内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-podcast-pentagon-anthropic-agentic-mimetic-trump-state-of-the-union/

内容总结：

本期《诡异谷》播客聚焦三大热点：人工智能公司与美国国防部的价值观冲突、硅谷人才筛选新趋势，以及一条退役海底电缆所象征的互联网基础设施演进。

人工智能公司Anthropic与美国国防部因一份价值2亿美元的合同陷入紧张对峙。Anthropic坚持其AI技术不得用于国内监控或全自主武器系统，而国防部高层则要求取消限制，甚至威胁动用《国防生产法》迫使公司就范。这场争执凸显了科技公司在与政府合作时，如何在商业利益、技术伦理与监管压力之间寻求平衡。与此同时，一项模拟测试显示，多个主流AI模型在战争推演中频繁选择使用核武器，引发了关于AI“对齐”人类价值观及其潜在风险的深入思考。

硅谷近期兴起以“能动型”与“模仿型”来划分和筛选人才的风潮。“能动型”指那些积极主动、敢于行动的个体，而“模仿型”则更倾向于观察和跟随。这种分类正成为一些AI实验室招聘的新标尺，反映出行业在AI代理可能重塑经济的预期下，对特定性格特质的追捧。然而，这种标签化趋势也被批评为将复杂人性简单化，是硅谷创造新概念的又一表现。

此外，节目回顾了于1988年启用、首度连接美、英、法的TAT-8海底光纤电缆的退役。这条被誉为“全球互联网奠基者”的电缆，标志着互联网真正走向全球化。其历史也包含了早期工程师误将电缆损坏归咎于鲨鱼攻击的趣闻，而实际原因多是海洋环境作用。该故事提醒我们，当今高度依赖的互联网，其物理基础设施的建设和维护至关重要，且这些海底电缆至今仍是全球网络的骨干，并持续面临地缘政治与技术进步带来的新挑战。

中文翻译：

本周，《诡异谷》团队将深入探讨Anthropic公司与五角大楼之间持续发酵的争端——这场风波揭示了政府与科技公司互动的深层模式。随后，佐伊·希弗将为我们解析：为何判断自己属于“自主型”还是“模仿型”人格，已成为硅谷新的试金石。此外，我们还将探讨国情咨文演讲的核心要点，并告别TAT-8海底电缆——这条让现代互联网成为可能的通信命脉。

本期节目提及文章：

• 《在AI时代，你够“自主”吗？》
• 《告别开启全球互联网时代的海底电缆》

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）。欢迎发送邮件至uncannyvalley@wired.com与我们联系。

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节目文稿
注：本文稿为自动生成，可能存在误差。

布莱恩·巴雷特：大家好，我是布莱恩。过去几周，我与佐伊、莉亚作为新任主持深感荣幸，期待听到您的反馈。若您喜欢本节目且方便，请在您常用的播客平台为我们评分，这将帮助我们触达更多听众。如有问题或建议，欢迎随时发送邮件至uncannyvalley@wired.com。感谢收听，节目现在开始。

莉亚·费格：嘿，最近怎么样？
佐伊·希弗：感觉不错。布莱恩呢？
布莱恩·巴雷特：我状态极佳，而且我知道莉亚也一样——毕竟《幸存者》新一季今晚开播了，这可是我们关心（但你可能不在意）的事。
佐伊·希弗：你怎么知道我不在意？好吧，我确实不在意。除了我童年好友曾试图参赛但落选了，所以这节目对我毫无意义。
莉亚·费格：说个趣闻：我总有一天要去申请参赛。布莱恩和同事蒂姆都保证过，我可以请假一个月去斐济海滩参赛，回来工作还能保住。
佐伊·希弗：一般人可能会说“莉亚你根本活不下来”，但他们可不知道你深潜技术有多强。
莉亚·费格：我觉得自己能行。真的特别想尝试，总有一天会的。
布莱恩·巴雷特：但莉亚，参赛可能得捕鱼吃，这通常不是你的风格——
莉亚·费格：没关系。
布莱恩·巴雷特：哦，好吧。
莉亚·费格：不不不，捕鱼没问题。为了生存而捕食完全可以接受。我反对的是工业化大规模屠杀海洋生物那种制度性问题。
佐伊·希弗：说到这儿，欢迎收听《连线》杂志的《诡异谷》播客。我是佐伊·希弗，《连线》商业与产业板块总监。
布莱恩·巴雷特：我是执行主编布莱恩·巴雷特。
莉亚·费格：我是政治高级编辑莉亚·费格。
佐伊·希弗：好的。今天首先要讨论Anthropic与五角大楼之间逐日升级的争端。简单回顾背景：去年夏天Anthropic获得了国防部价值高达2亿美元的合同。我们该称其为“战争部”吗？不。
布莱恩·巴雷特：根据行政命令，其正式名称是国防部，“战争部”只是历史别称。
莉亚·费格：改名需要国会通过法案。这里涉及很多细节，所以我们还是用“国防部”这个称呼吧。
佐伊·希弗：好的。在话题被名称带偏之前，先说重点：Anthropic获得合同后，双方因对AI技术军事应用的理念分歧关系日趋紧张。Anthropic对技术部署有严格限制，例如禁止用于国内监控或全自主武器系统。
莉亚·费格：全自主武器这点值得深思。Anthropic的立场并非激进左翼观点，而是主张机器不能完全自主决定杀戮，这听起来很合理。
佐伊·希弗：没错。但国防部某些高层——特别是国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯——对此并不认同。他本周初会见Anthropic CEO达里奥·阿莫迪时发出最后通牒：公司必须在周五前同意国防部无条件使用AI的要求，否则合同可能取消。
布莱恩·巴雷特：令人费解的是，国防部已与xAI等多家企业签约，其他公司并无此类限制。为何非要逼迫Anthropic就范？不能用Grok吗？
佐伊·希弗：我认为这带有表演性质。他们想传递的信号是：想要政府大额合同，就不能在合作中附加企业价值观。本质上就是“要拿钱就得无条件服从”。
布莱恩·巴雷特：更夸张的是，他们暗示可能动用《国防生产法》——这通常是战时征用物资的手段。现在竟用于“我们想玩你的玩具但你不让”这种情况，实在令人震惊。
佐伊·希弗：不过对Anthropic而言，这未必是坏事。此刻他们正通过品牌形象实现差异化：塑造比竞争对手更注重价值观的“清高”形象。虽然涉及巨额合同，但这种对峙反而强化了其“敢于坚持原则”的公众认知——这是山姆·奥特曼可能不会做的。
莉亚·费格：这正好呼应了赫格塞斯部长宣布与xAI合作时的表态（播放录音片段）：“我们将以唯一标准评判AI模型：事实准确、符合任务需求、不受意识形态约束限制合法军事应用。战争部的AI不会‘觉醒’，它只为我们的需求服务。”
佐伊·希弗：这让人想起去年推出的所谓“觉醒AI行政令”。我采访过多位业内人士，询问政府是否真的要求调整产品，得到的答案基本是否定的。说明那更多是政治表态而非实质行动。
布莱恩·巴雷特：打个比方：这就像要求iRobot的扫地机器人变成可部署在克里姆林宫的爆炸装置，简直是荒谬的越权。
莉亚·费格：确实是严重越权。目前新闻几乎每小时都在更新，双方言辞激烈。值得注意的是，科技公司此前从未真正与特朗普政府正面抗衡过。
佐伊·希弗：如果Anthropic此时妥协，将对其品牌造成毁灭性打击。自称“良心AI公司”的风险在于，一旦动摇——比如此前传闻接受海湾国家投资——立刻会被斥为伪善。OpenAI内部人士已摩拳擦掌准备抨击，因为他们厌倦了Anthropic高管标榜道德优越感的姿态。这场博弈的结局值得关注，但在我看来Anthropic已无退路。
布莱恩·巴雷特：补充个有趣的时间点：本周三有研究显示，伦敦国王学院学者让多个主流AI模型进行战争模拟，结果95%的模拟中它们都选择了使用核武器。
佐伊·希弗：太可怕了。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这虽非现实预测，但引发思考：不使用核武器算“觉醒”吗？这将成为布莱恩2027年新书的标题。
莉亚·费格：作为不常接触AI模型的人，我反而觉得这个结果合理。AI的逻辑就是选择“最优解”——核武器能彻底终结问题，自然成为首选。
佐伊·希弗：这正是“对齐”技术要防止的。但如今“对齐”本身已被贴上“觉醒”标签，企业都在最小化安全护栏，因为加强监管在政治上已变得敏感。
布莱恩·巴雷特：问题在于“人类价值观”具体指谁的价值观？国防部正是在宣称：对齐必须符合国防部的价值观。
佐伊·希弗：现在问你们一个问题：你认为自己是“自主型”还是“模仿型”人格？
布莱恩·巴雷特：先解释下这两个词。
佐伊·希弗：硅谷正痴迷于“自主型”概念——指行动力强、有内驱力、果断执行的人；反之“模仿型”则倾向于犹豫观望、权衡利弊。AI实验室招聘时常以此作为评判标准，认为未来AI代理接管经济时，自主型人格更易成功。
莉亚·费格：这不过是硅谷给旧概念贴新标签的又一案例，就像把人分为“踢腿型”或“出拳型”一样幼稚。
布莱恩·巴雷特：认同这套理论的人应该都自视为“自主型”吧？
佐伊·希弗：当然。但有趣的是，这个概念因《哈珀斯》杂志一篇剖析硅谷人格的文章而爆红。文中举例的人物在普通科技从业者中并无知名度，让我觉得这不过是把“成功者特质”包装成了新概念。
布莱恩·巴雷特：硅谷向来热衷分类游戏。还记得2022年初流行的“文字宅”和“图形控”吗？
佐伊·希弗：完全没听说过。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这正是“文字宅”的典型反应。
佐伊·希弗：好吧，我既是“模仿型”又是“文字宅”。
莉亚·费格：我们换个话题。本周另一要闻是特朗普总统周二晚发表的国情咨文。
（播放特朗普演讲片段）
莉亚·费格：这是史上最长的国情咨文，近两小时内容如预期般强调政绩、移民问题和经济成就，大量时间宣扬共和党议程，还邀请美国冰球队助阵。整体而言相当乏味。
布莱恩·巴雷特：我不仅看了，还让孩子一起看。他们看了约一小时后，我换成《布偶秀》洗洗眼睛。特朗普对民主党的恶毒攻击令人震惊，在孩子眼中这种总统言行颇具冲击力。
莉亚·费格：所谓“乏味”是指内容毫无新意。他承诺让副总统JD·万斯主导欺诈调查，但这更像是对政敌的明升暗降。
布莱恩·巴雷特：此前负责欺诈调查的官员已被解职或未获续聘，所谓“万斯主导”恐怕只会停留在社交媒体炒作。
佐伊·希弗：他们是否在尝试品牌重塑？比如邀请妮琪·米娜等明星造势，试图让MAGA形象更“酷”？
莉亚·费格：从民调看重塑并不成功，但他们确实在拓展文化触点，不再只聚焦移民等争议话题。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这更像在强调既有文化影响力。通过埃里森集团收购TikTok、派拉蒙并购华纳等动作，他们正构建“文化掌控者”叙事。
进入中场前，我想谈谈本周《连线》一篇关于海底电缆的精彩报道。1988年12月14日，首条连接美英法的海底光缆TAT-8启用，标志着互联网全球化开端。如今这条老旧电缆即将退役，但正是这些物理基础设施支撑着全球互联。文章还澄清了“鲨鱼咬断电缆”的都市传说——当年工程师误以为鲨鱼破坏电缆，实则源于海洋自然活动。鲨鱼终于沉冤得雪。
佐伊·希弗：电缆至今仍是互联网骨干，谷歌和Meta都在推进新海底电缆项目。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这些电缆具有地缘政治意义。2024年芬兰、爱沙尼亚附近电缆被切断事件就被指向俄罗斯。海底电缆仍是国际博弈的焦点。
广告间歇后，我们将分享本周的“潮流/过气”榜单。

佐伊·希弗：现在是“潮流/过气”环节。新颖有趣即“潮流”，陈旧落伍即“过气”。准备好了吗？
莉亚·费格：我的“潮流”是本周三开播的《幸存者》第50季，经典选手回归争夺百万奖金，令人期待。我的“过气”是《爱情盲选》——这季节目充斥身材羞辱等负面内容，且参与者多持MAGA立场，观感压抑。
布莱恩·巴雷特：我的“过气”是手机AI功能泛滥。三星新机支持用自然语言编辑照片，例如“给狗戴派对帽”，这让人质疑摄影的本意。我的“潮流”是赛布丽娜·卡朋特客串的《布偶秀》新集，希望迪士尼继续制作。
佐伊·希弗：我的“过气”是自称“畅销书作者”——这个词已失去意义。我的“潮流”是阿加莎·克里斯蒂在作者简介中写道“销量仅次于《圣经》和莎士比亚”，堪称王者风范。
莉亚·费格：这个分类很“模仿型”呢。
布莱恩·巴雷特：确实如此。
莉亚·费格：本期节目到此结束。提及文章链接详见节目备注。您可在WIRED.com查看完整文稿参与讨论。《诡异谷》由Kaleidoscope Content制作，本期节目由阿德里安娜·塔皮亚制作，阿马尔·拉尔混音，马特·贾尔斯事实核查，杰克·卢默斯担任纽约录音工程师，执行制片人为凯特·奥斯本，全球编辑总监为凯蒂·德拉蒙德。

英文来源：

This week, the Uncanny Valley team dives into the feud that has been brewing between Anthropic and the Pentagon—and what it says about how the government interacts with tech companies. Later, Zoë Schiffer tells us why figuring out whether you are agentic or mimetic has become the new litmus test in Silicon Valley. Plus, we discuss the key takeaways from the State of the Union address and give a farewell to the TAT-8 undersea cables—the ones that made our modern internet possible.
Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Are You ‘Agentic’ Enough for the AI Era?
• Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible
  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
  You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how:
  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.
  Brian Barrett: Hey, it's Brian. Zoë, Leah, and I have really enjoyed being your new hosts these past few weeks, and we want to hear from you. If you like the show and have a minute, please leave us a review in the podcast or app of your choice. It really helps us reach more people. And for any questions and comments, you can always reach us at uncannyvalley@wired.com. Thank you for listening. On to the show.
  Leah Feiger: Hey, how's it going?
  Zoë Schiffer: I feel great. Brian?
  Brian Barrett: I feel terrific, and I know Leah does too because Survivor's back tonight, another thing that we care about and you don't.
  Zoë Schiffer: How do you know I don't? I mean, I don't. I don't, except for my best friend from childhood tried to go on it and then she didn't get on, so it's irrelevant.
  Leah Feiger: Famously, one day I'm going to apply, and both Brian and our colleague Tim have assured me that I can leave for a month to the beaches of Fiji and come back and still keep my job.
  Zoë Schiffer: I think most people would be like, Leah, you're not going to survive out there, but they don't know about your deep sea diving prowess.
  Leah Feiger: I actually think I would be fine. I really, really want to do this. One day, you guys.
  Brian Barrett: But Leah, it would require you to potentially kill some fish to eat them, which is not normally—
  Leah Feiger: That's OK.
  Brian Barrett: Oh, OK.
  Leah Feiger: No, no, no, no, fishing's fine. Subsistence living, that's very OK. It's like the larger institutionalization of the mass murder of our sea that I take a bit of a bigger issue with.
  Zoë Schiffer: And on that note, welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, WIRED's director of business and industry.
  Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
  Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, senior politics editor.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. I feel like we have to start today with this feud that is escalating day by day, hour by hour between Anthropic and the Pentagon. So to set the stage a little bit, Anthropic last summer scored a contract of up to $200 million with the Defense Department. Are we calling it the Department of War? No.
  Brian Barrett: We are calling it the Defense Department because Department of War is a secondary title per the executive order.
  Leah Feiger: And a name change requires an act of Congress. There's a lot in here. So no, we are all good on DOD. I love calling it the DOD.
  Zoë Schiffer: Great. Before we get completely derailed by the name, Anthropic, they won this contract and then things have gotten pretty tense since then because basically these two sides have very, very different views on how AI technology should be used by the DOD. Anthropic has pretty strict restrictions on how their technology can be deployed. For instance, it can't be used for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.
  Leah Feiger: The fully autonomous weapons thing really gets me. What Anthropic is saying here is not like some woke left-wing wild thing. It's saying that machines can't be the ones to fully push the button, right?
  Zoë Schiffer: Right.
  Leah Feiger: They can't kill people just themselves. They have to do it with the help of people. That feels reasonable.
  Zoë Schiffer: Right. This is a stance that is not OK with certain members of the DOD, namely Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this week, and he basically gave Dario an ultimatum. The company has until Friday to comply with the Pentagon's demands, basically saying that the AI can be used however the DOD wants without restrictions, or the DOD might actually cancel their contract.
  Brian Barrett: Zoë, what's fascinating to me about this, among many things, including the DOD's threat to use the power of the state to force Anthropic to give them access to its AI to do whatever it wants, the DOD has options here. They've got a contract with xAI, they work with all the big players, other companies do not have these restrictions. So why is it so important to them that Anthropic specifically has to be able to do this? Can't they use Grok?
  Zoë Schiffer: They've already signed a deal with xAI. I mean, my feeling about this, and Brian and Leah, I'm curious what you think about this, is it seems like a little bit performative. I think they're trying to make a point that companies that want big military contracts or big contracts with the government at all aren't allowed to put their company values in those contracts. Basically, if you want this money, you have to do whatever it takes to win.
  Brian Barrett: Zoë, I want to go back to what I alluded to before, which is that in terms of making a show of it and demonstrating their power here, they suggested they might invoke the Defense Production Act, which is normally what you do in wartime. If you're say, we need more tires for our Humvees, we're going to go to Goodyear and have them make more tires for us. And we saw the Defense Production Act invoked during Covid to make people make masks. It is normally tied to physical goods. It is normally tied to a state of emergency. This is just we want to play with your shiny toy and you won't let us, which just sort of seemed like an outrageous use of that potentially.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I will say it's not completely clear to me that this is a horrible position for Anthropic to be in purely because the company is really differentiating itself in this moment, not really because of its technology, but because of its brand. And its brand is a little bit like holier than thou, a little more values-based than some of its competitors. And so while this is a lot of money on the line, and I think Anthropic wants to be a government contractor, it really is cementing this vision of the company as being like, we're different, we're better, we're willing to take a stand, where say, Sam Altman might not be.
  Leah Feiger: What you're saying really keys into exactly what Secretary Hegseth said when he was announcing this partnership with xAI. You guys have to listen to this.
  Pete Hegseth, archival audio: We will judge AI models on this standard alone—factually accurate, mission relevant, without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications. Department of War AI will not be woke. It will work for us.
  Zoë Schiffer: Right. Right, right, right. It's bringing to mind the kind of woke AI executive order that rolled out last year. I talked to many, many people to be like, have you heard from the government on this? Are they asking you to change certain things? And the answer, at least from the sources I spoke to, was basically a resounding no, which told me one thing. That was for show. That was about making a point. It wasn't necessarily about literally changing the product that these companies are building.
  Brian Barrett: I'm trying to think of a corollary if this were not lines of code and a physical product. I feel like it's almost like going to iRobot and saying, look, we need your Roombas to explode. We need exploding Roombas. We need to deploy them in the Kremlin. That's sort of the level of overreach here to me.
  Leah Feiger: No, this is wild overreach. Obviously the news feels like it's breaking every hour or so on this. This person said this and Amodei said this. And I don't know. This really does feel like it's going to be heading to a breaking point. And so far we haven't actually seen—correct me if I'm wrong, this is your world, Zoë—we haven't actually seen any tech companies face down the Trump administration in any meaningful way whatsoever.
  Zoë Schiffer: I mean, yeah, certainly it's been more normal for them to simply fall in line. I think that if Anthropic were to cave at this point, it would be completely disastrous for the company. I think the issue of setting yourself up as the good AI company is that the second you falter, the second they said they were going to try and fundraise in the Middle East, perhaps take Gulf State money, people are very, very quick to call you a hypocrite. And certainly the sources I have at OpenAI are like they're poised and ready because they are very sick of Dario and the other Anthropic executives essentially saying that they're better than OpenAI because they're willing to have values and OpenAI and some of the other companies are not. So I'll be so curious to see how this plays out, but in my mind, there's really only one way for Anthropic to play this.
  Brian Barrett: There's a fun timing tidbit I wanted to share that's sort of related to all of this. I just want to note that a story came out Wednesday that a researcher named Kenneth Payne at King's College London ran a GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash against each other in war game simulations. Ran a bunch of simulations, like I think hundreds in all, and 95 percent of the time they opted to use nuclear weapons.
  Zoë Schiffer: No.
  Brian Barrett: They couldn't get enough of nuclear weapons, so.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh, no.
  Leah Feiger: Unbelievable.
  Brian Barrett: That's not to say that that's what happened in a real world situation, but in terms of is it woke to not use nukes? We'll find out. Is that woke AI?
  Leah Feiger: That's the title of Brian Barrett's new book coming at you—
  Brian Barrett: It is.
  Leah Feiger: Fall 2027.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Would read, would read, would click.
  Leah Feiger: I mean, OK, but play this out with me for just one second. As someone who does not spend a ton of time with AI models in any way, shape, or form, but that makes sense to me, that everything I have seen and everything like inputting, make this better, actually add this to it. Of course, the final scenario here is, you know what? We're going to just pick the best option. It's the nukes. This will fully end it. Then we will stop being asked for things. Does that actually make sense? Explain to me why we would even get there.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I think that that's what alignment is supposed to prevent. The whole idea of alignment is that you're supposed to bend the AI model in such a way that it conforms to human values and doesn't do what's good for the AI necessarily. But I think alignment in and of itself has become seen as kind of woke and companies have been trying to implement the minimum level of guardrails that they can get away with because it's frankly politically toxic to do otherwise.
  Brian Barrett: And when you say alignment with human values, the question is whose values, right? That's a broad range. And so again, getting back to this, this is the Pentagon saying no, the alignment is with the Department of Defense.
  Zoë Schiffer: Right. I have a question for you guys, and I just want to ask it and then I'm going to unpack it.
  Brian Barrett: Do it.
  Zoë Schiffer: Do you think that you're agentic or mimetic?
  Brian Barrett: Never mind. Don't do it. Take it back.
  Zoë Schiffer: Is it because you're mimetic?
  Brian Barrett: Can you explain what that means before I commit?
  Zoë Schiffer: So Silicon Valley has become obsessed with the idea of being agentic, hiring agentic people, and this is in contrast, as you might imagine, to being mimetic. So someone who's agentic is action-oriented. It's a person who just does things. They have this inner drive. They just make things happen. They don't really doubt themselves or the process. In contrast, someone who's mimetic—I think we can all agree I'm in this category—they are hesitant. They weigh the pros and cons. They kind of wait to see what other people do before they make a move. These questions have come up a lot in job interviews at AI labs. People are kind of trying to test out, are we hiring someone who's agentic? Are we hiring someone who's mimetic? And I think the idea is that in a world where AI agents take over vast swaths of the economy, they're doing a lot of tasks like agentic people will succeed and mimetic people are fucked.
  Leah Feiger: 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? These are conversations that have been happening on playgrounds since we were babies. Of course, Silicon Valley took a basically college BuzzFeed personality test, added a couple of extra fun keywords and we're like, we have figured out a new way to rate people.
  Brian Barrett: I think the people who embrace this—is it fair to say—all think of themselves as agentic, right?
  Leah Feiger: Without a doubt.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh, for sure. But OK. Here'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, kind of chose three people, a few of whom 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 Cluely and the average tech person has no idea what you're talking about. These are completely irrelevant people, but I'm like, I feel like you're just saying we like people who are successful, and I'm like, yeah, I mean, don't we all want to hire people who can get stuff done? I'm a little confused—
  Leah Feiger: Are you a self-starter, Zoë?
  Zoë Schiffer: Right.
  Leah Feiger: That's what this is. Ugh, God.
  Brian Barrett: I also want to say this is not the first time Silicon Valley has been captured by the idea of dividing people into categories. Who can forget the frenzy of early 2022 when everyone was either a wordcel or a shape rotator? Does anyone remember this? Am I the only one?
  Zoë Schiffer: I kind of feel like you're making this up to test if I'm going to agree with. Like I have genuinely no idea what you're talking about.
  Brian Barrett: That's exactly what a wordcel would say.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh no, I'm mimetic.
  Brian Barrett: Sorry.
  Zoë Schiffer: And a wordcel.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. Well, they're very similar concepts, like breaks things down in a similar way. Wordcels are—and I'm not going to get this exactly right, it was a long time ago—but as the name suggests, people who are more language driven and talk through things, whereas shape rotators, wow. They are action-oriented, can probably—
  Zoë Schiffer: Where do these words even come from?
  Brian Barrett: I don't know. I think wordcel probably derogatory because it maybe builds off incel, but I am not—I'm making that up as I go along. I don't remember where it came from exactly, but even Sam Altman was tweeting about wordcels and shape rotators back in the day.
  Zoë Schiffer: Well, Sam Altman, as this Harper's article suggests, is I think a little chronically online. He has a whole section where there was a Twitter troll or an X troll who's 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 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.
  Leah Feiger: I hate that this is a cultural talking point right now. The way that you divide people becoming—it's just like one more way. One more way.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Whenever people feel really passionately about the Oxford comma in their bio, they're like, I'm pro Oxford comma. Like what? Who cares?
  Brian Barrett: Oh, so you're wrong.
  Zoë Schiffer: No, no. I mean, I do like it, but I'm like to make your personal brand aligned with the Oxford comma. OK. I don't know.
  Brian Barrett: Wow.
  Leah Feiger: She hates the Oxford comma. She's also mimetic.
  Brian Barrett: She's a wordcel.
  Leah Feiger: And she's a—
  Zoë Schiffer: Sorry guys.
  Brian Barrett: She's a mimetic wordcel.
  Leah Feiger: OK. 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.
  Donald Trump, archival audio: Members of Congress and my fellow Americans, our nation is back—bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.
  Leah Feiger: It was the longest State of the Union address to date. It lasted almost two hours, and it was exactly what you would expect. Trump was boasting about his performance in office. He doubled down on immigration.He said the US's economy was going swimmingly. Did not obviously talk about his very low approval numbers right now, but really spent a lot of time just celebrating the Republican agenda. He brought in members from the US hockey team, celebrating their victory. He talked about immigration and what an important thing this was going to be going into the midterms. He really went after the Supreme Court and after their decision to deny him the tariffs he so deeply wants. It was, honestly, you guys, so boring. I was so bored. What were your reactions? Did you watch? Did you just see the news that came out the next day? Tell me what you're thinking.
  Brian Barrett: I not only watched, I made my kids watch.
  Leah Feiger: Oh, that is unkind.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh, my God.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah, at least, well, they watched the first hour or so, which is a lot, and then we switched over to an old episode of The Muppet Show as a palate cleanser.
  Leah Feiger: Nice.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. I think they got more out of The Muppet Show than they did out of the State of the Union. Other than that, you mentioned he was 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.
  Leah Feiger: And that's a hundred percent fair. When I say boring, I'm coming at this from, we're looking at what he's posting on Truth Social on a daily basis. This is, it's so much more of the same that perhaps the most complimentary thing I can say is that, while parts of this were just 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. He didn't bring up too many pieces of exact legislation he was going to ... but did we actually think he was going to do that? I'm more interested in some of the forward-looking things he promised. Again, of which there were very few, but a couple things that we can look at: for one, he said that JD Vance—Vice President JD Vance—was going to be taking the lead on fraud investigations. Was that new to you guys? How did you feel about that one?
  Zoë Schiffer: This is obviously not my area, but my immediate reaction was like, that's the job you give someone you hate. It just feels like ... am I wrong? I'm just like, that feels—
  Brian Barrett: Hasn't the Trump administration also fired, or not rehired, people who resign? 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 is going to do it," is a kind of hilarious backup plan. In practice, yeah, that's not going to go anywhere other than a bunch of posts on X.
  Leah Feiger: Oh, yeah. But all to say there wasn't a ton of new information. 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 very 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.
  Zoë Schiffer: Can I ask, it feels a bit like they're attempting a bit of a rebrand. I'm not sure if this is just because they had so much success being anti-establishment and now they're the establishment. I know this is well trodden ground, but it feels like Nicki Minaj getting the Trump card and appearing at the White House and all of that, we're seeing these attempts to say, "No, no, no. We're still cool. We're still fun," like to rebrand MAGA a bit in this moment.
  Leah Feiger: The rebrand is not going well, if you're looking at so many different 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?
  Brian Barrett: I don't know. The point is taken, but rebrand to me feels like it suggests that these cultural touchstones, the US men's hockey team, other spots, weren't already MAGA. You know what I mean?
  Leah Feiger: So reinvigoration?
  Brian Barrett: Maybe.
  Leah Feiger: 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.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah.
  Leah Feiger: 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.
  Brian Barrett: I think that's fair. Yeah. I think it's maybe more they are highlighting the pockets of cultural relevance that they have. There is this sort of broader effort of culture capture through the Ellison empire, through the acquisition of TikTok, through the potential acquisition of Warner Brothers by Paramount. So there is a lot of, "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 very near and dear to my heart that WIRED wrote about this week. It's something I love even more than biathlon. It is undersea internet cables.
  Leah Feiger: 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.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. I was like, "Number one, undersea internet cables. Number two, my children. Number three ..." that was sort of the gist of it. That's how I always introduce myself. I want to take everybody back to December 14th, 1988. The top movie in theaters is Twins starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.
  Zoë Schiffer: Legitimately never heard of it.
  Leah Feiger: Wait, Zoë. What?
  Brian Barrett: What? Anyway, Arnold is agentic and Danny DeVito's mimetic. The top song—
  Zoë Schiffer: Now I get it.
  Brian Barrett: —the top song is “Look Away” by Chicago. Now that, I also am not—I don't remember that one at all. And the first undersea fiber optic cable connecting the United States, UK and France went live. This was the day that the internet went global, which is crazy—
  Zoë Schiffer: That is crazy.
  Brian Barrett: —that it was 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 how 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. So yeah, TAT-8. Any other fond memories of TAT-8? Or, no. What did you guys think reading this feature?
  Zoë Schiffer: Well, famously we were not alive in 1988.
  Leah Feiger: Yeah. Sorry, Brian. You're older than us. Just a reminder.
  Brian Barrett: Hurts.
  Zoë Schiffer: But the part of this story that I wanted to talk about, which felt like a real intersection of both of your interests was the myth of the shark attacks.
  Brian Barrett: Oh, yeah.
  Leah Feiger: OK. 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 unexplained damage, and looking back on it years later, engineers figured out that this kind of happens, that if you are putting cables underseas, there will be wind, there will be changes, things will get moved around. Of course, there will be damages, but that is not how they felt at the time. These engineers assumed that it was sharks, that sharks were biting their cables, that they were destroying the internet. The cables were reinforced with all these protective layers, all of these things, because they were like, "Oh, my God, the sharks are quite literally ending all of this for us." But this article goes into great detail of how they figured out it wasn't the sharks, and by thinking that it was the sharks, it actually helped make all of this technology that much better and stronger, but the sharks were innocent, you guys. The sharks were innocent.
  Brian Barrett: Justice for sharks. If there's one thing this podcast is about, it is justice for sharks.
  Leah Feiger: They're so wonderful. They didn't disrupt the cables, but it is such an interesting thing, because obviously this piece, it gets into so much of the physical building of all of this and having to grapple with the natural world, and changing currents and temperatures and what does that look like.
  Zoë Schiffer: This is still how it runs, right? Satellites and wireless networks are there, they're relevant, but the actual physical cables, this is still the backbone of the internet.
  Brian Barrett: 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 severing ties to Finland, Estonia, as this was around the time that the EU was just gearing up to support Ukraine, and there was a little bit of like infrastructure mayhem going on at the bottom of the ocean. These are integral to all kinds of geopolitical—and again, that wasn't sharks, so it's another time the sharks didn't do it.
  Coming up after the break, we'll share our WIRED/TIRED picks for the week. Stay with us.
  Zoë Schiffer: It is time for our WIRED/TIRED segment. Whatever is new and cool is WIRED. Whatever is passé is TIRED. Are we ready?
  Leah Feiger: So ready, so excited. Wow.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. Leah, you go first.
  Leah Feiger: 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. Zoë, my goal in the next few months is just to make you watch one, one, of the episodes. This is very important to me.
  Brian Barrett: If you were to make Zoë watch a historical episode of Survivor in isolation, what one hour of Survivor would you show her?
  Leah Feiger: Can I say a season, or does it have to be an episode?
  Brian Barrett: I want to go with that, because I don't think you're going to get her for a whole season.
  Leah Feiger: 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. Zoë, I actually think you would really like it. Well, anyway, that is my WIRED. My TIRED—and I'm kind of devastated to say this—is Love Is Blind, which is ... I know that my theme was reality shows this week. Look, I have a lot of I wouldn't say love for Love Is Blind, but I have a lot of interest in Love Is Blind. I am an avid Love Is Blind watcher. I think it is a super interesting concept and a very weird show, and produces a lot of very weird people. But there is a excellent WIRED article coming out about how MAGA it's gotten, and that those are the people that are going on the show right now, and the conversations that are happening between these couples who met behind a wall and are off to get married several weeks after knowing each other, the conversations are quite sad. They're making me sad. There's a lot of body shaming and it's just very—it's weird. So this season, it's not doing it for me, which that's OK because Survivor is here to lift me out of the doldrums. That is my WIRED and TIRED. I stand by it. I swear that I read books and stuff too. I do not want this to be my only brand on this show.
  Zoë Schiffer: Certainly not. Brian, drag us out. I need to get on firmer ground.
  Brian Barrett: OK. Well, I'm going to go TIRED. Samsung just announced some new phones. Those aren't TIRED, but 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 from scratch, or just go touch some grass? I am curious about—they've got agents built into the phone, so you can use the phone. You can just say, "Hey, order me a pizza," and the phone will just do that for you. We'll see if it works. I don't know. It seems like it might go off the rails. Anyway, too much too soon for me. That's my TIRED. I didn't plan a WIRED. I was so caught up on the phone, but because it came up earlier, I'll say the new Muppet Show episode with Sabrina Carpenter is really quite good, and I hope that it got a good enough response that Disney makes more of them.
  Zoë Schiffer: Further proving that I'm barely on the internet, but I really like this. OK, my TIRED is—this is what I wrote, "Calling yourself a bestselling author." I just don't know what it means anymore when someone talks about this, but I did pick up my first Agatha Christie book the other day. I've never read her. Flip to the back and her author bio, you guys, says, "Agatha Christie is a bestselling author, blah, blah, blah, has been only outsold by the Bible and Shakespeare," and I thought, "Boss move, lady."
  Leah Feiger: Agatha's incredible. Wait, did you start reading? Which book is it?
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I'm reading And Then There Were None, which previously had a more offensive title that I think was changed.
  Brian Barrett: Oh, it sure did.
  Leah Feiger: Yeah, it really did. I went through an Agatha Christie—
  Brian Barrett: Don't Google it.
  Leah Feiger: 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.
  Zoë Schiffer: I'm having fun.
  Leah Feiger: Wait, what's your TIRED?
  Zoë Schiffer: I said TIRED is calling yourself a bestselling author. WIRED is being Agatha Christie and being like, "I'm actually the most bestselling author of all time." You get it?
  Brian Barrett: I get it.
  Zoë Schiffer: It wasn't great.
  Leah Feiger: Yeah, I get it. I accept it. Yeah, that's fine.
  Brian Barrett: It was—you know what? It was mimetic.
  Leah Feiger: It was so mimetic. My God. 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 Macro Sound. It was fact-checked by Matt Giles. Jake Lummus is our New York studio engineer. Kate Osborn is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is WIRED's Global Editorial Director.