Uncanny Valley | WIRED

Uncanny Valley | WIRED is built for the moment when technology stops looking like a product beat and starts looking like a power map. It follows the people, companies, agencies, campaigns, and platforms that now shape politics, culture, business, science, and media. The show alternates between long-form interviews and faster newsroom conversations. That split gives it useful range. One episode can put Katie Drummond across from Matt Garman to talk about AWS, AI systems, outages, and the infrastructure behind much of the internet. Another can move through OpenAI’s legal fights with Elon Musk, SpaceX’s confidential IPO filing, voter data concerns, and the spectacle of global politics unfolding online. The interviews are polished but not soft. Guests are asked about records, incentives, contradictions, and the mechanics behind their public stories. Kara Swisher talks about Silicon Valley’s fixation on longevity and physical optimization with the familiarity of someone who has covered its moguls for decades. Alex Borges is questioned on Palantir, ICE-related criticism, AI safety, and the tech industry’s role in congressional races. Issam Hijazi explains how a background at Oracle, IBM, Hitachi, and startups shaped his view of social media and algorithmic feeds. Chris Hayes turns attention itself into the story, describing how news competes with every piece of content ever created. Margaret Atwood brings literary wit, doomscrolling, and a personal exchange about writing into the WIRED frame. Victor Glover’s Artemis II conversation slows the pace, focusing on return, memory, family, and the strange silence behind the far side of the moon. The show’s strength is connective tissue. It treats AI, platforms, elections, spaceflight, cloud computing, and media habits as parts of the same operating system. It is skeptical without becoming cynical, and conversational without becoming loose. For listeners tracking Silicon Valley’s influence beyond Silicon Valley, it offers context with a newsroom spine.