洛伊德抗议时不同，当时我们看到很多同样的人相当有力地发声。无论你认为那些声明是出于真心还是被迫做出后来又收回，他们当时在政治上要活跃得多，而我确实觉得我们现在处于这样一个时代，他们已经做出了决定，那就是：“我会做我必须做的事，把我的公司放在第一位，而现在就是保持沉默。”而他们下面一层的人，则稍微更敢言一些。我们看到经理和科技工作者发声、签署信件，说：“这是不可持续的。情况必须改变。”

莉亚·费格：我的意思是，硅谷有哪些CEO真的在2017年穆斯林禁令时，亲自在机场抗议特朗普的政策？这是一个不同的世界。让我震惊的是，那还不到十年前。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我觉得有趣的是，你提到CEO下面的人，那些高层经理，开始在这方面找到更多发声的途径。这在乔治·弗洛伊德抗议和“黑人的命也是命”抗议期间也是很重要的一部分，就是在他们自己的公司内部，有这些巨大的工人运动在推动社会正义，推动“黑人的命也是命”。
我认为，在某种程度上，CEO们的回应既是当时政治上的有利之举，也是因为他们必须回应员工们在这方面的反抗。除非我们看到类似的情况，否则我不知道我们是否会得到……嗯，我不知道我们是否会得到蒂姆·库克说……

佐伊·希弗：我认为我们永远不会得到。我认为我们处在一个非常不同的时刻。事实上，我认为在某些方面，就科技文化而言，我们当前的时刻是对2018年那个早期时刻的一种反应。
我认为在2018年，如果你和科技领袖们交谈，他们会说：“听着，我们当时做了员工希望我们做的事。我们每个月给他们一天心理健康日。我们发表政治声明。我们试图以各种方式表明我们是支持的。”
而他们的看法是，员工只会要求更多，他们会私下里、不记录地说员工“得寸进尺”。他们觉得从那个时刻没有得到什么。所以现在他们做出了非常不同的算计，大致是说：“听着，我们现在处于特朗普极度交易性的时刻。如果你给特朗普一些东西，你可能真的会得到回报。”这在拜登时期不成立，感觉对我们的员工也不成立，所以他们做出了选择。

莉亚·费格：我甚至不确定这在特朗普第一任期也成立。这是一个不同的总统任期，一个不同的总统，但总而言之，你们俩说的绝对正确，但他们仍然在搞政治。他们仍然在做这些政治选择。
我想我们能不能谈谈硅谷是如何已经介入中期选举的？对我来说，这是一月，中期选举在十一月，大家准备好，我要开始烦人了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：不。不，莉亚，不。我需要更多时间。我至少需要等到土拨鼠日。
莉亚·费格：不，不，不。
布莱恩·巴雷特：至少等到土拨鼠日。
莉亚·费格：当大家在十二月假期前跟我说再见时，我说：“中期选举年见”，因为我选择了“暴力”。
但这些科技公司和硅谷投资者仍然在选择政治。即使他们不再做2016、2017年，甚至2020年那些事，他们仍在做这些决定。马克斯·泽夫本周为我们WIRED写了一篇精彩的文章，关于支持AI的超级政治行动委员会已经全力投入中期选举。

佐伊·希弗：等等，莉亚，跟我详细说说。他们是选择专门关于科技、科技议题、科技政策的议题和候选人，还是比这更分散一些？

莉亚·费格：这很有趣。我想我们会更接近那个点。我们现在还处于起步阶段。而且我有点不舒服地说，起步阶段仍然是数千万美元。所以有很多现金在流动。
但基本上，你们已经知道，在缺乏大量联邦行动和监管行动的情况下，当涉及到AI时，全国各州的立法者，如纽约、加州、科罗拉多等，在过去一年通过了法律，要求这些大型AI开发者披露安全实践，评估各种不同问题的风险。
众所周知，特朗普政府超级反对AI监管，硅谷许多大公司和投资者也是如此，他们认为所有这些州法律都可能严重阻碍AI进步。所以这真的是一方。
另一方面，你有忧心忡忡的立法者、AI研究人员、注重安全的初创公司、非营利团体，他们正在推动更多的AI监管。所以战线已经非常分明，我认为大家已经朝着这个方向推进了一段时间了。
这让我想起了我们在前几个选举周期中谈论加密货币的方式。我想特别提请你们注意的超级政治行动委员会是“引领未来”，它获得了风险投资巨头安德森·霍洛维茨超过1亿美元的支持。

佐伊·希弗：我就知道。“引领未来”把技术乐观主义推得太过了。
布莱恩·巴雷特：哦，是的。
莉亚·费格：哦，是的。必须的。还有OpenAI总裁格雷格·布罗克曼和他的妻子安娜·布罗克曼也参与其中。该组织已经发布了针对几个国会席位的电视广告。不是目前竞争最激烈的席位，但它们出现在几个

英文来源：

Welcome back to Uncanny Valley! This week, WIRED’s Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger are joining the show as the new cohosts, alongside Zoë Schiffer. And our attention has been drawn to the drama going down in the quaint little town of Davos. Zoë tells us how at the World Economic Forum’s event in Switzerland, major AI players like Anthropic have been the protagonists—sharing the spotlight with President Donald Trump, who insists on invading Greenland. Brian has been looking at how ICE activity is developing, and Leah is forcing us to think about this year’s midterms, because tech giants are already pouring millions into it. Plus, we dive into why OpenAI’s decision to roll out ads in ChatGPT was a long time coming.
Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Pro-AI Super PACs Are Already All In on the Midterms
• ‘I’m Witnessing a Lot of Emptiness’: How ICE Uprooted Normal Life in Minneapolis
• Ads Are Coming to ChatGPT. Here’s How They’ll Work
  You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.
  How to Listen
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  If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too.
  Transcript
  Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
  Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, WIRED's director of business and industry.
  Today, we're starting a bit of a new chapter here on the show, and I want to introduce you to my brand-new cohost, Brian Barrett, our executive editor here at WIRED, and Leah Feiger, our senior politics editor. Brian and Leah, welcome to the show.
  Brian Barrett: Hi, Zoë.
  Leah Feiger: Hey, guys. So thrilled to be here.
  Zoë Schiffer: So longtime listeners know the show has taken on a bunch of different formats since it launched. We had the Gadget Lab days, the roundtable, news episodes. We really created this podcast because we want to bring you the best stories and the best takes about what's happening in tech and politics.
  Leah Feiger: That's all going to stay the same, but this time we're going to go even deeper. We're peeling back the curtain and telling you what we're hearing from our sources across Silicon Valley and in DC. What trends you should be watching for, the news that's already happened or about to break, and how we are thinking about all of it. 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. Mostly what we hope is that we can 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 be looking towards the future and taking you there with us.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. So we have a bunch of stuff to discuss today. The World Economic Forum kicked off this week in Switzerland, and it's already produced a ton of drama.
  Leah Feiger: I can't turn away from it, honestly.
  Brian Barrett: I can. I can and I do.
  Leah Feiger: Are you able to turn it off just immediately?
  Brian Barrett: Very much so. It's so easy just to say "nope."
  Leah Feiger: No, Al Gore is booing people. He's heckling the commerce secretary. How do we not talk about this at all times?
  Zoë Schiffer: I know. I know. But also, ChatGPT announced it's going to start pushing ads, and Leah is going to force us to start thinking about the upcoming elections in the US with reports on Silicon Valley already pumping a bunch of money into the midterms.
  I think we should start with one of the key stories. At least Leah and I have been watching this—
  Brian Barrett: No.
  Zoë Schiffer: —the World Economic Forum conference in Davos. So each year in January, global leaders from around the world, the kind of titans of business and government, they get together for a week in this very quaint mountain city in Switzerland to discuss pressing world issues.
  Leah Feiger: I think that this has always been something that is for tech billionaires and world leaders to get together, CEOs. This is really a combination of honestly so much that is WIRED. But what makes this Davos particularly interesting is, to me anyway, is how the US has been positioning itself in the world recently, I say with no judgment whatsoever.
  Brian Barrett: That is such a gentle way of putting that, Leah. How about, I'll take a stab.
  Leah Feiger: Get after it.
  Brian Barrett: It's interesting because of how the US is attempting to take over a country from a NATO ally and using threats of violence to achieve its aims.
  Leah Feiger: Right in there. Let's get into it.
  Donald Trump, archival audio clip: We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, but I won't do that.
  Zoë Schiffer: Trump actually went to Switzerland to address everyone in person.
  Donald Trump, archival audio clip: I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.
  Leah Feiger: Look, during his speech, he did appear to rule out using military force to acquire Greenland, which is a wild thing to say out loud, because he talked around it and didn't exactly say it like that and still just kept saying, "I want Greenland. I want Greenland. Give it to me."
  Brian Barrett: I got to say though, it's the same way like if you're on a playground and you want someone's lunch money, it's like, "I won't punch you for your lunch money, but I could. I could punch you if you don't give me your lunch money, but I won't, but you should give me the lunch money so that I don't punch you, but I wouldn't." You know what I mean? It's like he said he wouldn't use force but it was also like, "By the way, I absolutely will if I don't get what I want."
  Leah Feiger: 100 percent. 100 percent. And just talking about NATO as if it's a T-shirt that's maybe out of style or just not the show that you want to watch on a Saturday is wild. This is wild.
  Zoë Schiffer: I feel like every year there's this question of is this conference still relevant? Is it going through the TED cycle where no one will care anymore? But actually this year it feels like it's maybe more important than ever.
  Trump was there, all of the leaders in artificial intelligence were there, and that's kind of what we were hearing was the big topic that everyone was talking about, even more so than Greenland. Sorry, Leah. But all of the AI guys were there, Satya Nadella, Dario Amodei, they spoke on the stages, and the thing on everyone's mind was AI.
  My favorite story so far, not to go into complete gossip mode, was that, you know the tech companies have houses? It's what a brand activation is called at Davos, and the Anthropic house was really the cool place to be, but they were very particular about who could get into their parties.
  Leah Feiger: Oh God, I hate this.
  Zoë Schiffer: So prominent officials would walk up to the door and the Anthropic person would be like, "You're not on the list. Sorry."
  Leah Feiger: Stop. That didn't happen.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, no, I swear.
  Leah Feiger: No, that didn't happen. Who got turned away? Do we know?
  Zoë Schiffer: I can say no names.
  Brian Barrett: What's the backup house? Is everyone just like, "Oh, sorry, you've got to go to Mistral."
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, you're more of a Meta house vibe. Sorry.
  Leah Feiger: OK. But to peel that back for a second, this to me would've meant absolutely nothing seven months ago but, and tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong, even if this is perhaps the Davos of is NATO going to continue, and also, I guess we all love AI now, question mark? Anthropic is not exactly that. They might be this AI company, but they're also AI doomers in so many respects, so the fact that they're the cool kids here, what does that mean? What does that actually mean for this conference?
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, it's kind of a standout because one thing that has not been a huge topic of conversation as far as the people I've talked to at Davos is AI safety. It's kind of a rah-rah atmosphere.
  But I feel like because Anthropic is kind of having a moment with its coding agent, Claude Code, which everyone is using and really loving right now, I feel like it's able to be kind of the lone voice in the room, being a little more pessimistic about the technology and still maintain its place as the cool kid on the block. I've heard that the Anthropic hats are pretty popular this year. They've got good merch.
  Brian Barrett: That's how you go. I will say, I think one thing about the AI companies being here and being the cool kids and all that is that it speaks to just how geopolitical AI is at this moment. And Anthropic, even the headlines Anthropic made were, other than having the cool house 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 in the world would you do that?" Which is a pretty big statement.
  It's in line with other things he said, but it speaks to these companies, these startups, some of which with questionable finances for the future, are really shaping geopolitics and informing them in a really impactful way, meaningful way.
  Leah Feiger: Look, obviously the AI Cool Kids Club is a headline for a certain section of society, many of our readers, I assume. The things that I couldn't tear myself away from, sorry to bring it back here, were Trump's speech and just the entire presence there.
  I mean, in terms of what comes from this politically, I have a lot of questions, but with that in mind, when I'm looking at everything that's going on in the US, while Trump is over there making these overtures, ICE is everywhere, right? They're talking about expanding possibly to other blue states. And currently the situation on the ground in Minnesota is terrible.
  So as we're looking at Trump talking about invading other countries quite literally, already there's a ground invasion in the US. And it's very jarring to see this go back and forth right now.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. Let's talk about Minneapolis a bit. It's been two weeks, a little over, it's hard to believe, since an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. There had already been a strong backlash against ICE's presence in Minneapolis, it has only grown since then, the response from ICE has only grown since then. They've got over 2,000 people there now, agents there, heading towards 3,000.
  It's really a model of how the US government would occupy its own cities in a way that really felt unfathomable even just a few weeks ago, I would say, months certainly.
  Leah Feiger: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Our wonderful features desk published this story on Wednesday where they interviewed 10 different residents in Minneapolis just to kind of get into the day-to-day life.
  So they talked to teachers who had to figure out how to have kids out on the playground and bring them inside when it's time to come in and while also being aware of helicopters buzzing them, and then as well as volunteers who have been detained by ICE.
  We got some really scary stories in there. There's some quotes that are going to stay with me forever. Again, we are just a few weeks out from Renee Nicole Good, and in one of the stories we have, one agent said to this group of people that was in a car, "You need to stop. You need to stop obstructing us. That's why that lesbian bitch is dead." This is the back and forth on the ground right now. This is dire. This is really, really dire.
  Zoë Schiffer: Do we know what support for ICE has been like? I read a report in Puck that said that support for this agency has plummeted in the wake of the shooting. Does that track with what you're hearing, Leah?
  Leah Feiger: Yeah, it's low. This is not a popular thing to be running on right now. This is really not. I'm honestly, not to be crass about this, but I'm very curious with next steps. We had reporting last week about what happens to New York, what happens to California, and I'm very curious about this stretching into the midterms, to be totally frank.
  This requires a lot of people to do a lot of things. It's not just enough to be a Democrat and be like, "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 polling is showing right now and that's what public opinion is showing right now. This could change in a couple of months if they're not doing these kinds of violent invasions. I'm very curious how the Trump administration will play this when it comes to the midterms.
  Brian Barrett: I mean, it doesn't seem like they're going to back off from anything.
  Leah Feiger: No.
  Brian Barrett: And they've got an infinite budget to work with practically. In our own reporting, we broke a story just this week, they're planning to spend up to $50 million to create a center based out of Minneapolis where they can ship detainees hundreds of miles away throughout the Midwest, depending on where they need it.
  These kind of procurement plans are ongoing. It's a ton of money. The recruiting continues, a ton of money to people signing up. So I think there is not enough of ICE to actually occupy New York or Los Angeles right now, but they're building towards having enough resources to do something like that. And I think the election point is really serious, not to doom it too much, but you could imagine easily a bunch of ICE agents in masks and no IDs standing outside of a polling station in a politically-sensitive district.
  Leah Feiger: Absolutely. The Trump administration and DHS is encouraging citizens and residents to think of them as police now. These are your friendly neighborhood policemen. And that's not true for a variety of reasons, one of which is that they don't live in these communities, they are not your neighbors. They are employed by the federal government. They are not city. They are not state. And even just requirements for accountability are incredibly different.
  The nameless, faceless agent is becoming ubiquitous in American society right now, which is wild. The US has dealt with police brutality for many, many years, but the nameless, facelessness of it all has taken a very different slant, I would say, this year.
  Brian Barrett: Well, also too, the nameless, facelessness I find interesting too because ICE has also taken away so much... ICE values so much of its privacy and they're always wearing masks and they're always not showing ID.
  At the same time, they are using facial recognition on anybody they stop for whatever reason. They are following people to their homes to intimidate them. They are using all the levers of the state to really dig into people's... If you speak out against ICE, there is a decent chance you will get an audit or a visit from someone.
  So yeah, it's sort of this mirror world that they're creating for themselves where they get complete immunity from identification. Everyone else is totally subject to deep dives into whatever you've got in your past.
  Zoë Schiffer: I think that's often the case with privacy. I feel like it kind of reminds me of asynchronous privacy relationships in the tech industry where for a company like Apple that takes its customers' privacy really 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 linking their Apple ID to their work account and stuff, and so there's a lot of kind of perceived surveillance that the company does at the corporate level to enforce the kind of brand it wants externally. So it's interesting to see that playing out in politics.
  And not to switch us so hard to the tech of it all, but I have been really curious about the situation or how tech leaders and tech workers are speaking out or not about this situation. We have seen tech leaders in particular stay notably silent about ICE, about the shooting, the killing.
  It really feels different from the George Floyd protests years ago when we saw a lot of these same people speaking out pretty forcefully. Whether you think they meant those statements or were forced into it and kind of walked it back later, they were being much more vocal about politics then, 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 have to do to put my company first, and right now that's staying quiet." Whereas the layer kind of one under them, people are being a little more vocal. We're seeing managers and tech workers speaking out, signing letters, saying, "This is untenable. The situation has to change."
  Leah Feiger: I mean, which CEOs again in Silicon Valley were actually at the airport in, what was it, 2017 with the Muslim ban protesting themselves against Trump's policies? This is a different world. It's shocking to me that that was less than 10 years ago.
  Brian Barrett: I think it's interesting, and so you mentioned that the people under the CEOs, sort of high-level managers, are starting to find more of a voice in this. That was a big part around the George Floyd protest as well and the Black Lives Matter protest, was internally within their own companies there were these huge worker movements that were promoting social justice, promoting Black Lives Matter.
  And I think there was, to a certain extent, CEO response was both advantageous to them politically at the time, but also, internally they had to respond to their employees sort of revolting over this. Until we see something similar, I don't know that we're going to get... Well, I don't know we're ever going to get Tim Cook saying...
  Zoë Schiffer: I don't think we're ever going to get it. I think we're in a really different moment. In fact, I think in some ways, just in terms of tech culture, the current moment we're in is a reaction to that earlier moment in 2018.
  I think in 2018, if you talk to tech leaders, they will say, "Look, we did the things that our employees wanted us to at the time. We gave them a mental health day every month. We made political statements. We tried to kind of signal that we were supportive in these different ways."
  And their perception was that employees only got more demanding, they'll say, "We're entitled," behind closed doors, off record, off record. They didn't feel like they got a lot from that moment. And so now they're making a very different calculation to kind of say, "Look, we're in a moment where Trump is extremely transactional. If you give something to Trump, you may actually get something in return." That wasn't true with Biden, it didn't feel true with our own employees, and so they're choosing.
  Leah Feiger: I'm not even sure that was true with Trump 1.0 either. This is a different presidency, this is a different president, but all to say, everything that you guys are saying is absolutely right, but they're still political. They're still making these political choices.
  I think can we talk about how Silicon Valley is already involving themselves in the midterms? This, to me, is we are in 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.
  Leah Feiger: No, no, no.
  Brian Barrett: At least until Groundhogs Day.
  Leah Feiger: When everyone said goodbye to me for the holiday break in December, I was like, "See you in midterm year," because I chose violence.
  But these tech companies and Silicon Valley investors are still choosing politics. Even if they're not doing the 2016, 2017, even 2020, they are making these decisions. Max Zeff wrote this excellent piece for us this week for WIRED about pro-AI super PACs already that are all in on the midterms.
  Zoë Schiffer: Wait, so talk to me about that, Leah. Are they choosing issues and candidates that are specifically about tech, tech issues, tech policies, or is it a little more diffuse than that?
  Leah Feiger: It's interesting. I think we're going to get closer to that point. We're very much at the starting point here. And I am vaguely ill to say this, the starting point is still tens of millions of dollars. So there's lots of cash going around.
  But basically, and I know you guys already know this, in the absence of a lot of federal action and regulatory action when it's come to AI, state lawmakers in states around the country, New York, California, Colorado, et cetera, passed laws in the last year requiring these large AI developers to disclose safety practices, assess risks in a variety of different issues.
  As we know, the Trump administration is super anti-AI regulation, as are a bunch of Silicon Valley's largest companies and investors, which argue that all of these kinds of state laws could really hamper AI progress. So that's really one side of it.
  And then on the other, you have concerned lawmakers, AI researchers, safety-focused startups, non-profit groups that are pushing for more AI regulation. So the battle lines are very much drawn there, and I think that everyone's been kind of inching towards them for a while.
  They remind me a lot of how we were talking about crypto in the lead-up to the previous election cycles. And I guess the super PAC that I really want to draw your attention to is leading the future, which is they have more than $100 million in backing from venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz.
  Zoë Schiffer: I knew it. Leading the future was giving techno-optimism so hard.
  Brian Barrett: Oh, yeah.
  Leah Feiger: Oh, yes. It had to. And then OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, they're involved. The group has launched television ads that have targeted a couple of congressional races. Not races that are, I would say, the most battlegroundy right now, but they are in a couple of 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 crypto earlier and how it's reminiscent of that. A lot of the same people are working for, a fair shake, I believe, was the—
  Leah Feiger: Yep. Yep. Exactly.
  Brian Barrett: —and so a lot of those same people are now working for leading the future. I think it's interesting too that we've seen Meta get more directly involved, saying that we're going to go... Companies that that I think is relatively new, especially for a company that for a long time said, "We can't be political because people get mad about it in their newsfeeds." They've really gone all in when it's expedient for them. And then lastly, can I say? We have gotten this far without mentioning Elon Musk, but this is a perfect opportunity.
  Zoë Schiffer: I was literally just going to say.
  Brian Barrett: Zoë, do it. Zoë, do it. Go, Zoë, go.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. So Musk donated, was it $10 million last week to a super PAC affiliated with Republican Kentucky Senate candidate, Nate Morris?
  Leah Feiger: Yes.
  Brian Barrett: Uh-huh.
  Zoë Schiffer: Basically, the person running to try and replace Mitch McConnell who is retiring. I mean, this is a lot of money to give to this one race, is it not?
  Leah Feiger: It is so much money. It's a very, very interesting look at this particular race and McConnell's history and also Elon Musk's history in funding races. I mean, we have to talk about how Elon Musk's America PAC raised more than $170 million for Trump's 2024 bid.
  And obviously WIRED spent all of 2025 covering Musk's incursion into the federal government and what that's meant. We have spent a lot of time as a society, I'd like to say, talking about how Musk and Trump had their big fallout, how he fully left government X, Y, and Z-
  Zoë Schiffer: He said he was going to start America Party. That did not happen.
  Leah Feiger: Uh-huh.
  Brian Barrett: Not yet. Not yet, Zoë.
  Zoë Schiffer: Not yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
  Brian Barrett: It's coming.
  Zoë Schiffer: I know. I know. Don't even say that. Now that I said it, it's going to happen immediately. Not yet.
  Brian Barrett: As soon as he can run Optimus as a candidate, he's going to have America Party.
  Zoë Schiffer: It's so true. Oh my God.
  Leah Feiger: But Elon Musk is very clearly back. I'm curious what that money will do for that race, how much he's going to try and put his name on it. I mean, I think we can comfortably say he flew a little bit too close to the sun in a couple of ways, but as it goes, Elon got pretty much everything that he wanted, and so have a lot of these tech billionaires.
  So I wouldn't say that the last year was a deterrent for them by any means. And looking at these tens of millions of dollars pouring into the midterms 11 months before they're slated to be held is a real, it's a real interesting look that we're going to be keeping a close eye on for sure.
  Zoë Schiffer: Coming up after the break, we dive into why OpenAI rolling out ads for some ChatGPT users is a decision that was a long time coming, even if Sam Altman once called it the company's last resort.
  OK, I'm going to wrench this conversation away from Leah's little clause and we're going to be chatting about something I want to talk about.
  Brian Barrett: Let's do it.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. We have one more important AI-related headline to discuss, and it is about the fact that OpenAI announced last week that they are going to start rolling out ads on ChatGPT in the coming weeks.
  The company said that the ads will not influence ChatGPT's responses. They will appear in a separate, clearly-labeled box directly below the chatbot's actual answer. So if a user asks ChatGPT for help planning a trip to New York, they will get a regular answer and then they might also see an ad for a hotel in the area.
  Leah Feiger: That's gross. You know who this won't impact is me. In any way, shape, or form.
  Zoë Schiffer: Leah, again, never used it, never will.
  Brian Barrett: It can't hurt you if you never acknowledge it or use it in any way.
  Leah Feiger: Keeping those eyes closed, guys.
  Zoë Schiffer: So this change will be coming for users who don't pay for ChatGPT, so they're on the free or Go tiers. And so people in the kind of upper, the paid plans, they aren't going to see ads, at least not yet, but it's still an enormous departure from the business model that OpenAI has been holding onto until now. In fact, it wasn't two years ago that Sam Altman said that ads would be a last resort for the company.
  Sam Altman, archival audio clip: I kind of think of ads as a last resort for us for a business model. I would do it if it meant that was the only way to get everybody in the world access to great services, but if we can find something that doesn't do that, I'd prefer that.
  Leah Feiger: When was this? This was recent, right?
  Zoë Schiffer: That was two years ago, I think.
  Leah Feiger: That's recent. That's recent. That's ridiculous. That's a rollover. That is so fast.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. That is how he talks. It's a little hard to pin him down because he doesn't say, "We would never." He's like, "I mean, if we absolutely had to to give everyone access to economic prosperity and happiness for the rest of their lives, sure."
  Leah Feiger: I'm doing this for you. My ad choice is for you.
  Brian Barrett: The good news is now we're going to have economic prosperity and happiness for the rest of our lives because OpenAI is rolling out ads.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.
  Brian Barrett: Zoë, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to use one of my favorite words.
  Zoë Schiffer: Hypocrite?
  Brian Barrett: Enshitification.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh.
  Brian Barrett: No, enshitification. Hypocrite's good too. Enshitification, it is a term coined by Cory Doctorow, who is an author and technologist, an overall smart guy. And it's the word he used to describe that feeling that you get when every tech platform starts to feel worse and worse and worse because it is putting its own business interests ahead of your experience on there. Right?
  Facebook launched without any ads. Google Search used to be usable in some way, but as you keep stuffing in ads, the worse it gets.
  What's interesting to me about this is not that OpenAI is doing ads. It was inevitable, right? But it's that it's happening this soon, at least in terms of timeline. Yeah.
  Leah Feiger: I have a dumb question. Do they need money? Are they bore? I don't think I get it. Everyone keeps telling me how rich they are, this is where the money is. I'm confused.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. It's confusing because they're, by some measures, most well-funded startup of all time, by other measures burning millions and millions, hundreds of millions, could say billions of dollars a year. So they both are making a ton of money but losing a ton of money, a common situation in Silicon Valley, but at a scale we haven't seen before.
  Another thing that we should note is that while ChatGPT has hundreds of millions of users, I think 800 million weekly active users, it does seem like the company is kind of at a moment where it needs to look at other ways to kind of shore up its moat if you will, and try and beat the competition. So I think it makes sense that ads are happening right now.
  Brian Barrett: I think too, part of it is they have to make money, but even more importantly, they have to show that they are capable of making money, right? To show investors if they want to have an IPO in the next year or two, which they do, they need to be able to demonstrate there is a business model here. Even if they're not going to shore up their balance sheet overnight with this, but they need to show, "Yes, we have 800 million active users." If even 1/2 of 1 percent of those clicks on a link, that adds up to significant money, and so you have to show that growth potential.
  Leah Feiger: Zoë, you talk to people at OpenAI all the time. You interviewed Fidji Simo recently. Were you surprised that this was coming?
  Zoë Schiffer: No. I mean, this is all I wanted in life was for Fidji Simo to break the news about ads during that interview, and wow, would she not do that. I tried every way. She was like, "Well, if ads were ever going to come, they might hypothetically look like this." So no, I think they were very strategic.
  So to back up a little bit, Fidji Simo was previously the CEO of Instacart, and before that, she spent a really long time at Meta. She was kind of a top lieutenant to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. And so when we saw her become the 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 Fidji Simo's whole thing." I think she's very, very sensitive to that perception.
  And to be clear, during my conversation, she's also very thoughtful. She doesn't seem like someone who just wants to shove ads into the feed willy-nilly. She does want to make sure that they're useful.
  I think the term that the company looks at is commercial intent of conversations. If it looks like someone's having a conversation to try and buy a product, then they feel like it might be a relevant time to show them an ad, versus if you're having a sensitive conversation, they're saying, "Look, we won't show ads in that time."
  But I think it's interesting, I feel like we've all been covering Silicon Valley for long enough that we see all companies go through this process where at first they're like, "Subscriptions only, we would absolutely never." And then because they need to show investors a return, they start making compromises.
  And so even when we see things like, "Look, ads will only be shown in these 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 going down this path that you said you probably wouldn't go on, so it feels like it's only a matter of time."
  Brian Barrett: Ooh, can we just, and Zoë, you reference this, can we go back real quick in terms of compromises and things they're doing that they said they wouldn't?
  The fact that they started rolling out age verification this week in pursuit of chatbots you can have AI sex with, right? They are explicitly rolling out explicit chatbot experiences, which I believe is something they said, "We're not going to do that." But now again, it's like another xAI, for better or worse, has shown that that is something that people want. So that smells like desperation to me too.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, CEO Sam Altman I think previously tried to kind of contrast himself with Elon and OpenAI against xAI by being like, "Well, we're not doing that." And yet it feels like, and this is something that Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, I think said previously, it does feel like the person who does the least in terms of safety and risk assessment kind of drags the industry down to their level, because allowing people to engage in romantic ways to have more kind of fringe conversations with chatbots, that actually is a popular thing. There are a number of people who want to do that. And so if you're the one that's quite buttoned up, you can only engage in these very specific ways, you're going to lose users. And so these companies are making kind of strategic decisions to try and get more people on their platforms.
  Leah Feiger: Sounds like they need a new customer base. I am not available.
  OK. It is time for our WIRED, TIRED segment. Whatever is new and cool is WIRED, and whatever passé thing we're super over is TIRED. Are you guys ready for this?
  Zoë Schiffer: I'm so ready. I've actually never been ready, period, but this time I'm actually ready, so that's nice.
  Leah Feiger: OK, Zoë, take it away. What do you got?
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. TIRED, Pascal's wager, Fermi's paradox, the word orthogonal. I'm saying this because I was at, yes, a tech dinner last night, and wow, were people just using … Well, actually I'm unclear. 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 that you want to get out of here too?
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. In fact, I can. The number of frameworks that people were using to assess certain ideas, and then when I asked what said framework was, you would get a whole other explanation that was based on a different framework.
  Leah Feiger: Awful.
  Zoë Schiffer: It was a lot. And I think WIRED is short declarative sentences, which is also the best writing advice I have ever received, shout out to Casey Newton. And I would posit that it's also good speaking advice.
  I think if you could say something in a more straightforward way, it will not make you sound dumb. In fact, it may make you sound smart. I think you could probably use the word distinct or independent in place of orthogonal a lot of the time and it would have positive implications on your social life, or at the very least your ability to interact with me specifically. So that's mine.
  Leah Feiger: Life lessons from Zoë Schiffer, you guys. That's what we're here for.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
  Brian Barrett: This is awkward. My WIRED is orthogonal thinking.
  Zoë Schiffer: Ooh.
  Brian Barrett: No, it's not. Zoë has me because her WIRED and TIRED directly relate to each other, mine do not. They're just two totally independent things. My TIRED—
  Leah Feiger: Is that allowed? I guess it's allowed.
  Brian Barrett: Sure.
  Leah Feiger: We'll allow it. This episode will allow it.
  Zoë Schiffer: He's our boss. He can do whatever he wants.
  Leah Feiger: Yeah, there we go.
  Brian Barrett: I am the executive editor of WIRED, I can ... My—
  Leah Feiger: Flexing that power.
  Brian Barrett: My TIRED is age verification systems. Sorry, it's a little bit boring, but no one does it right. These automatic AI-driven things are a mess.
  We published this around Discord recently about how 12-year-olds are drawing mustaches on their faces and beards with marker and getting approved as 26-year-olds. Thirty-year-olds are getting pegged as 15-year-olds. No, it's a mess, especially if companies are going to try to do this in the first place, which is pretty strong argument that you shouldn't. At least figure out how to do it.
  And then my WIRED is playing people off for time. So I'll explain a little bit. I was watching the Golden Globes, and you know when people are giving a speech and the orchestral music starts to swell in the background when they've gone over their time? Sometimes a controversial practice, I've come to appreciate it in life.
  And what I'm saying, what I'm arguing is, it should apply to all contexts. So when I see Donald Trump giving an hour-and-a-half, two-hour-long press conference on Tuesday, what if we had a little bit of music to remind him that it's time to move on? Davos speech also. So I think playing people off for time, let's do it. For world leaders, let's do it for everybody. Let's keep people on a schedule.
  Leah Feiger: I like that. I think that you could honestly bring back the umbrella coat hook or whatever from the Looney Tunes. I think it's a combination, first you play them off and then you hook them.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.
  Brian Barrett: I love it.
  Leah Feiger: This is good.
  Zoë Schiffer: Completely agree.
  Leah Feiger: I'm going to tell Karoline Leavitt in the White House press office.
  Brian Barrett: Thank you.
  Leah Feiger: So just make sure she has her hook ready to go. Yep.
  Brian Barrett: Yep.
  Leah Feiger: Do I get to go? Do I get to share my WIRED, TIRED?
  Zoë Schiffer: We're waiting with bated breath.
  Brian Barrett: Please.
  Zoë Schiffer: Please.
  Leah Feiger: OK. Yours were smart, mine is dumb, but I stand by it. TIRED is making fun of millennials, not because it wasn't funny or because it was mean, it just, it's TIRED, it's over. How many times can you talk about a side part or whatever?
  WIRED is the TikTok trend dedicated to millennial optimism, which is just photos and reels in really intensely sepia-featured and set in Williamsburg with a song that goes like (singing), and it's so fun and brings you back right to 2016, even though I guess that was a mediocre year as well. But it's this really fun thing that is happening and I cannot get enough of the bow-tie mustache, striped-shirt era. Bring me right back—
  Zoë Schiffer: You hear that Gen Z? We're fun. We're cool.
  Leah Feiger: —into my veins. So that is mine for the week, you guys.
  Zoë Schiffer: Love it.
  Leah Feiger: Brian, are you a millennial? What are you?
  Brian Barrett: Hey.
  Zoë Schiffer: Wow.
  Leah Feiger: I don't know.
  Zoë Schiffer: And that's why he hates age verification, because they've been aging him inappropriately, so.
  Brian Barrett: I keep drawing beards on my face. No, I am a millennial, I think—
  Zoë Schiffer: He's an elder millennial.
  Brian Barrett: We prefer grand millennial, thank you very much.
  Zoë Schiffer: Grand millennial. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.
  Brian Barrett: Get out of here. I am a grand millennial, I'm proud of it. The fact that you even had to ask hurts my feelings a little tiny bit, but that's OK.
  Leah Feiger: Sorry.
  Zoë Schiffer: We're unclear on years and generation.
  That is our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. Amar Lal at 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.