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

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 572 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, the 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 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.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Brian.
0:02.5	Zoe, Leah, and I have really enjoyed being your new host these past few weeks, and we want to hear from you.
0:07.4	If you like the show and have a minute, please leave us a review in the podcast or app of your choice.
0:11.7	It really helps us reach more people.
0:13.2	And for any questions and comments, you can always reach us at Uncanny Valley at Wired.com.
0:17.7	Thank you for listening. On to the show.
0:23.6	Hey, how's it going? I feel great. Brian? I feel terrific, and I know Leah does too, because
0:30.9	Survivor's back tonight. Another thing that we care about, and you don't. How do you know?
0:36.9	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 that's, you know, it's irrelevant. 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.
0:54.9	You know, 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.
1:01.6	I actually think I would be fine. I really, really want to do this one day, you guys.
1:07.4	But Leah, it would require you to potentially kill some fish to eat them, which is not normally...
1:13.8	Oh, okay.
1:14.5	No, no, no, no.
1:15.1	Fishing's fine.
1:16.0	Like, subsistence living, like, that's, like, very okay.
1:18.8	It's like the larger, you know, institutionalization of the mass murder of our suit that I take a bit of a bigger issue with.
1:26.0	And on that note, welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley.
1:29.7	I'm Zoe Schiffer, Wired's director of business and industry.
1:33.1	I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
1:35.2	And I'm Leo Figer, senior politics editor.
1:40.2	Okay, 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.
	...

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