内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-podcast-ice-minneapolis-tiktok-moltbot/

内容总结：

本期《连线》杂志播客节目聚焦近期多起科技与社会热点事件。节目首先探讨了美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）在明尼苏达州的行动升级及其引发的社会动荡。近期，ICE在当地的活动导致包括一名护士在内的平民伤亡，并逮捕了一名五岁儿童，引发大规模和平抗议。期间，极右翼网络 influencers 通过传播关于当地索马里裔社区的不实信息，加剧了紧张局势，甚至发生了针对国会议员伊尔汗·奥马尔的袭击事件。讨论指出，一些右翼舆论试图将暴力事件歪曲为“自导自演”，反映了当前公共话语中事实基础的严重退化。

与此同时，硅谷科技巨头的应对方式受到审视。在ICE事件发酵之际，苹果、亚马逊等公司CEO仍出席白宫举办的纪录片私人放映会，引发员工强烈不满。内部消息显示，苹果与谷歌等公司的基层员工已公开质疑领导层与政府的合作姿态，并要求公司保障其人身安全。值得注意的是，即便以政府合作为核心的商业智能公司Palantir，其内部员工也对公司与ICE的合作项目“Immigration OS”提出了伦理质疑。然而，企业高层似乎普遍选择迎合当前政治权力，而未充分考虑其长期后果。

节目随后转向 TikTok 美国版的最新动态。在其所有权转移至以甲骨文联合创始人拉里·埃里森为首的美国投资联盟后，应用近期出现了服务中断，许多用户怀疑其算法已开始进行内容审查，以迎合政治需求。此外，TikTok 更新了隐私条款，开始收集美国用户的精确地理位置等更多数据，这进一步加剧了用户对其信任度的担忧。讨论认为，在算法高度不透明且所有权与政治势力关联密切的背景下，公众有理由警惕该平台可能发生的隐性内容操控。

最后，节目以较轻快的节奏探讨了近期在硅谷引发关注的AI个人助手 Moltbot（原名ClawdBot）。这款由独立开发者打造的应用能够在本地运行，并通过自然语言指令连接用户多个桌面应用，执行处理发票、安排会议等任务。其兴起表明，在大型语言模型之上，便捷的用户界面和跨应用执行能力可能成为AI产品的关键竞争力。然而，安全专家强烈警告，赋予此类AI代理访问敏感财务、医疗或工作信息的权限存在巨大风险，相当于将此类信息置于公开互联网的潜在威胁之下。节目提醒用户对此类工具需保持警惕，并采取数据隔离等安全措施。

（本期节目还包含主播们关于“非暴力抵抗”的有效性、“末日时钟”的象征意义以及一款AI宠物玩具等内容的轻松讨论环节。）

中文翻译：

在本期节目中，主持人布莱恩·巴雷特和佐伊·希弗与《连线》杂志科学、政治与安全版块总监蒂姆·马奇曼共同探讨本周要闻——包括极右翼影响者如何在明尼阿波利斯散播虚假信息，以及TikTok美国版为何起步艰难。此外，我们还将深入解析为何当前部分人群对人工智能助手Moltbot如此着迷。

本期提及文章：

• 《美国移民与海关执法局正使用Palantir的AI工具处理线报》
• 《谷歌DeepMind员工要求领导层保障其“人身安全”免受移民与海关执法局威胁》
• 《TikTok正在收集更多用户数据：三大核心变化解析》
• 《Moltbot正在席卷硅谷》

您可以在Bluesky上关注布莱恩·巴雷特（@brbarrett）、佐伊·希弗（@zoeschiffer）和蒂姆·马奇曼（@timmarchman）。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：大家最近怎么样？
蒂姆·马奇曼：我挺好的。
佐伊·希弗：哇哦。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这回答有意思。
佐伊·希弗：要我说，简直令人震惊。
布莱恩·巴雷特：是啊。蒂姆，你有什么秘诀？
蒂姆·马奇曼：我正在努力提醒自己——焦虑的感知并不等于现实，必须用逻辑去审视它们。目前做得还不错。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这比我的应对机制强多了。我的方式是：孩子们迷上了《马里奥赛车》，所以我也跟着狂玩。佐伊你呢？
佐伊·希弗：我还好。但说实话，面对当前局势，我的精神和情绪似乎撞上了一堵墙。很庆幸我们能从事现在的工作——如果还像特朗普首个任期早期那样，在科技公司假装企业事务很重要，我肯定会崩溃。那段日子太难熬了。
布莱恩·巴雷特：不过佐伊，近期有什么期待的事吗？比如一两天内？
佐伊·希弗：有的有的有的！为了展现我的全面性，我要去参加梅拉尼娅·特朗普电影的首映。
布莱恩·巴雷特：不错。
佐伊·希弗：亚马逊影业为这部电影的预告片砸了数不清的钱。我觉得——
蒂姆·马奇曼：我从未如此嫉妒过。
佐伊·希弗：是吧？真是大手笔。他们把预告片做得戏剧性十足。但恕我直言，就我所知，那位女士似乎没有任何可辨识的性格特质，而他们用尽手段去掩盖这点。
布莱恩·巴雷特：蒂姆，说句公道话，你搞张票应该不难。
佐伊·希弗：对啊，肯定不难。
蒂姆·马奇曼：我在费城地区找过票，选择余地很大。但问题是市区内没有排片，我得跑去大型郊区商场。这实在让我提不起劲。所以还是等在家用大屏幕配着爆米花和沙士汽水观看吧。
佐伊·希弗：我等不及了。我会去的。
布莱恩·巴雷特：你知道吗？我也去。
佐伊·希弗：欢迎收听《连线》杂志的“诡异谷”播客。我是佐伊·希弗，《连线》商业与产业版块总监。
布莱恩·巴雷特：我是执行主编布莱恩·巴雷特。
蒂姆·马奇曼：我是科学、政治与安全版块总监蒂姆·马奇曼。本周由我暂代莉亚·费格的主持工作。

我们先来讨论本周焦点新闻：移民与海关执法局在明尼苏达州的行动。
上周末，数万明尼苏达民众走上街头，和平抗议联邦移民执法人员在该州活动的升级，并记录其行动——包括移民局探员枪杀明尼阿波利斯居民蕾妮·妮科尔·古德，以及逮捕五岁儿童利亚姆·科内霍·拉莫斯。当联邦探员再度开枪打死37岁的抗议参与护士亚历克斯·普雷蒂时，局势进一步升级。近日特朗普政府宣布撤换曾被任命为全域指挥官的边境巡逻官员格雷戈里·博维诺，由边境事务主管汤姆·霍曼接管该州行动，但实地局势并未真正缓和。就在昨晚：
伊尔汗·奥马尔议员（档案音频片段）：移民与海关执法局无法被改革，无法被改造。我们必须彻底废除它。
蒂姆·马奇曼：民主党众议员伊尔汗·奥马尔在市政厅与选民交流时，被不明物质喷洒。
伊尔汗·奥马尔议员（档案音频片段）：国土安全部长克丽丝蒂·诺姆必须辞职或面临弹劾。
多人声音（档案音频片段）：哇，怎么回事？那是什么？他喷了什么？
伊尔汗·奥马尔议员（档案音频片段）：我不知道。
多人声音（档案音频片段）：天啊，天啊。
蒂姆·马奇曼：这非常可怕，而该事件尤其凸显了一个重要因素：极右翼影响者的作用。移民执法人员出现在该州的表面理由是特朗普政府决定加强该州对医疗补助计划欺诈危机的应对。危机确实存在，但引起政府关注的指控却非事实。一位名叫尼克·雪莉的右翼影响者在此发挥了特殊作用，他发布极具影响力的YouTube视频，毫无证据地声称明尼阿波利斯索马里居民经营的日托中心挪用了数百万美元。如今我们看到国会议员——一位索马里裔美国人——遭遇暴力袭击，而根据袭击者的网络资料显示，他似乎深受此类言论煽动。你们如何看待极右翼在此扮演的角色？

布莱恩·巴雷特：蒂姆，你的分析更深入一层。他不仅似乎受到这些言论煽动，而且袭击发生后，某些右翼影响者圈层立即试图将针对伊尔汗·奥马尔的袭击扭曲为“自导自演”。这形成了新的阴谋漩涡，他们声称“看，她给了对方暗号配合演戏”。甚至特朗普总统在事后不久接受ABC电话采访时也说：“以她的作风，很可能自己策划了这场戏。”我们仿佛陷入无法挣脱的漩涡——任何事件发生时，尤其在移民局占据明尼阿波利斯乃至整个明尼苏达期间，我们反复看到：每当有事发生，就立即出现毫无事实基础的扭曲、抹黑和诽谤。这已成当前标准剧本，而“我们”指的是那些极右翼影响者中的败类。用“败类”合适吗佐伊？
佐伊·希弗：你住在阿拉巴马，我觉得你完全该用“败类”这词。
布莱恩·巴雷特：“败类”是阿拉巴马方言吗？很南方？
佐伊·希弗：有种老派的吸引力。说到这个，我对针对亚历克斯·普雷蒂的即时抹黑行动印象深刻。你们说得对，我们共同的真相基础已完全崩塌，这给了人们用极端方式扭曲事实的机会。单说那位被枪杀的护士，右翼影响者先是公然撒谎称他企图刺杀移民局官员，对方是自卫；随后改口说他可能非法入境；现在他们似乎又定调为“好吧，他是个普通人，但持枪参加抗议太不负责任”。实时目睹这个过程既骇人又令人着迷。

布莱恩·巴雷特：这正好触及保守派核心议题之一的第二修正案持枪权。实际上已出现一些反弹，这似乎是特朗普2.0时代政府首次被迫如此程度地退缩。长远来看未必有用，但看到他们似乎触碰到言论和扭曲事实的边界，这很有意思。
蒂姆·马奇曼：我认为这很重要，因为特朗普及其顾问斯蒂芬·米勒的运作理论是永不退让、永不撤退，承认弱点等于招致攻击。这有一定道理。当我们谈论极右翼影响者时，指的不仅是普通人，还包括政府最高层人士——他们在新闻一出时就立即称普雷蒂为恐怖分子、刺客，散布易被证伪的言论。如今他们被迫改口，政府内部各派系持续泄露信息、相互指责。这是新动向，因为这届白宫此前从不认错或退缩。
我认为他们的判断正确：让渡舆论力量，回应有影响力的评论作家、共和党官员及公众的呼声，表明他们无法不顾现实强行贯彻意志。这或许能让人们稍感乐观或减少悲观。

说到反复无常，我们看看硅谷领袖对此的言行。上周六联邦探员杀死普雷蒂数小时后，一群CEO选择当晚参加白宫私映的亚马逊米高梅影业制作的梅拉尼娅纪录片。包括苹果的蒂姆·库克、亚马逊的安迪·贾西和AMD的苏姿丰。另有消息称，该片导演布雷特·拉特纳——此人因诸多原因声名狼藉，包括在片场难以合作——在此次制作中同样表现不佳。
佐伊，你从消息源听到了什么？
佐伊·希弗：此刻我既感到局势严峻，又觉出几分荒诞。就在亚历克斯·普雷蒂被枪杀当天，这些CEO竟齐聚白宫。我和布莱恩当时都以为蒂姆·库克会借口天气原因航班取消，但社交媒体照片显示他和苏姿丰确实在场。
自2018年乔治·弗洛伊德抗议以来，硅谷科技员工 activism 曾蓬勃兴起，虽然后续时有零星行动，但埃隆·马斯克收购推特后，人们逐渐沉默，更不愿发声。当时就业市场疲软，人人自危。如今虽然类似担忧仍在，但苹果等公司的员工告诉我：“这是真正的临界点，太令人不安了。”他们甚至内部发信质问领导：“这完全不可接受，你们为何在场？”蒂姆·库克几天后才回应，对吧布莱恩？
布莱恩·巴雷特：拖了些时间。
佐伊·希弗：对，内部声明姗姗来迟且措辞温和。但他确实表示“这是艰难时刻”，并试图将白宫之行解释为借此机会向特朗普总统表达观点，似乎暗示讨论了移民问题。
布莱恩·巴雷特：回顾来看，他甚至说“本周已与特朗普总统交谈”，但回避了是否当面交流，可能只是事后补了电话。这很可笑。
佐伊·希弗：我不愿揣测，但实在难以置信。蒂姆·库克首要身份是外交家，利用职位推动苹果利益。这些CEO大多认为与特朗普正面冲突不符合公司利益。但基层员工正借此发声，在X上发帖抗议。
本周我们还有一则独家报道：记者马克斯韦尔·泽夫透露，谷歌DeepMind员工称去年秋季有联邦探员出现在剑桥办公室，他们质问领导层“如何保障我们的安全”。有人可能翻白眼觉得高薪科技员工在自我中心化，但硅谷劳动力大量由高技能移民构成，人们确实担忧自身安全——财富和职位此刻未必能提供保护。

布莱恩·巴雷特：更尖锐的是，记者马克娜·凯莉本周关于Palantir的报道。该公司与政府关系密切，与国土安全部及移民局签有3000万美元合同，开发名为“移民操作系统”的平台，专门为驱逐行动收集数据。连Palantir员工都在公开Slack频道质问“如何阻止这一切”。Palantir员工竟比蒂姆·库克等CEO更早发声，这世界真是颠倒。值得注意的是，Palantir高管回应“这就是我们的业务”，并将继续推进。苹果等公司亦然。除非转化为实际行动，否则都是公关作秀。
蒂姆·马奇曼：我想问二位：这些领袖是否明白其中利害？Palantir员工在公开Slack讨论中特别提到长期后果——公司是否考虑过未来民主党政府可能取消合同，或公众反感的影响？科技巨头们似乎都在假设“此刻即永恒”，这令我难以理解。
佐伊·希弗：俄罗斯寡头们对此应有不同体会。当你屈膝顺从，就把自己置于危险境地——一旦偏离路线，立刻会遭清算，金钱也难保。但特朗普的“高明”在于反复逼迫人们将道德底线不断向他靠拢，他们会想：“我们已经参加了就职典礼，已经在X、Y、Z方面称赞过特朗普，已经为公司铺好了路。”沉没成本让他们觉得此刻退缩将前功尽弃。
布莱恩·巴雷特：这不是为现状开脱，但他们确实对股东负有受托责任。
佐伊·希弗：你竟敢在这里提这个词！
布莱恩·巴雷特：但这是事实。一群负有受托责任的败类。特朗普已证明他能一夜搞垮公司，或迫使美国政府强行入股。短期威胁让企业感到风险，但我仍不认同他们的处理方式。

说到美国对企业的重大影响，我们换个话题聊聊TikTok吧？
佐伊·希弗：必须聊聊。
布莱恩·巴雷特：好。这话题虽不轻松，但至少不那么沉重。TikTok美国版已上线，自1月22日起我们正式进入新世界：TikTok由多家美国股东持有，但字节跳动仍保留部分权益，算法照旧。这一切既像作秀，又像为特朗普盟友谋利。但上线后确实有些波折。
档案音频片段：TikTok到底怎么回事？
布莱恩·巴雷特：用户抱怨关于移民局和特朗普的批评内容被压制。
档案音频片段：TikTok现在审查更严了，尤其是转手之后。
档案音频片段：我的视频浏览量暴跌，自从被拉里·埃里森收购就完了。
档案音频片段：我的脸和新闻内容居然违反社区准则。
佐伊·希弗：这很有趣，因为TikTok在美国出现技术故障，大量用户无法使用，但被解读为审查制度——这是TikTok多年来的老问题，某种程度上也是导致其被迫转让给美国控股方的原因。人们猜测算法已被修改以取悦特朗普。
蒂姆·马奇曼：问题在于，本周美国遭遇暴风雪导致数据中心停电，但用户是否相信故障源于此？新东家显然已失去大量用户信任。
布莱恩·巴雷特：刚才提到所有权，具体是：甲骨文持有TikTok美国数据安全合资公司15%股份。其联合创始人拉里·埃里森是特朗普密友。拉里之子大卫·埃里森是派拉蒙天舞公司CEO，他任命巴里·韦斯执掌CBS新闻，使其倾向特朗普。人们担心这是特朗普及其相关势力进行媒体与文化掌控的一部分，因此对任何相关变动都格外敏感。
蒂姆·马奇曼：这是盘根错节的利益网。由大卫·埃里森控制的派拉蒙公司斥巨资买下终极格斗冠军赛独家转播权，该赛事将在白宫草坪举办笼斗赛庆祝美国建国250周年，而特朗普一直试图通过此赛事吸引年轻男性。将这些视为白宫关联人士掌控的MAGA友好空间合情合理。
佐伊·希弗：但愿首场笼斗是埃隆·马斯克对战马克·扎克伯格，我们等了好几年了。
布莱恩·巴雷特：该打了。
蒂姆·马奇曼：我祈祷成真。
布莱恩·巴雷特：几年前就说要打。
佐伊·希弗：我都准备好观战了。TikTok的信任危机还源于其修改服务条款，要求美国用户授予更多权限。《连线》本周报道，它将进行更精细的位置追踪。此前应用不收集美国用户的精确GPS定位，但现在若授权，它将获取确切位置——可能用于广告，但这需要用户与公司间的高度信任，而TikTok此刻正缺乏这种信任。
布莱恩·巴雷特：而且人们常会随手点击同意却不知后果。TikTok还会追踪AI工具中的所有输入数据，最终用于广告推送。关键在于其不透明性——一切悄然发生。即使尚未出现，我们也应密切关注TikTok算法的微妙变化。若有操纵，不会粗劣到禁止讨论移民局，但可能通过信息流推送内容来影响用户情绪，而这正是当初使其脱离中国控股想要避免的。
蒂姆·马奇曼：另一个难题是TikTok的算法极难追踪。几年前研究人员通过API分析X（原推特）能进行深入的情感分析，但现在失去权限后几乎不可能。TikTok的个性化算法更难以捉摸，我们即使直觉感到变化，也难有把握地追踪其内容推送机制。这不是令人愉快的现状。

佐伊·希弗：既然谈到应用，我们来聊点轻松的。
布莱恩·巴雷特：我喜欢这种渐进节奏。
佐伊·希弗：对，慢慢放松。
布莱恩·巴雷特：渐入佳境。
佐伊·希弗：这话题真的有趣。
蒂姆·马奇曼：我们会带着好心情结束。
佐伊·希弗：你们听说过ClawdBot（现名MoltBot）吗？
布莱恩·巴雷特：我知道，但急需你解释该不该买台Mac Mini来运行它。
蒂姆·马奇曼：同问。我略有耳闻，正好边聊边学。
佐伊·希弗：蒂姆得讲讲让这款应用掌控生活的巨大安全风险。但根据威尔·奈特在《连线》的精彩报道，它的魔力在于：这是款能连接电脑多款应用的AI助手，在本地运行，关键可通过聊天软件对话发送指令，让它代为处理事务。当然，所有AI助手都有共同点——听到“AI助手将打理你的生活”时，我总想：“它能报销吗？我愿意为此提供任何信息。”虽然确实有人用它处理复杂任务如报销，但多数人只用它安排会议、发送备忘、管理日程。设置过程相当复杂，为这种程度的协助费这么大劲值得吗？
布莱恩·巴雷特：有趣的是，这款突破性AI助手并非来自谷歌、OpenAI或Anthropic，而是一个叫彼得的人独立开发的——
佐伊·希弗：彼得·斯坦伯格。
布莱恩·巴雷特：对，他纯粹出于兴趣想验证可行性，最初甚至只是摆弄语音备忘录，突然意识到：“等等，我做出了目前最实用的AI代理？”
佐伊·希弗：没错。他告诉我们，他给应用发了段语音备忘录，AI通过复杂流程将其转为文本文件，然后解读信息并执行指令，这很惊人。人们总以为拥有最先进大语言模型的公司会胜出，但用户往往只需要友好易用的界面，一个能在后台像普通人一样串联各项事务的助手。未来一两年，基于尖端大语言模型的应用层可能会爆发式发展。
布莱恩·巴雷特：你说得对，虽然设置复杂，但使用起来只需发条信息：“处理这张发票。”有人正尝试用MoltBot经营整个小生意，处理发票、对接客户。前端设置虽难，之后就有个小助手在后台为你打字了。
佐伊·希弗：威尔在报道后期完全被MoltBot折服，私下问我：“康泰纳仕集团会让我给大家

英文来源：

In today’s episode, hosts Brian Barrett and Zoë Schiffer are joined by Tim Marchman, WIRED’s director of science, politics, and security, to discuss the news of the week—including how far-right influencers spread misinformation in Minneapolis, and why TikTok’s US version is off to a rocky start. Plus, we dive into why some people are currently obsessed with the AI assistant Moltbot.
Articles mentioned in this episode:

• ICE Is Using Palantir’s AI Tools to Sort Through Tips
• Google DeepMind Staffers Ask Leaders to Keep Them ‘Physically Safe’ From ICE
• TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes
• Moltbot Is Taking Over Silicon Valley
  You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Tim Marchman on Bluesky at @timmarchman. 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: How is everybody doing?
  Tim Marchman: I'm doing great.
  Zoë Schiffer: Wow.
  Brian Barrett: That is something.
  Zoë Schiffer: Shocking, I would say.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. Tim, what's your secret?
  Tim Marchman: I am trying and doing an actually pretty good job of keeping in mind that my anxious perceptions do not reflect reality, and that they have to be looked at logically.
  Brian Barrett: That's a better coping mechanism than mine, which is that my kids have discovered Mario Kart, so I'm playing a lot of Mario Kart. Zoë?
  Zoë Schiffer: I'm doing fine. I would say that I think I have hit a bit of a mental-emotional wall with what is happening, and I'm really grateful to be doing the work that we do because if I was trying to pretend that my corporate job mattered as I was during the early days of the first Trump presidency when I worked in tech, I'm just so glad not to be back there. That was a tough time.
  Brian Barrett: But Zoë, is there anything you're looking forward to, say, in a day or so?
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Showing how well-rounded I am, I am going to be seeing the premiere of the Melania Trump movie.
  Brian Barrett: Yes.
  Zoë Schiffer: The movie that Amazon Studios poured millions and millions and millions of dollars into the trailer. I thought—
  Tim Marchman: I have never been more jealous.
  Zoë Schiffer: I know. I know. Exceptional work. They made it so dramatic. That woman, as far as I can tell, sorry to say this, does not have any perceptible personality of any sort, but they tried everything to cover that up.
  Brian Barrett: Tim, in fairness, I think there's a safe bet you could still score a ticket.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Oh yes.
  Tim Marchman: I have looked for tickets in the Philadelphia area, and I appear to have my choice. The unfortunate part is that in the city itself, it does not appear to be showing, and so I would have to go to a large suburban mall. I just don't think I can commit to that. So I'm going to have to wait to watch it on the big screen here at home with a big bucket of popcorn and some sarsaparilla.
  Zoë Schiffer: I can't wait. I'll be there.
  Brian Barrett: You know what? I will too.
  Zoë Schiffer: 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.
  Tim Marchman: And I'm Tim Marchman, director of science, politics, and security. I'll be filling in for Leah Feiger this week.
  Let's start with discussing the news that's held our attention this week: ICE activity as it's been unfolding in Minnesota.
  This past weekend, tens of thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets to peacefully protest the increased activity of federal immigration agents in the state, and to document their activities, which have included the fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent, and the arrest of a five-year-old child, Liam Conejo Ramos. Things escalated when federal agents shot and killed yet another person, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was participating in the protests. The Trump administration in recent days, they've announced they're removing Gregory Bovino, a border patrol official who was styled as a commander-at-large. He's out of Minnesota and border czar Tom Homan will be taking over operations in the state, but things haven't really deescalated on the ground. And just last night:
  Rep. Ilhan Omar, archival audio clip: ICE could not be reformed. It cannot be rehabilitated. We must abolish ICE for good.
  Tim Marchman: Democratic representative Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance while she was speaking with constituents at a town hall meeting.
  Rep. Ilhan Omar, archival audio clip: And DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment.
  Multiple speakers, archival audio clip: Whoa, whoa. What is that? What is that? What did he spray?
  Rep. Ilhan Omar, archival audio clip: I don't know.
  Multiple speakers, archival audio clip: Oh my god. Oh my god.
  Tim Marchman: So this is really scary, and this incident in particular brings in a big element of this, which is the role of far-right-wing influencers. The nominal pretext for the presence of immigration agents in the state is that the Trump administration decided it wanted to beef up the state's response to a fraud crisis in its Medicaid program. That crisis is real, but the claims that attracted the administration's attention to it were not. A right-wing influencer named Nick Shirley played a particular role here with a very influential YouTube video claiming, without proof, that daycare centers that were being operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had misappropriated millions of dollars, and now we see violence against a member of Congress, and, of course, a Somali American by somebody who going by his online profile appears to have been very exercised by such claims. What do you two make of the role of the far right there?
  Brian Barrett: Tim, you take it even one step further. It's not just that he ... So he was seemingly inspired by all of these claims, but also as soon as this happened, there was an attempt in certain right-wing influencers' spheres to spin even the attack on Ilhan Omar as staged. That became its own conspiracy vortex where they said, "Look, you can see her giving him a signal to stage the attack." And even the President Trump speaking to ABC News on the phone soon after it happened said, "She probably staged it herself, knowing her." It is just sort of we are stuck in this vortex that we can't get out of where anytime anything happens. And we've seen it repeatedly throughout ICE's occupation of Minneapolis and Minnesota more broadly, anytime anything happens, there's this immediate attempt to spin, to smear, to slander, that holds no basis in reality. It's just sort of the playbook right now. We're all just playing the playbook. And by we all, I mean far right influencer ne'er-do-wells. Can I say ne'er-do-wells? Zoë how do feel about ne'er-do-wells?
  Zoë Schiffer: You live in Alabama. I feel like you absolutely should say ne'er-do-well.
  Brian Barrett: Is ne'er-do-well Alabaman? Is that Southern?
  Zoë Schiffer: Feels kind of old school in a appealing way. I mean, I was really struck by the kind of instant smear campaign against Alex Pretti. I mean, I think what you're both saying is correct. It really feels like our shared truth has completely degraded, and there's an opportunity for people to try and spin what's happening in these very wild ways. But just talking about the nurse who is shot and killed, at first they, right-wing influencers and the like, kind of blatantly lie, and say that he was trying to assassinate an ICE official who acted in self-defense. Then they kind of walk that back and say he was maybe in the country illegally? And now it feels like they've settled on like, "OK, he was a normal dude, but it was really irresponsible to carry a gun to this protest." I mean, it's been fascinating and horrifying to watch this play out in real time.
  Brian Barrett: And that's where you see where that runs into then, Second Amendment rights, which is a big part obviously of the conservative platform. You are actually starting to see some pushback. I think this is one of the first moments that we've seen the administration have to backpedal in Trump 2.0 to this extent. I'm not sure that that gets us anywhere in the long run, but it is interesting to see that they have found, apparently, seemingly, some limits that they're butting up against in terms of what they can say and how far they can spin things.
  Tim Marchman: I think that is significant, because the operating theory of Donald Trump and of his advisor, Stephen Miller, have been that you never concede, you never retreat, that to admit weakness is to invite attack. And there is something to that. So when you have ... And when we're talking about far right influencers here, we're not just talking about random people. We're talking about people at the highest levels of the administration who are instantly, as soon as this news comes out, calling Pretti a terrorist, calling him an assassin, seeing things that were easily disproved. They have been forced to walk that back, and there's an ongoing leak war among factions within the administration, people pointing fingers at each other. That is a bit of a new development. This White House has not been willing to say it's wrong, to walk anything back.
  And I think they're correct that ceding the power of public opinion, ceding the power of people they're hearing from, whether they be an influential op-ed writers, elected Republican officials, as well as the broader public, that does show that they cannot impose their will on reality without having to account for reality. And that is something I think people can be optimistic or maybe a little less doomy about.
  Speaking of flip-flopping, let's take a look at what Silicon Valley leaders were saying and doing on all of this. So on Saturday, hours after federal agents killed Pretti, a group of CEOs opted to spend Saturday night at a private White House screening of the Amazon MGM Studios-produced Melania documentary about the First Lady. They included Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Andy Jassy, and AMD's Lisa Su. We have also had other news that Brett Ratner, the director of the project, who is somewhat notorious for many reasons among them not being a gem to work for, was not a gem to work for in this production.
  Why have you been hearing from sources about this, Zoë?
  Zoë Schiffer: I mean, so this is one of those moments where I do feel like the levity and gravity of the situation are both really apparent. The very day that Alex Pretti is shot, we see this news that these CEOs are apparently gathering at the White House. And I think Brian and me were both like, "Surely Tim Cook is going to say that there was weather trouble, and his plane couldn't make it." But in fact, we scour social media and there are pictures of him there. There's pictures of Lisa Su there. So they were very much present at the screening.
  I've really felt like this moment was kind of fascinating because it's been pretty much since 2018, George Floyd protests that we've really seen a lot of tech worker activism across Silicon Valley. There've been bits and pieces that have popped up, but for the most part, I feel like Elon Musk's Twitter takeover marked this moment where people got kind of quiet after that, and were less willing to speak up and speak out. I think people were really nervous about their jobs. The labor market was weak. Now we're in this moment where a lot of those same concerns are still present, but I feel like the people that I've been talking to who work at Apple and these other companies are like, "This was a real tipping point. This was so upsetting." And they were sending just even internally messages to their leaders saying, "This is completely unacceptable. Why were you there?" It took Tim Cook a few days, Brian, if I'm not mistaken?
  Brian Barrett: A little bit of time. Yeah, a little time.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, a little bit of time to come up with a statement internally. And the statement was pretty tepid to say the least, but he did say, "This is a really trying moment." And essentially, he tried to spin his presence at the White House by saying that he had used the opportunity to talk to President Trump about his views, I mean, seemingly implying that he had spoken to him about immigration.
  Brian Barrett: And we can go back and look. I think he even said, "I've talked to President Trump this week." I think he even ducked the idea. I don't think he talked to him in person. I think he just sort of gave him a follow-up call later after he'd had some time to think about or something. It's all pretty ridiculous.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, I hate to speculate, but I'm just going to say right now, I find that exceedingly difficult to believe, Tim Cook is known first and foremost as being a diplomat and using his position to further Apple and Apple's interests. I don't think many of these CEOs see it as in their interest or their company's interests to go head-to-head with President Trump in any meaningful way. But we have seen rank-and-file employees really use this moment to speak up, to post on X and say, "This is not OK."
  We also had a scoop this week from Maxwell Zeff, one of our great AI reporters here at WIRED, who was talking about Google DeepMind workers saying that a federal agent had showed up at Google's Cambridge office in the fall, and they were saying to their leadership, "What are you doing to keep us safe?" I think it's easy to look at a statement like that, and kind of roll your eyes and be like, these well-paid tech workers are centering themselves in this moment. At the same time, Silicon Valley is made up of a workforce that's heavily immigrants, it's highly-skilled workers from foreign countries. And I think that people have legitimate concerns about their own safety, this feeling that maybe your wealth and power, your employment won't necessarily keep you safe in this moment.
  Brian Barrett: I mean, to put this into even sharper perspective, another scoop we had this week from Makena Kelly was about Palantir. Palantir, which works so closely with the government in all things, has a $30 million contract with DHS and ICE to build a platform literally called Immigration OS, whose sole purpose is to gather data for deportations. Even Palantir employees are asking in their public Slack, "What can we do to stop this, to knock this off?" And the fact that we're in a world where Palantir employees are way out ahead of, say, Tim Cook or these other CEOs is baffling. We're really in a bit of an upside down place. And I think notably too, Palantir executives said, "Well, no, this is what we do," and they're going to keep doing what they do. And so is Apple and so are all these other companies. I think until it translates into something actionable, it's all just PR.
  Tim Marchman: So a question I have for both of you is, do you think that these leaders understand the stakes here? Because one of the things that was really notable to me in the discussions that Palantir workers were having in this public Slack is people asking about the long-term consequences. Does Palantir not foresee the possibility of a future Democratic administration that might cancel their contracts, or the consequences of public revulsion? And pretty universally among these barons of tech, they seem to be acting as if there's not going to be a moment after this one. And that's a thing I have a really hard time getting my head around.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I would say that the oligarchs in Russia have a different view of how this has played out. When you bend the knee and say you're going to absolutely fall in line, you put yourself in a kind of precarious position, where the second that you stray from the party line, swift action will be taken against you, and certainly your money won't protect you. But I think that's kind of the, I hate to say this, but the genius of what Trump is doing, because I think when you ask people to, again and again, move their moral line closer and closer to whatever his line is, then they're kind of like, "Well, we already showed up at the inauguration. We already praised Trump in X, Y, Z way. We already did all of this stuff to kind of position our company to win in this moment." And so it feels like kind of like a sunk cost, like, "OK, if you're going to turn away in this moment, you've lost everything you did up to that point."
  Brian Barrett: I am not saying this to excuse what's going on, but at the end of the day, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh, how dare you bring that word into this space.
  Brian Barrett: No, sorry, but they do. I'm sorry, but they do. Ne'er-do-wells with fiduciary responsibilities. But Donald Trump has proven, he has shown that he can tank a company overnight, or he can have the US demand that it take a big stake in it overnight. He can do so much to these companies in the short term that I understand why they feel the risk and the threat. But again, I don't agree with how they're handling it.
  Speaking of the US having a major impact on companies, can we switch it up? Can we talk a little bit about TikTok?
  Zoë Schiffer: We have to.
  Brian Barrett: Yes. Thank you. Good. Not that it's lighter, but it's not as heavy. So the US version of TikTok is here, right? We are officially, as of last week on January 22nd, we are officially in the brave new world where TikTok is owned by various US-based shareholders, but also still ByteDance kind of, and the algorithm is the same. And it's all just kind of a lot for some for show and some for the benefit of friends of Donald Trump. But after the launch, it was a little bit rocky.
  Archival audio clip: All right, TikTok, what the hell is going on?
  Brian Barrett: There were some complaints from users that felt as though critical content of ICE and Donald Trump was being repressed.
  Archival audio clip: TikTok is now censoring our content a lot more now, especially since this switchover.
  Archival audio clip: My views on this app right now are trash and they have been ever since it was bought by Larry Ellison.
  Archival audio clip: Apparently my face and the news is against the community guidelines.
  Zoë Schiffer: And this was kind of fascinating because TikTok was having issues in the United States. The app was essentially down for a large swath of users, but that issue was being interpreted as censorship, which is an accusation that has plagued TikTok for years and years now. In fact, it's kind of partly why we're in the moment we are in, where it's been transferred, where TikTok US has been transferred to majority US owners. So we saw people speculating that the algorithm had been changed basically to please Donald Trump.
  Tim Marchman: It's a problem in its own right, whether or not people can be convinced that something that they say is due to a data center power outage due to the huge storm that hit the US this week is in fact what's behind it. It seems a pretty glaring instance of the new ownership destroying credibility with a lot of the user base.
  Brian Barrett: We alluded a little bit to the ownership before, but here's who that is. It is Oracle owns 15 percent of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture. Larry Ellison is Oracle's cofounder. He's a very close ally of Donald Trump. Larry Ellison's son, David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance, who installed Bari Weiss at the head of CBS News, CBS News trending in a more Trump-friendly direction. So the concern is that it's sort of part of this broader media capture and cultural capture by Donald Trump and adjacent interests. So people are quick to look out, look for, hey, any kind of change that seems like might be reflective of that, they're going to jump on that.
  Tim Marchman: And this is a web of interlocking interest. One of the things that Paramount, now controlled by Larry Ellison's son, David, did, was spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on the exclusive rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which will be hosting a cage match on the White House lawn to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday, and is a cultural space where Donald Trump has attempted to dominate and reach out to young men. So it's totally reasonable to look at them all as an interlocking series of MAGA-friendly spaces owned by associates of the White House.
  Zoë Schiffer: God willing, that first case match will be Elon Musk v. Mark Zuckerberg, because we've been waiting now years for that.
  Brian Barrett: We're due. We're due for that.
  Tim Marchman: I'm praying.
  Brian Barrett: I was told that was going to happen years ago.
  Zoë Schiffer: I know. I was ready. I was ready. So the other reason that this trust issue I think is a potential problem for TikTok is that the app is changing its terms of service and it's actually asking for more permissions from US users. So one thing that it's asking for specifically, WIRED reported this week, is to add more granular location tracking. So before, the app didn't collect precise GPS-derived location on US users, but now if you give the app permission, it's going to do exactly that. Basically it wants to know your exact whereabouts, presumably for advertising purposes, but that is something that requires a fair amount of trust between users and the company, which is something that TikTok seems to be lacking in this moment in particular.
  Brian Barrett: And also the kind of thing that people readily click through and don't realize is happening, right? TikTok also now tracking data. Anything you put into any of its AI tools, if you put in a prompt or any kind of info you give it there, it's going to track that data, it's going to use it.
  Again, all of this ultimately used to serve you ads, but it is the principle of it, and it is the sort of lack of the opacity of it, the lack of clarity, just sort of, oh, all of a sudden this is happening. And I think it is a legitimate thing to sort of keep a close eye, even if it hasn't happened yet, on how TikTok's algorithm changes in more subtle ways.
  I don't think if there is going to be some kind of manipulation of TikTok, I don't think it would be as hamfisted as you can't post about ICE. I do think you can see things changing in terms of what people encounter in their feeds and what gets promoted and what's not, because that fits in the black box. That's something that you can't sort of quantify from the outside, but can sort of have an effect on user sentiment, which is, by the way, the exact thing they were trying to get around happening when they started this process in the first place of getting TikTok out of Chinese ownership.
  Tim Marchman: Another problem here is just that this is with TikTok in particular, an infamously difficult thing to track. A few years ago, when researchers had API level access to X, for instance, they were able to do a lot of really impressive sentiment analysis and just tracking how things worked. Without that kind of access to X now, that work is difficult and unto impossible. And TikTok is much slipperier because it's such a personalized algorithm. So it's one thing to just be aware of is that we may not be able to track, with a lot of confidence, changes made to what it's serving users, even if we're anecdotally pretty sure it is changing. So it's not a fun thing to be thinking about.
  Zoë Schiffer: Now that we're talking about apps, I'm going to pull us to our lightest segment yet.
  Brian Barrett: I like how we're progressing.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes.
  Brian Barrett: We're just sort of easing up as we go.
  Zoë Schiffer: Exactly. I think this one's genuinely fun.
  Tim Marchman: We'll leave here in a great mood.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes. Have you guys heard of ClawdBot now known as MoltBot?
  Brian Barrett: So I have, but I desperately need you to explain why I should or should not buy a Mac Mini, and put it on it and use it.
  Tim Marchman: Same. This is in my peripheral vision, but I'll be learning as we go here.
  Zoë Schiffer: I think Tim will need to explain the immense security risks associated with letting this app run your life. But basically the magic of this app, as I understand it through Will Knight's great reporting on WIRED.com, is that it's basically an AI assistant that connects a lot of different apps on your computer. It runs locally, and crucially, you can talk with it over a messaging app. So send it commands, and then it'll go figure out how to execute and run your life for you. The caveat, as with all AI assistants, is that when you hear, "Wow, AI assistant is going to run your life." At least to me, I'm like, "Can it submit an expense report? Because I would give it any amount of information to make that happen."
  But while there are specific circumstances of people using it to execute really complex tasks like that, a lot of the time they're using it to schedule meetings, send a note, kind of manage their day-to-day calendar almost. And it's a lot of work. It's a pretty complex setup for that level of assistance.
  Brian Barrett: It's so interesting that this seems to be the real breakthrough AI agent to me because it doesn't come from Google or OpenAI or Anthropic. It comes from a guy named Peter who just built-
  Zoë Schiffer: Peter Steinberger.
  Brian Barrett: Yes, Peter Steinberger built it by himself, just wanted to figure out if he could make something work, not even like ... He was playing around with voice memo stuff, I believe. And then all of a sudden realized, "Wait, I've made the most useful AI agent yet."?
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, this is kind of fascinating because we'll talk to him and he was like, yeah, basically he sent the app a voice memo, and that bot was able to make the voice memo into a text file using a pretty complex process, and then interpret the information, and do what he wanted it to do, which is kind of amazing.
  I think it's really interesting because I think there's this sense that the company that will win or the set of companies that will win in this moment will be the one that has far and away the most sophisticated large language model. But in fact, what users want a lot of the time is kind of a friendly, easy-to-use interface, this thing that can connect a lot of different parts and just be a normal person working on your behalf in the background. And so I think it will be interesting to see the app layer built on top of these really-sophisticated LLMs take off I think in the next year or so.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah, because what you said, as you said, the setup is hard, but actually using it, you just send a text, and say, "Hey, can you handle this invoice?" We'll talk to one guy who is trying to use MoltBot to run his whole small business basically, process invoices, interact with customers. So it is like the front end is difficult, but from there, you've got a little buddy working in the background typing away for you.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Will was kind of MoltBot-pilled by the end of this reporting. He was messaging me on the side being like, "Do you think Condé Nast would let me set this up for everyone?" And I was like, "No, in no world."
  Brian Barrett: No, I don't think so.
  Zoë Schiffer: Which brings me to, there was one person he talked to who gave it, I think credit card information or login information for his Amazon account was having it buy products on his behalf. Tim, I think we're coming to the segment where you can tell us—
  Brian Barrett: "This is a terrible idea."
  Zoë Schiffer: "This is a bad idea."
  Tim Marchman: I don't think you need to get too technical here to see why this is a bad idea. If you just take a step back, one bit of advice that people who think really seriously about security will tell you is not to freak out about the capabilities of a program or vulnerabilities that you might be introducing into your life by using something, but just asking you to model the threat. What is the worst case scenario that could happen if this goes wrong?
  So if you're dealing with something fairly low stakes, that might not be a very big deal. And if you want to conceptually say, "What is the worst thing that could happen here if I use this to automate my comic book poll lists?" It will not have access to my email, it will not have access to my bank accounts, it will not have access to sensitive work information. I just want to make it a little bit easier to order comic books, that might be just fine because the worst case scenario is that you order too many comic books or not enough, and you tell the guy at the comic book store, "My robot messed up. Let's get this sorted out. I did not actually order 500 copies of Batman.
  If you're dealing with medical info, financial info, you should assume that you are putting that on the public internet. That's not necessarily going to happen. It's not likely that that's going to happen, but that's what you should be prepared for. And that's the thing I can't get my head around, is how you would allow something that even can access the internet to carry out these really sensitive tasks. There are going to be a lot of engineers who are thinking about very clever solutions to that, but it's just a fundamental thing I have an issue with, and I would encourage people to be very careful when playing around with these things, and certainly not to be giving them direct access to anything they wouldn't want their mom to be able to see.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. Your mom does not want to know how many Batman comic books you are buying, Tim. The one thing with these is their usefulness is proportional to how much information you give them. And so it's sort of a dangerous thing where it's like, "Oh, actually this is really good at managing my calendar. I wonder what else it can do." All those what-elses involve increasing your exposure. And while MoltBot does run locally on your own little computer, it doesn't have to. You can run it in the cloud. Some people want to, and I don't know that they're necessarily aware of or care about the risks that you just talked about.
  Zoë Schiffer: I think also it's a good moment to bring in the IP angle. You might be asking yourself, why did ClawdBot change its very cute name to MoltBot? And that's a great question. Apparently it's because Anthropic, which makes many products named Claude, said, "No, no, no, this is not OK. This person and this app are not associated with our company." And so he chose Moltbot because I think Lobster's Molt?
  Brian Barrett: Yeah, it's a very poetic because it was C-L-A-W-D bot. So the molting is the shedding of the Shell, I think? So it's shedding the ClawdBot name.
  Zoë Schiffer: Beautiful.
  Brian Barrett: ... to become Moltbot.
  Zoë Schiffer: Although he did hint at Will that he plans to change it, if not back to something else in the future. So stay tuned.
  Brian Barrett: I want to say too, this may seem like far away for a lot of people. The idea of, I'm probably not going to buy a Mac Mini and set up Moltbot tomorrow, but I do use Google Chrome, and there's more AI agent news happening there. Google just Wednesday announced an autobrowse feature in Chrome. This is for if you have a paid AI plan with Google, but it is sort of similar in that Google is giving you an AI agent that will browse the web for you, go shopping for you, book flights for you. That is much more mainstream, and built into by far the most popular browser in the world and going to be a lot of people's, I think, first introduction to AI agents, especially if and as they take it out of those paid tiers, and make it available to everybody, which you can definitely see them doing. They've done that with other AI products in the past.
  Tim Marchman: I just hope people are segmenting things here, and that for instance, if you want to play around with this and give it access to your credit card information, you're giving it a card that you would not prevent you from being able to pay your mortgage if it got drained through some malware injection. Use common sense here.
  Zoë Schiffer: Well, now you heard it here first, unlike the President of the United States and seemingly Elon Musk, Tim Marchman is pro data silos, if you remember that executive order.
  Brian Barrett: Look at that.
  Zoë Schiffer: I think WIRED.com is pro data silos for the most part.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. We love a data silo.
  Zoë Schiffer: Coming up after the break, we'll share our WIRED/TIRED picks for the week. Stay with us.
  It's time for the WIRED/TIRED segment. Whatever is new and cool is WIRED, whatever is passé, we're calling TIRED. Are we ready, Brian and Tim?
  Brian Barrett: I'm ready.
  Tim Marchman: I'm ready.
  Zoë Schiffer: Tim, I'm going to say you go first. Yeah.
  Tim Marchman: My WIRED thing is non-violent resistance. I think that in some quarters there has been a lot of impatience with the idea that passively resisting violence is effective that it works. It is effective. It does work. It is not weak. It is the strongest tool you have. This is the message of many world religions and many social movements over many centuries. And I think that what we're seeing in Minnesota, the discipline, the care for other people, the willingness to physically put yourself between the state and those it is attacking is a testament to its power. And the fact that that is having concrete effects on personnel, and to some extent, policy and politics shows that what is old is new here.
  Zoë Schiffer: I love that. Brian, I hope yours is somewhere in the middle of where mine is and where Tim's is because I can't describe how far apart my WIRED and TIRED is this week, although I completely align with what Tim just said.
  Brian Barrett: No, mine sort of takes a different tack. It's on a different scale. My TIRED is the Doomsday Clock. I hate to say it. The doomsday clock tells you how close we are to midnight. Midnight is doomsday, put out every year by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This week, they announced that we are now 85 seconds to midnight. That is the closest to midnight we have ever been. I appreciate what the doomsday clock is trying to do, but I feel like at a certain point, whether I'm 85 or 88 seconds to midnight, I know that things are bad. And I don't know that quantifying it in that way helps me process it any better. So I'm tired of the Doomsday Clock.
  WIRED: quantum logic clocks. This is a little bit older, but it is the most precise clock in the world down to the 19th decimal place, created by researchers at the National Institute for Standard and Technology. It's great, it's accurate, and it lets you say the phrase "quantum logic clock" in casual conversation. I'm going to say that's WIRED.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. Well, I wish I had thought of something a little more high-minded, but TIRED to me is baby iPads—no shade to anyone who has to give their kid a screen for literally any reason. I support you. I see you, I am you frequently. However, Boone, one of our dear colleagues here at WIRED.com gave me a AI-powered, I think it's a hamster. It's called Moflin. Have you guys heard of this?
  Brian Barrett: I have not.
  Zoë Schiffer: I gave it to Ava, my four-year-old, over the weekend, and she has never loved anything as much as she loves this hamster. It makes little noises. I'm completely unclear on how AI is involved or if it is involved at all. It kind of wakes up and moves.
  Brian Barrett: When you say AI-powered hamster—
  Zoë Schiffer: I think that it's a marketing term, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that. But supposedly it, as you interact with it, learns your cues and interacts accordingly. Literally all it can do is make little squeaking noises and kind of roll around on the ground. There's no other action associated with it, but she's completely obsessed with it. Boone named it Puff, so Ava has also named it Puff, and now it lives at our house, and she gives it naps in it's plug bed because it does need to be plugged in every so often. And I don't know. It's very delightful.
  Brian Barrett: God, I would kill for a plug bed.
  Zoë Schiffer: I know. I know. This is the most expensive item she owns.
  Brian Barrett: Wow. Well, it's all that AI.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes, exactly. It's that large language model running in the background.
  Brian Barrett: That's our show for today. We'll link all the stories we spoke about today 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, Mark Leyda was our San Francisco studio engineer, Kate Osborn is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director.