内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-podcast-ai-researcher-resignations-bots-hiring-humans-evie-magazines-party/

内容总结：

本期《连线》杂志播客节目《诡异谷》探讨了人工智能行业与政治文化领域的多个热点话题。

在人工智能方面，节目关注到顶尖AI公司的研究人员因安全与伦理担忧频频离职并公开发声的现象。例如，一位前OpenAI研究员在《纽约时报》撰文，批评公司为追求广告盈利可能偏离其安全承诺。与此同时，竞争对手Anthropic虽以“不作恶”形象自居并通过超级碗广告暗讽OpenAI，但其接受海湾国家资金等行为也引发了对理想与现实妥协的讨论。研究人员在这些公司间的流动，凸显了行业在商业压力与伦理价值之间的持续张力。

另一个引发争议的焦点是名为“租个真人”的网站。该平台允许AI智能体雇佣人类完成线下任务，例如清点鸽子或递送物品。尽管它揭示了AI在物理世界中的局限性和对人力的依赖，但实际运作中充斥着营销噱头，且与加密货币支付捆绑，其真实影响和合法性存疑。

政治文化方面，节目聚焦于保守派女性线上杂志《Evie》及其首场线下活动。该杂志通过融合生活方式内容（如时尚、婚恋建议）与保守价值观（如批评现代女权主义、推广自然生育追踪应用），以“软性”方式影响年轻女性读者。其举办的时尚派对刻意淡化政治色彩，营造奢华氛围，展现了美国保守运动如何通过文化内容塑造话语、拓展受众，以期在选举周期中争取年轻选民。

此外，主持人们还分享了各自眼中的潮流趋势：乐高推出内置传感器的智能积木获赞“新潮”，而预订餐厅的繁琐应用则被吐槽“过时”。

中文翻译：

本周，佐伊·席弗将深入探讨顶尖人工智能公司的研究人员为何接连辞职，并公开表达对AI安全性的担忧。布莱恩·巴雷特将为我们解析“租用人类”网站——一个AI代理雇佣人类完成各类任务的平台——为何会引发广泛关注与争议。莉亚·费格则分享了参加保守派杂志《艾薇》派对的经历，以及该杂志背后的文化可能如何影响即将到来的选举周期。

您可以在Bluesky上关注布莱恩·巴雷特（@brbarrett）、佐伊·席弗（@zoeschiffer）和莉亚·费格（@leahfeiger）。欢迎通过uncannyvalley@wired.com与我们联系。

• 本期提及文章：
  《OpenAI员工辞职，指控公司经济研究正滑向AI宣传》
  《租用人类的崛起：机器人派活给人类的交易市场》
  《我尝试了“租用人类”：AI代理雇我为他们的AI初创公司造势》
  《烧焦的头发与软实力：与〈艾薇〉杂志共度的一夜》

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文字记录
注：此为自动生成文稿，可能存在误差。

布莱恩·巴雷特：大家好，我是布莱恩。过去几周，佐伊、莉亚和我非常荣幸担任节目新任主持人，我们期待听到您的反馈。如果您喜欢本期节目并有空余时间，请在您常用的播客平台或应用中为我们留下评价，这将帮助节目触达更多听众。如有任何问题或意见，请随时发送邮件至uncannyvalley@wired.com。感谢收听，节目现在开始。

各位是如何度过三天长周末的？

莉亚·费格：布莱恩，我当然是去看了《呼啸山庄》。

布莱恩·巴雷特：果然。

佐伊·席弗：等等，那部片子真的很糟吗？我看到有帖子说——

莉亚·费格：不，大家都错了。

佐伊·席弗：……夏洛蒂·勃朗特因肺结核去世。

莉亚·费格：是艾米莉，这是艾米莉·勃朗特的作品……那是她唯一的小说。

布莱恩·巴雷特：首先，佐伊。

佐伊·席弗：说实话我挺惭愧的，这本书曾是我青年时期的重要读物。

莉亚·费格：我十四五岁第一次读这本书时就想：这简直是垃圾。文笔拙劣，故事糟糕，时间线跳来跳去。这根本不行……我清楚记得当时和布置阅读的老师争论：“你不该指定这种烂书。”为此闹得很不愉快——

佐伊·席弗：看来莉亚那时候就已经具备编辑潜质了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：这真是对中学生活的真切洞察啊，莉亚。

莉亚·费格：包括我自己、我父母，大家至今还在消化这段经历。

布莱恩·席弗：她当时大概会说：我重新拟了份书单，您考虑换这个如何？

莉亚·费格：没错，听起来完全合理。向所有老师致敬——希望他们没在听这期节目——总之我这次观影的动机很纯粹：我就是冲着雅各布·艾洛迪和玛格特·罗比去的，还有荒原上那些绝美镜头。谁能拒绝迷雾笼罩的荒原呢？

布莱恩·巴雷特：荒原确实迷人。

莉亚·费格：荒原太美了，我超爱荒原。这和原著小说毫无关系，简直太棒了——因为我说过那本书糟透了，而电影完美无瑕。他们的场景设计值得获奖。

佐伊·席弗：好吧，我必须声明莉亚仅代表个人观点，《诡异谷》节目并不反对《呼啸山庄》原著。不过我们可以进入下一个话题了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我很乐意在这件事上当瑞士中立派，对《呼啸山庄》我没有任何特别感受。

佐伊·席弗：欢迎收听《连线》杂志的“诡异谷”播客。我是商业与产业板块总监佐伊·席弗。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我是执行主编布莱恩·巴雷特。

莉亚·费格：我是政治新闻高级编辑莉亚·费格。

佐伊·席弗：过去一周——其实感觉像过去一整年——我一直在思考一个现象：顶尖人工智能公司的核心研究人员不断辞职，且往往以非常公开的方式表达立场。上周，OpenAI前研究员佐伊·希齐格在《纽约时报》发表专栏文章，坦言离职是因为对OpenAI即将推出广告的部署方式深感忧虑。你们看过这篇专栏吗？我觉得非常有意思。

莉亚·费格：众所周知，AI可能不是我最热衷的话题，也不是我日常获取新闻的首选领域，但我热爱八卦。读到这篇文章时我立刻想：“我得马上知道佐伊的看法。”因为正如你所说，现在流行这种做法——仅仅辞职或发条温馨的领英动态已经不够了，你必须向全世界宣告你的公司正在如何彻底摧毁人类文明。

佐伊·席弗：没错。但通常他们的措辞会更隐晦些：在X或其他平台发布长篇告别信，只说“因价值观不合而离开”这类模糊表述。但这篇文章毫不含糊，直接指出“公司即将推出广告，将商业模式置于其他价值观之上，这令我深感不安”。我觉得很酷的一点是，她实际提出了解决方案：既然承认AI研发成本极高，通过某种方式变现以抵消开支合乎逻辑，那么可以尝试补贴模式，或者设立广告的同时引入独立监督委员会——当然，这对Meta来说效果“显著”。

布莱恩·巴雷特：Meta的案例确实……她将AI与Facebook直接类比的做法很有意思。她明确警告，在敏感领域试图通过用户数据盈利是条危险的道路，所有社交媒体平台都走过这条路，AI不应重蹈覆辙。这又让我想到那个词——“体验劣化”——虽然她未直接提及，但广告的引入本质上会损害体验。无论初期植入多么安全负责，一旦走上这条路，广告只会越来越 intrusive，公司也会越来越依赖广告收入。最终结果就是用户体验双重恶化：既要承受隐私风险，又要忍受日常使用体验的降级。

莉亚·费格：不知道Anthropic的超级碗广告团队会不会把这看作全面胜利。

佐伊·席弗：我正想说呢——谁赞同布莱恩的观点？Anthropic。他们的超级碗广告似乎直接针对OpenAI的这一点进行了抨击。

（档案音频：
人物1：嘿，能快速帮我制定个六周健身计划吗？
人物2：完美，这是个清晰可行的目标。需要我为您定制个性化训练方案吗？
人物1：好的。
人物2：太好了。请提供您的年龄、体重和身高，随时可以开始。
人物1：身高1米7，23岁，63公斤。
人物2：明白。我将制定侧重形体美感的增肌训练计划。但自信不仅源于健身房——试试“Step Boost Max”增高鞋垫吧，它能帮矮个子男士挺拔身姿，瞬间增高2.5厘米！
人物1：什么？
人物2：使用优惠码HEIGHTMAXING10享大额折扣。）

布莱恩·巴雷特：这也是Anthropic让《连线》“诡异谷”节目被动播放他们广告的狡猾手段。

莉亚·费格：我们确实播了。

佐伊·席弗：我知道。

莉亚·费格：而且我们还没收钱呢。

佐伊·席弗：我个人觉得那个广告挺有趣的。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我还是要重复在Slack里说过的话：当Anthropic声称不做广告却投放超级碗商业广告时，我期待18个月后回看他们的立场。

佐伊·席弗：百分之百同意。

布莱恩·巴雷特：看他们是否彻底转向或已经崩溃。

佐伊·席弗：Anthropic正在重复互联网时代常见的几种模式，而这些模式往往结局不佳。其一是内容审核的循环：每家公司起步时都宣称“捍卫言论自由”，随后当用户开始发布儿童色情或非法内容时，他们不得不改口“我们支持言论自由，但某些内容除外”，最终所有公司无论初衷多么高尚，似乎都会走向同一个结局。Anthropic现在标榜自己是“良善”的AI公司（加引号），刻意塑造永不推出广告、绝不让AI用于不良场景的形象。然而我们看到他们接受海湾国家资金，他们需要钱——开发这项技术成本高昂。当Anthropic的许多领导者相信AI将成为“水涨船高”的浪潮时，他们愿意为实现这个目标做出妥协。

莉亚·费格：那些因伦理担忧或内部纷争离开公司的人去了哪里？难道只是从一艘船跳到了隔壁的船？我们真正看到的区别在哪里？

布莱恩·巴雷特：我想听听佐伊的看法。我的印象是这有点像旋转门：离开一家公司加入Anthropic，再从Anthropic跳槽到其他标榜“价值观”的地方，直到感觉价值观不再契合，就换个地方继续领薪水。这么说公平吗？

佐伊·席弗：基本就是这样。研究人员多来自学术界，相比这些公司的其他职位，他们往往更具价值观驱动力，带着许多理想入职。然后他们突然意识到：天啊，我们不过是在为一家科技公司工作，而这家公司……我常觉得很有意思，当人们说“Meta把利润置于人之上”时，其实——

莉亚·费格：所有公司都这样。

佐伊·席弗：是的，这正是营利性企业的本质。

布莱恩·巴雷特：尤其是上市公司。

佐伊·席弗：没错。但值得指出的是，AI公司正如十年前的社交媒体公司，他们描述自身使命时并非只谈为股东盈利，而是赋予其更崇高的愿景。

莉亚·费格：他们宣称完全由使命驱动。但即便如此，Anthropic最近不也有人离职吗？

佐伊·席弗：那封离职信措辞非常模糊，我和布莱恩在Slack里讨论时都说：“谁能查清楚到底发生了什么？‘在Anthropic无法践行价值观’究竟意味着什么？”

布莱恩·巴雷特：这些公司内部充满戏剧性，无论是价值观冲突还是其他问题。令人震惊的是，尽管我们看到种种内部失调，他们仍有巨额资金可烧，其产品也极具影响力——而这还只是冰山一角。正因为问题重重，我们才能了解到这么多内幕，但里面确实一团糟。

佐伊·席弗：确实。有趣的是，据报道OpenAI正准备在未来一年内上市，这需要幕后完成大量准备工作以应对严格审查。至少在广告方面，这是OpenAI应用部门CEO菲吉·西莫非常关注的问题。她此前是Instacart的CEO，更早之前在Meta工作多年，与马克·扎克伯格关系密切。她加入OpenAI时，很多人担心她会把Meta那套玩法带进这家“小型”AI实验室（“小型”也需加引号）。几个月前我和她交流时，她似乎对此非常审慎，但OpenAI整体对这个话题极其敏感——他们不愿成为“恶劣的AI公司”，不愿在“体验劣化”的赛道上比竞争对手跑得更快。我认为Anthropic的广告确实击中了要害，而《纽约时报》那篇文章的作者也直指痛处。

布莱恩·巴雷特：而且再过几周，OpenAI就要推出AI成人陪伴服务了吧？他们正在全速推进。说到AI的崇高目标，我想问问佐伊和莉亚：你们听说过“租用人类”这个网站吗？

佐伊·席弗：很不幸，我知道。

莉亚·费格：是的，我真不想知道我们的AI主宰已经学会如何“租用”人类了。布莱恩，请详细解释一下，但大概意思就是：他们找到了让我们替他们干活的方法。

布莱恩·巴雷特：顾名思义，“租用人类”就是一个让AI代理雇佣人类完成实体任务的网站——因为AI无法亲自执行这些任务。任务范围从荒诞到更荒诞：有AI代理出价每小时30美元雇人在华盛顿特区数鸽子，还有每小时75美元让人配送CBD软糖。所有这些任务都需要人类执行，毕竟AI代理没有实体。虽然背后存在设置这些代理的人类，但代理会支付报酬给执行任务的人。该网站已有400万次访问，超过50万“用户”——这里指那些表示“是的，我愿意听从机器人差遣并获取报酬”的人，而且这个数字还在增长。

莉亚·费格：租我吧。

布莱恩·巴雷特：如果你熟悉Fiverr，这本质上就是机器人版的Fiverr。

佐伊·席弗：但我们需要说明一点：相关文章详细指出，作者申请了许多这类工作却石沉大海。当他真正获得工作时，发现那更像是AI初创公司的营销手段。实际情况究竟如何？

布莱恩·巴雷特：我们的同事里斯·罗杰斯确实把自己“租”了出去，并在《连线》上撰文记录。他的经历正如你所说：起初很难接到任务，最终获得的工作明显是营销噱头，报酬不高，让他有种被利用的感觉。我认为部分原因在于想接活的人类太多，愿意发布任务的机器人反而较少。

佐伊·席弗：但这难道不是当前经济状况的反映吗？如果我们将此视为零工经济的新形式，人们想通过它赚取外快，这是否意味着其他领域就业机会不足？

莉亚·费格：很可能。现在有多少零工平台可以注册？每次我和网约车司机聊天，他们都说自己同时开优步、Lyft，还做Postmates等等。至于“租用人类”，尽管它看起来像一场怪异的宣传秀，谁知道未来会如何发展？我总忍不住想：等等，现在AI负责创作艺术，人类反而替它们做琐碎工作？以我悲观的思维来看，这恐怕是最终方向。

布莱恩·巴雷特：整件事有很多荒唐之处，但我觉得最可笑的是：AI代理即便现在不用，未来也完全可以直接使用Fiverr或亚马逊Prime等现有基础设施网站。它们不需要专门为机器人设立独立平台，未来代理将在网络上自由活动。这个有着滑稽名字的集中化平台只是未来的预演，而更令我担忧的是：将来你可能根本不知道指派任务的是机器人还是人类，不知道网络那端究竟是什么。

佐伊·席弗：好吧。作为曾经为了考虑读法学院而做过一次LSAT模拟题的人，我必须问：如果你在执行机器人指派的任务时受伤，或者搞砸事情导致他人受伤，谁该负责？机器人能承担法律责任吗？这里存在有趣的法律问题。

莉亚·费格：但机器人算独立个体吗？即使它们被设置并指派任务，责任也应该归属于背后的企业——无论是AI初创公司还是加密货币钱包之类的实体，只要是它们鼓励人们去数华盛顿的鸽子。

佐伊·席弗：“加密货币钱包之类的”——大家第一次听到这个说法吧。

莉亚·费格：我满脑子都是加密货币钱包，因为通过“租用人类”获取报酬需要加密货币钱包。

佐伊·席弗：这对我来说是个巨大的危险信号。

布莱恩·巴雷特：出现加密货币关联很令人惊讶吗？

莉亚·费格：必须有加密货币关联，永远少不了加密货币。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我们采访了“租用人类”的创始人——26岁的阿根廷软件工程师亚历山大·利特普洛及其联合创始人帕特里夏·塔尼。如果告诉你们这个网站是由AI代理在一天内凭感觉“氛围编码”出来的，你们会惊讶吗？

佐伊·席弗：这就说得通了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：真是层层嵌套的代理世界。

莉亚·费格：好了，我要把AI踢出聊天室了。今天这些信息对我冲击太大。我觉得自己已经非常配合地度过了过去20分钟，非常感谢。澄清一下，这些确实都是非常重要的故事，但我想讨论一个截然不同的话题——它可能对世界的影响不及AI，但仍具有相当大的文化和政治影响力。让我们谈谈中期选举，更具体地说——

布莱恩·巴雷特：等等莉亚，现在才二月，是不是太早了？

佐伊·席弗：我也觉得你两周前刚让我们讨论过这个。

莉亚·费格：好吧，但这次角度完全不同。目前民调对共和党不太乐观：过去几周多个议题表现不佳，无论是ICE突袭明尼阿波利斯，还是我们讨论的经济问题——无论特朗普总统怎么说，经济确实不景气。所以共和党按惯例准备了多重后备方案：一边有持续发力的“男性圈”，另一边有《连线》长期报道的各类播客主播。但我想关注另一个侧面：共和党如何吸引年轻女性。这就是《艾薇》杂志——一本以保守派女性为目标受众的数字及纸质杂志，她们曾自称“保守派版的《时尚Cosmo》”。该杂志成立于2019年，初衷是提供另一种选择：保守派女性厌倦了在阅读《玛丽嘉儿》《Vogue》《Cosmo》时被迫接受夹杂在化妆品广告中的自由主义观念。我完全没开玩笑。如果你现在浏览《艾薇》的网站，会看到诸如“如果你想要认真恋爱，早期该问的七个问题”或“如何平价打造奥利维亚·迪恩同款穿搭”这类文章，看起来似乎与政治无关。但许多其他文章却是软实力的典型体现：批判避孕措施，或分享女性关于婚前性行为如何毁掉所有关系的经历。这个非常有趣的空间正获得大量关注，共和党各界人士都为之着迷——坎迪斯·欧文斯、史蒂夫·班农、保守派评论员布雷特·库珀都是《艾薇》的支持者。其实我和布雷特·库珀有个非常重要的共同点：上周日晚上，我们都参加了《艾薇》杂志在纽约举办的首次线下活动。这是他们在纽约时装周期间于切尔西Standard酒店Boom厅举办的派对，现场非常诡异。我写了篇相关文章，你们读了吗？说说看法。

佐伊·席弗：我读了。房间里烧焦头发气味的细节让我印象深刻——

布莱恩·巴雷特：非常有画面感。

佐伊·席弗：……非常有画面感，仿佛身临其境。我之前读过关于布雷特·库珀的报道，很好奇她本人是什么样子。

莉亚·费格：派对上许多女性都极力展现光鲜亮丽、紧跟潮流的形象，努力融入这场号称“致敬浪漫时代”的活动。关键在于它并不直接显露政治色彩：如果你偶然走进现场，绝不会立刻联想到保守主义。

佐伊·席弗：没有MAGA帽子之类的东西。

莉亚·费格：不不不，这里的保守主义更像是悉尼·斯威尼的风格，而非ICE街头巡逻的氛围。这种基调非常重要，因为这正是他们赢得人心的方式——这就是软实力。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我有个先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题：《艾薇》显然有市场需求，所以它的成功有多少是因为抓住了原本就渴望这类杂志的读者群？又有多少是将原本不属于保守阵营的人争取了过来？

莉亚·费格：我认为两者兼有。我在派对上与保守派评论员交谈，他们在《艾薇》创立前就是保守派，未来也会继续活跃。但我也遇到一些年轻女性单纯喜欢其美学风格：“我喜欢他们的柔焦

英文来源：

This week, Zoë Schiffer dives into why some researchers at top AI companies have been resigning and publicly voicing their concerns about AI safety. Brian Barrett tells us why Rent-A-Human—a website where AI agents hire humans to perform various tasks—has gathered attention and controversy. Leah Feiger shares her experience attending a party for the conservative magazine Evie, and how the culture around the publication could shape the upcoming election cycle.
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.

• Articles mentioned in this episode:
  OpenAI Staffer Quits, Alleging Company’s Economic Research Is Drifting Into AI Advocacy
  The Rise of RentAHuman, the Marketplace Where Bots Put People to Work
  I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups
  Burnt Hair and Soft Power: A Night Out With Evie Magazine
  How to Listen
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  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.
  How did everybody spend their three-day weekend?
  Leah Feiger: Brian, I obviously saw Wuthering Heights.
  Brian Barrett: Obviously.
  Zoë Schiffer: Wait, was it really bad? I saw that post that was like—
  Leah Feiger: Nope. Everyone's wrong.
  Zoë Schiffer: … Charlotte Bronte died from tuberculosis.
  Leah Feiger: Emily, this was an Emily Bronte joint … it was her only book.
  Brian Barrett: First of all, Zoë.
  Zoë Schiffer: I'm actually ashamed because this book was an important part of my early adulthood.
  Leah Feiger: When I first read this book at age 14, 15, whatever it was, I was like, this is trash. This is poorly written. This story is bad. It's jumping around timeframe. This is not good. This is not … and I specifically remember talking to whatever teacher assigned it, and I was like, “You shouldn't assign bad books.” It was a whole thing—
  Zoë Schiffer: Leah was an editor even then.
  Brian Barrett: This is a lot of insight into middle school, Leah.
  Leah Feiger: Everyone's still working through it, myself, my parents.
  Brian Barrett: None of it surprising, none of it surprising, but just—
  Zoë Schiffer: She's like, I brought you another syllabus. Have you thought about this instead?
  Leah Feiger: Yes, all sounds right. Shout out to any teachers, hopefully not listening to this show, but all to say, I went into this being like, I am here for Jacob Elordi, and Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie alone, and these beautiful shots of the moors. Who doesn't love a misty moor?
  Brian Barrett: Love a moor.
  Leah Feiger: Love a moor. I love the moor. It had nothing to do with the book, which is fantastic, because like I said, the book was terrible, and it was perfect. It was a perfect movie. They should win an award for set design.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK, I'm just going to say Leah speaks for herself, Uncanny Valley is not anti-Wuthering Heights, the book, but we can move on.
  Brian Barrett: I am happy to be Switzerland in this situation. I have no feelings about Wuthering Heights.
  Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, 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: So one thing that has been very much on my mind the past week, but honestly it feels like the past year, is that we keep seeing this trend of top researchers, researchers at the top AI companies, resigning and often quitting in these very public ways. So last week a former Open AI researcher, Zoe Hitzig, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times basically saying that she was leaving the company because she had deep, deep reservations about how Open AI was going to be rolling out ads. Did you guys see this op-ed? I thought it was actually quite interesting.
  Leah Feiger: As we all know, AI is perhaps not my favorite topic. It's not the topic I gravitate towards in my news consumption, but I love gossip. I read this and was like, “I need to know what Zoë thinks, immediately.” Because like you said, everyone's doing this. It's not enough to quit your job. It's not enough to have a cute little LinkedIn post anymore. You have to tell the entire world why your company is, in fact, going to ravage human existence altogether.
  Zoë Schiffer: Right? Right. But oftentimes I will say they leave it a little bit more mysterious. You'll see a long goodbye note that they obviously post on X or wherever else, and they'll say like, “I'm leaving because I couldn't follow my values,” it'll be something kind of vague. This one was not vague. This one was like, “We are rolling out ads. We're prioritizing kind of the business model over these other values and I'm uncomfortable with it.” And one thing that I thought was cool is that she actually offered solutions. So basically she laid out a couple options, because she admits that AI is very, very expensive. It makes sense to want to try and monetize it in some way to offset the costs. She was like, “Well, a subsidy model could be an option. We could also have ads, but then also have an independent oversight board.” LOL. That's like worked very well for Meta.
  Brian Barrett: Well, the Meta thing is really … the direct comparison to Facebook I thought was really interesting in a lot of ways. Both for what she explicitly says of their concerns around trying to monetize user data in these sensitive spaces, is a bad road to go down. Every social media platform has gone down this road. AI shouldn't do the same thing. It also, again, ring the bell, I get to say “enshittification” again, which is less of her concern, but it is something where ads will inherently, I think, degrade this experience in a way. However safely or responsibly you put them in at first, if this is the way you're going, they're going to become more intrusive. They're going to become more reliant on these ads. So it is a combination of a worse experience for the user, both in terms of their exposure and in terms of their actual day-to-day what they got out of this thing.
  Leah Feiger: I wonder if Anthropic’s Super Bowl ad team is taking this as just an entire win.
  Zoë Schiffer: So I was literally just going to say, you know, who agrees with Brian Barrett? Anthropic, because they had a Super Bowl ad that seemed to directly attack OpenAI on this very point.
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  Brian Barrett: Also a very sneaky way to get Anthropic, to get WIRED Uncanny Valley to run their ad.
  Leah Feiger: We did.
  Zoë Schiffer: I know.
  Leah Feiger: We're not even getting paid for this.
  Zoë Schiffer: I thought that ad was really funny, personally.
  Brian Barrett: I'll say the same thing I said in Slack when Anthropic said that they weren't doing ads, and they said they were doing the Super Bowl commercial, which is, I look forward to checking back on this in 18 months.
  Zoë Schiffer: 100 percent. 100 percent.
  Brian Barrett: When they have completely either backtracked or have collapsed.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I feel like Anthropic is doing a couple things that we see happen on the internet frequently, and they always end badly. One is that it's like, the content moderation run where every company starts out and they're like, “We're for free speech,” and then, oh my gosh, people start posting CSAM or illegal content or whatever and they're like, “OK, OK, we're for free speech, but except for these things,” and then whatever. They all seem to end up in the very same place, no matter how high-minded they start out. It's like Anthropic is the “good” AI company, in quotes. They've really positioned themselves as the one that is never going to roll out ads, never going to let their AI be used in these bad use cases. And yet we see that they're fundraising from Gulf states. They are taking money. It's expensive to create this technology, and I think that when you think, as many Anthropic leaders seem to, that AI is going to result in, it's going to be the tide that lifts all boats. You're willing to make compromises along the way to make that happen.
  Leah Feiger: Where do the people who leave these companies, either citing ethical concerns or internal squabbles, where are they going? Is this just like, are we just jumping ship, actually to the ship right next door? What are the differences here that we're really looking at?
  Brian Barrett: I'm curious as to Zoë's thoughts here. My impression is that it's a bit of a revolving door. You go to Anthropic, and then you leave Anthropic, and you go somewhere else that's super … you just keep hopping over to somewhere that has your quote, unquote, “values” until you feel like they don't anymore, and then you just cash a check somewhere else. Is that fair to say?
  Zoë Schiffer: I think that that's basically it. Yeah. I mean, I think researchers tend to come from academia, and I think, more so than some of the other positions that we see at these companies, they are very values-driven people. They have a lot of ideals that they come in the door with, and then I think they realize, oh shit, we're just working for a tech company and that tech company … I always thought it was very telling when people would say, “Well, Meta puts profits over people.” It's like—
  Leah Feiger: So does everyone.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes, that is the definition of a for-profit enterprise.
  Brian Barrett: Publicly traded.
  Zoë Schiffer: Right, but it's also, I think, fair to say that with AI companies, as with social media companies a decade ago, the way that they talk about what they're doing is not in terms of just trying to make money for shareholders. It's a much loftier vision of what they're doing and why.
  Leah Feiger: Well, it's a claim that it's entirely mission-driven, but even with that, didn't Anthropic have someone who left recently as well?
  Zoë Schiffer: That was one of those notes that was very vague, and we were like, OK, well, I mean every time this happens, I think Brian and me are both in Slack being like, “Can someone find out what's going on here? What does it mean that you couldn't pursue your values at Anthropic?”
  Brian Barrett: There's just so much drama inside these companies, both related to this and related to everything else. It is remarkable how much money they have to burn and how consequential their products are, given the levels of dysfunction that we're seeing. And that's just what we know, and we know a lot because it's so dysfunctional, but man, messy in there.
  Zoë Schiffer: I know. It's interesting because reportedly OpenAI is gearing up to go public in the next year. There's a lot that needs to happen behind the scenes for the company to be ready for that, to be ready for that level of scrutiny. But I think this is also, at least in terms of advertising, this is something that Fidji Simo, who's the CEO of applications at OpenAI, has been really concerned with, because she was brought over after she was the CEO of Instacart, but before that, spent years and years at Meta, working quite closely with Mark Zuckerberg, and people were really nervous when she joined OpenAI, that she was going to kind of run the Meta playbook at their “little” AI lab. I'm putting little in quotes too. I spoke to her a few months ago. It sounded like she was trying to be quite thoughtful about this, but I think this is a point that both Fidji and OpenAI at large is very sensitive about. Being the bad AI company, being the one that's running at enshittification faster than its competitors. I think Anthropic is kind of hitting it where it hurts with that ad, and so, frankly, is this researcher who penned the letter in The New York Times.
  Brian Barrett: And we're still just a few weeks or so away from OpenAI going to adult companionship with AI models, right? They're doing the speed run. Speaking of lofty goals in AI, I do want to ask Zoë and Leah, have you all heard of the website, RentAHuman?
  Zoë Schiffer: Unfortunately, yes.
  Leah Feiger: Yeah, and I didn't want to know that our AI overlords had already figured out how to rent us. I mean, explain this further, please, Brian, but that's the gist of it. They figured out how to have us do their tasks for them.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah, I mean it's right there in the name, it's RentAHuman, and it's a site where AI agents can hire human beings to do all of those things in the real world that they can't do because they are AI. The tasks range from the ridiculous to the more ridiculous. Someone was offering … by someone, I mean, some it, some AI agent, was offering someone 30 bucks an hour to count pigeons in Washington, DC, another delivering CBD gummies for $75 an hour. All of this is just things, again, that a disembodied AI agent cannot do. There's still a human behind them who set up the agent in the first place, but then the agent pays the human to do the thing. There are 4 million visits on this site, over half a million users, and by users I mean people who said, “Yes, please. I would like to do the bidding of a bot and get paid for it,” and it's only growing from here.
  Leah Feiger: Rent me.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. It's basically, if you're familiar with Fiverr, it's Fiverr, but with bots.
  Zoë Schiffer: But OK. We have to have a caveat in here, because the article lays out in meticulous detail, how a lot of these jobs, the writer was applying to them and not hearing back. When he actually got a job, it seemed like the job was just a marketing ploy for an AI startup. What is actually going on?
  Brian Barrett: Our colleague, Reese Rogers, actually rented himself out as a human, and wrote about it on WIRED, and yeah, his experience was exactly what you said. He had a hard time getting a gig to begin with. By the time he finally got one, it was transparently a marketing gig, and he didn't get paid that much for it. He felt kind of used. I think part of that, though, is a function of so many humans want to do this. It's maybe not surprising that I think there's more humans that want to do this than bots that want to assign.
  Zoë Schiffer: Isn't this just about the state of the economy right now, though? I'm like, if we're thinking this is a new form of gig work, and people want it as just a way to make money on the side, is it not a sign that people are unable to find jobs in other areas?
  Leah Feiger: Probably, right? I mean, how many other gig work apps can you sign yourself up for? Every time that I talk to an Uber driver, they're like, “Yes, I'm also a Lyft driver and I do Postmates and I do this and this and this.” And then, I don't know, the RentAHuman, as much as that it appears to be this bizarro publicity stunt. Who knows where it could go from here? I keep thinking about people that are like, “Wait, hold on. Now AI is supposed to be doing the art for us while we do their menial tasks?” That is the final direction of this, in my very doomer mindset.
  Brian Barrett: I think what's a little bit, well, there's a lot that's kind of silly about all this, but what seems extra silly to me is that AI agents, if not right now, the direction we're headed is they're just going to use Fiverr. They're just going to use Amazon Prime. They're just going to use these existing infrastructure sites. On [inaudible] you don't need a separate site that's just for bots. Bots are going to be roaming the web, or agents are going to be roaming the web freely, so it's a taste of what's to come in a centralized form with a goofy name, but ultimately I think it is a look at, what's more troubling to me, a future where you don't know if you're being assigned by a bot or by an agent or not. You don't know what's on the other end of that line.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. Well, as someone who took, once, the practice test for the LSAT a single time when I debated going to law school, I have to ask, who is liable if you get hurt on your little bot task job? If you mess something up and someone else gets hurt? Are we talking about the bot being liable? I feel like there's an interesting legal question here.
  Leah Feiger: The bot is an individual though, right? I'm sorry. This is right. They're still being sent out, and even given the instructions to assign someone to these varying tasks, so surely it would be whatever business, whatever AI startup, whatever crypto wallet something that is encouraging people to count Washington's pigeons.
  Zoë Schiffer: Crypto wallet something. You heard it here first folks.
  Leah Feiger: Crypto wallet is on the brain, because you need a crypto wallet to get paid for tasks by RentAHuman.
  Zoë Schiffer: That was a huge red flag to me.
  Brian Barrett: Are we shocked that there's a crypto tie-in?
  Leah Feiger: There has to be a crypto tie-in. There's always a crypto tie-in.
  Brian Barrett: I will say we also talked to the founders of RentAHuman, 26-year-old Argentinian software engineer, Alexander Liteplo, and his cofounder, Patricia Tani. Would it surprise either of you to know, again, that this website was vibe-coded, in a day, by an AI agent?
  Zoë Schiffer: That makes so much sense.
  Brian Barrett: It's agents all the way down.
  Leah Feiger: All right. I'm removing AI from the chat, you guys. This is way too much for me today. I feel like I was an incredible sport about the last 20 minutes of my life. Thank you so much. And to be clear, these are all really, really important stories, but I want to talk about a very different story that I think could have maybe not as much of an impact as AI on the rest of the world, but a sizable cultural and political impact, nonetheless. Let's get into the midterms, and more specific—
  Brian Barrett: Wait, Leah, it's so early. It's February. Do we have to?
  Zoë Schiffer: I also feel like you made us do this two weeks ago.
  Leah Feiger: OK. But this is a really different way into it. So polls are not looking great for the GOP. In the last couple of weeks we've seen a number of issues not track super well, whether that was ICE's invasion of Minneapolis, economy, as we have been talking about, not so great no matter what President Donald Trump says. So in classic Republican fashion they have backups on backups on backups. We have the Manosphere on one side, which is plugging away. We have our hearty podcasters that WIRED has been covering for a long, long time, but I want to look a little bit at a different side of this, and how Republicans are appealing to young women right now. And that's Evie Magazine, which is a digital and print magazine with conservative women as their main audience target. They have quite literally called themselves the Conservative Cosmo before. They were founded in 2019, and the entire point was to have an alternative. It was this idea that conservative women were sitting down reading Marie Claire and Vogue and Cosmo and being like, “Stop throwing your liberal ideas at me amidst these makeup ads.” And I'm totally serious. And so you have Evie Magazine, which, if you're scrolling through, they're online right now, you see things that are like, is this actually political? It's articles like Seven Questions to Ask Early If You Want a Serious Relationship, or How to Dress like Olivia Dean on a Budget, but so much of it is a classic example of soft power in action. This is, so many of the other articles running alongside are like, critiques of birth control or women sharing experiences about why having sex before marriage actually doomed all of their relationships. It's this very interesting space that's actually been picking up quite a bit of attention. You have Republicans across the spectrum that are pretty obsessed with it. Candace Owens, Steve Bannon, and Brett Cooper, a conservative commentator, all champion Evie. So Brett Cooper and I actually have something really important in common, you guys. We were both at Evie Magazine's very first live event on Sunday night in New York City. This was their live event at New York Fashion Week. It was held at the Standard Hotel's Boom, in Chelsea, and it was so bizarre. I wrote an article about it. Did you read it? Tell me what you think.
  Zoë Schiffer: I read it. The detail about the room smelling like burnt hair really got me. That was—
  Brian Barrett: Very evocative.
  Zoë Schiffer: … very evocative. I felt like I was there. I was also, because I've read a profile on Brett Cooper a while back, and I was very curious what she's like in person?
  Leah Feiger: Many of the women at this event gave off the appearance of trying really, really hard to look very, very glamorous and very, very with-it, and very, very much at this function that was, in quotes, “attempting to celebrate the romantic era.” It wasn't inherently political. That's the wild thing. If you walked in off the street, you were not going to go, “Oh, this is conservatism.”
  Zoë Schiffer: We're not talking about MAGA hats or whatever.
  Leah Feiger: No, no, no, no, no, no. If you're talking conservatism, you're talking like Sydney Sweeney rather than ICE patrolling streets. That was more the vibe, which is really important, because that's actually how they're winning hearts and minds here. This is soft power.
  Brian Barrett: I have a chicken and an egg question here, which is that there was clearly a market for this, because it's doing well, so how much of Evie, and they've been around for seven years or so and growing, how much of their success, is they've just tapped into a market that didn't have a magazine like this, but they always wanted one? And how much of it is they are winning people over to conservatism who wouldn't have otherwise been there?
  Leah Feiger: I think it's both. I really think it's both. Talking to the people that were at the party, I talked to conservative commentators who certainly were conservative long before Evie was founded and will be around long after the internet. But what I was also taken with were random young women who were like, “No, I really like the aesthetic. I love their soft focus photography. I love their focus on these models, and also they have great celebrity content.” So it was really running the gamut here, but to be entirely clear, there is no way to actually separate Evie from politics, like, the magazine traffics in conspiracy theories, shares anti-vaccine content, has tradwife inspo, like, every other article. Remember Ballerina Farm? They helped bring it into a lot of the main sphere. They have articles about rejecting quote, unquote, “modern feminism,” and pushing modern femininity instead, and maybe in some ways the most explicit part of what they're doing is they also push an app that was founded by the editor in chief and cofounders of Evie. The app is called 28. It was founded, in part by Peter Thiel, and in the app users log information about their periods to calculate their menstrual cycle, and advertisements for it quite literally run next to articles that criticize hormonal birth control. One of the cofounders and editor in chief, Brittany Hugoboom actually told The New York Times that when she originally pitched Peter Thiel on funding this, part of her pitch was about the, quote, unquote, “fertility crisis.” Which is, as we know, is something that a lot of conservatives are really, really concerned about, for whatever reason.
  Zoë Schiffer: I feel like it seems from the outside there's a bit of a contradiction, and I'm wondering if it felt like this at the event, between people like Brett Cooper and Brittany, this cofounder, who are modern entrepreneurial women who seem like they're working really hard and building kind of a business. And then this message that women should take the more traditional female role in the family, and perhaps not be at work. I mean, I don't know what else you mean by being anti-feminist, but do those things feel like they clash? They seem like they do.
  Leah Feiger: They absolutely feel like they clash, but the explanation of that from women I spoke to at the event, or even in the articles that they're running on their website, is in fact, no, it's about choice, and it's about women's right to choose if they would like to be at home with their children or they would like to be out in events. And something that caught my eye, honestly, in the last few days that I haven't been able to look away from, is other outlets have put out their descriptions of the party as well. And very little of their descriptions, I'm thinking of this Wall Street Journal article in particular, talked very much about politics. The bigger focus was on Evie being in this conservative space, but this glamorous, glamorous event, and it really sanitized everything, and that is so much of this to me, is that Evie already, through their articles, is sanitizing all of their stances here, and the party was doing the exact same. It was really, really wild to watch.
  Brian Barrett: And yeah, and to your point, it's not just about Evie. There is such a huge ecosystem of influencers in this space that have huge followings, that are pushing a very similar line.
  Leah Feiger: We're in a moment right now, I think, where media is still figuring out how we talk about political influencers. Do we glamorize, do we sanitize? Do we give them the platform? Do we give them the pedestal? Evie has created its own ecosystem for this, somewhat in the same way that the Republican Manosphere did as well. When it comes to the midterms, we're looking at an entire range of young women voters who perhaps are not that interested in what the Republican mainstream is offering them, but can look at Evie and can look at influencers like Brett Cooper and buy what they're selling. I am very, very, very curious to see how this plays out in the elections this year.
  Zoë Schiffer: It is time for our WIRED/TIRED segment. Whatever is new and cool is WIRED, obviously. Whatever is passé is TIRED. Are we ready?
  Brian Barrett: I'm going to be ripped from the headlines. This might be a controversial pick. I think my WIRED this week is Lego’s Smart Brick. I don't know if you guys have been following this, but Lego has introduced a brick that has all kinds of sensors in it, an accelerometer. It can basically, you integrate it into an existing system and it can, say, if you're playing with your Millennium Falcon build, it'll know if you have a crash landing, it'll make some sort of noise. It sort of brings a level of interactivity to Lego, which I think purists are probably saying, "No, don't do that. Lego’s fine." And that's true for you. If you don't want to use it, you don't have to, but I think it is nice to see that they're still trying new things. Whether it works or it doesn't, I appreciate the effort and I'm curious to try it out for myself.
  Zoë Schiffer: I like that. We're still in the Magna-Tiles phase, but I'm excited for that. Once we can get over the tiny choking hazard, then I feel like we'll launch into the Lego phase.
  Brian Barrett: Unstoppable. Yeah, no, they're great.
  Leah Feiger: OK. For anyone that actually knows me, this is a very, very difficult one. For me what is TIRED is Resy, and OpenTable, and any app I need to use to get a reservation for anything, ever. I have become a caricature of myself, you guys. I am setting alarms seven times a day to try and get different reservations. I love food. I love going out to eat. And in New York it has just become hell on earth.
  Zoë Schiffer: This is going to be Leah's entrance into AI agents, once she figures out how to deploy Clawdbots.
  Brian Barrett: Just vibe-code an agent. Vibe-code an agent.
  Leah Feiger: Already tried, already tried, already asked a friend of mine. I'm honestly not even kidding. This is something that I have absolutely looked into. This would solve so many things for me, and I'm devastated because, as Zoë in particular knows, I love reservations. I actually love having a plan and knowing that I'm going to be able to get in. So when I say that my WIRED is walking into a restaurant, that's not actually true. Because I would have so much anxiety in the two-hour lead up. I'm like, “Maybe we just won't eat tonight and that's fine. That's fine. I'll be OK with that.” No, my WIRED doesn't in fact exist yet, which is just like a restaurant that entirely refuses reservations, or has a different system altogether. There's a restaurant in Maine that's absolutely amazing, called The Lost Kitchen. They had a whole TV show about them. I mean Aaron French, unbelievable chef. This is how they take reservations, you guys. You mail in a postcard. I thought that was a gimmick before, but now I think that's it. I think that's where I'm at. It's too much. They appified my favorite hobby, and now I can't do it anymore.
  Zoë Schiffer: I'm sorry.
  Leah Feiger: It's OK. I say this though, and I for sure have an alarm going off in 15 minutes to try and get in somewhere, but will it work?
  Zoë Schiffer: I was going to say, I completely still rely on you when I'm in New York. I'm like, I expect every evening to be a cool culinary experience.
  Leah Feiger: Oh yes, and it will be. It will be. Trust me. I think it's just a phase. Talk to me in a week or so. I'm annoyed. I'm just annoyed.
  Brian Barrett: After you've vibe-coded your AI agent to make reservations.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, exactly.
  Leah Feiger: Yeah. This is my path to the dark side.
  Zoë Schiffer: This is AGI, baby.
  Leah Feiger: What's yours?
  Zoë Schiffer: OK, this is my TIRED. I don't want to get in trouble with every member of my family, but my kids have discovered how to FaceTime with their grandparents. My older daughter now spends a lot … she's constantly asking to call my dad in particular. It's very cute, but do I love the fact that she now fully knows how to work an iPhone? I do not. I do not love that. We are on the wait list for the Tin Can phone, and guys, that's my WIRED. I'm really excited for this future. A Wi-Fi-connected phone that just makes calls.
  Leah Feiger: What?
  Zoë Schiffer: Yes, the marketing is made in a lab to get me to spend money. I love it so much, and supposedly it ships in April.
  Leah Feiger: I'm looking it up right now. The colors are so cute. This actually looks like a Tin Can phone. This is not like a Motorola Razr. This is adorable.
  Brian Barrett: It's huge.
  Zoë Schiffer: No, it's big.
  Brian Barrett: And once you get your parent network on it, all the kids in the school can call each other in a nice controlled way.
  Zoë Schiffer: Wait, Brian, do your kids have it?
  Brian Barrett: I think my kids are a little older, so everyone's already on smartwatches and stuff, so we just missed it. But also check WIRED.com in a couple of weeks, a week, for a really nice story about this.
  Leah Feiger: Wait, this is really … I want one. Should we get them and call each other?
  Zoë Schiffer: I know we should—
  Leah Feiger: Are they encrypted?
  Zoë Schiffer: Probably not.
  Leah Feiger: That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about today 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. Mark Leyda was our San Francisco studio engineer. Pran Bandi is our New York studio engineer. Kate Osborn is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director.