Trump Davos Drama; AI Midterms; ChatGPT's Last Resort
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
WIRED
4.1 • 571 Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to Uncanny Valley! This week, WIRED’s Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger are joining the show as the new co-hosts, alongside Zoë Schiffer. And our attention has been on the drama going down in the quaint little town of Davos. Zoë tells us how at the World Economic Forum’s event, major AI players like Anthropic have been the protagonists — sharing the spotlight with President Trump, who insists on invading Greenland. Brian has been looking at how ICE activity is developing across the U.S, 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 | WIRED
- ‘I’m Witnessing a Lot of Emptiness’: How ICE Uprooted Normal Life in Minneapolis | WIRED
- Ads Are Coming to ChatGPT. Here’s How They’ll Work | WIRED
Join WIRED’s best and brightest on Uncanny Valley as they dissect the collision of tech, politics, finance, and business, from Alexis Ohanian's newest tech venture to the effects of inaccurate information from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots on social protests.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, Wired's director of business and industry. |
| 0:11.5 | Today, we're starting a bit of a new chapter here on the show, and I want to introduce you to my brand new co-host. |
| 0:17.2 | Brian Barrett, our executive editor here at Wired, and Leah Feiger, our senior politics editor. |
| 0:22.7 | Brian and Leah, welcome to the show. |
| 0:24.7 | Hi, Zoe. |
| 0:25.6 | Hey, guys. |
| 0:26.4 | So thrilled to be here. |
| 0:28.0 | So long-time listeners know the show has taken on a bunch of different formats since it launched. |
| 0:34.3 | We had the gadget lab days, the roundtable, news episodes. We really created |
| 0:39.3 | this podcast because we want to bring you the best stories and the best takes about what's |
| 0:44.1 | happening in tech and politics. That's all going to stay the same. But this time, we're going to |
| 0:49.2 | go even deeper. We're peeling back the curtain and telling you what we're hearing from our sources |
| 0:53.5 | across Silicon Valley and in D.C. |
| 0:56.1 | 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. |
| 1:03.5 | Basically, you're going to be added to the group chat on Slack. |
| 1:06.5 | God help us all. |
| 1:07.6 | No, it's going to be great. |
| 1:09.4 | Mostly what we hope is we can give you a sense of this rapidly changing world from a wired lens. |
| 1:14.4 | We're going to be honest, we're going to be curious, we're going to be looking towards a future and taking you there with us. |
| 1:23.5 | Okay, 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. |
| 1:32.4 | I can't turn away from it, honestly. |
| 1:35.2 | I can. I can, and I do. |
... |
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