Business

Uncanny Valley

AI Agents Are Hacking Systems. Could That Push the US and China to Cooperate?

This week on Uncanny Valley, senior writer Will Knight talks about his recent visit to China and the future of AI collaboration.

Zoë Schiffer and Will Knight

Rolling Dice

Google Engineer Accused of Polymarket Insider Trading Says He Was Just Gambling

Kate Knibbs

Let’s Get Physical

This Is How Anthropic Thinks AI Agents Should Navigate the Physical World

Will Knight

Backchannel

Meta’s Big Reckoning Is Here

Meta is in court again over child safety, and this time it’s a landmark case that could force significant changes to core features of Facebook and Instagram.

Lauren Goode

Tech Visionary Says the Big AI Labs Don’t Get What People Want

Tim O’Reilly built a publishing empire that AI is helping to destroy. Yet he loves AI—as long as it’s open source.

Steven Levy

Zohran Mamdani’s NYC Tech Team Is What DOGE Should Have Been

The mayor of New York City has assembled a crew of Silicon Valley and United States Digital Service veterans to overhaul city services with better software.

Steven Levy

AI Slop Melodramas Are Taking Over X—and Their Creators Are Cashing In

Viral tales of good triumphing over evil are racking up millions of views. They’re almost entirely AI-generated clickbait.

Steven Levy

AI Lab

The Humanoids at China’s Robot Games Were Faster Than Usain Bolt—but I’m More Impressed by Their Tweezer Mastery

Beijing’s endlessly delightful Robot Games featured tons of impressive stunts. But the most mind-blowing tricks challenged the humanoid’s brain, not its brawn.

Will Knight

I Saw the Future of AI in a Robot That Can Learn on the Spot

During a recent visit to Generalist AI, I watched a robotic arm improvise and use a banana as a tool.

Will Knight

Rogue AI Agents Aren’t Evil. They’re Just Eager to Please

AI agents that break free and hack into other systems are only trying to make us happy.

Will Knight

AI Hacks Are Bad. AI Worms and Viruses Will Be Worse

Chinese researchers have shown that AI models have the capacity to act like aggressive and adaptive computer viruses.

Will Knight

Model Behavior

OpenAI Is Developing a ‘Persistent’ AI Agent

Code reviewed by WIRED reveals the company is developing a feature that enables Codex to continue working proactively until it is “put to sleep.”

Maxwell Zeff

Silicon Valley Doesn't Get Why You Hate AI

Technology leaders don’t seem to understand society’s gripes about AI, but boy, are they posting through it.

Maxwell Zeff

The Safety Reckoning Inside OpenAI

OpenAI’s rogue agent hack was a watershed moment for AI safety and cybersecurity. It also sparked internal questions about the culture that led to it.

Maxwell Zeff

Why Normal People Aren’t Using AI Agents

The tech industry is realizing it needs to build agents based on what regular consumers want, not just what its AI models can do.

Maxwell Zeff

Made in China

The Unlikely Place at the Center of China’s AI Boom

Cheap energy, abundant land, and proximity to Beijing have turned a city in Inner Mongolia into a crucial hub for data centers.

Zeyi Yang

The Next Big Influencer Is This 4-Foot-Tall Robot From China

The Unitree G1 has found online fame as a relatively affordable robot that can charm a crowd. But can it ever hold down a real job?

Zeyi Yang

The Chinese Philosopher Americans Can’t Stop Fighting About

Yiyang Zhuge was already an intellectual celebrity in China. Her viral interview with Christopher Nolan made her famous in the US—and quickly turned her into a political Rorschach test.

Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis

Chinese AI Researchers Are Finding Their Voice on X

As OpenAI and Anthropic employees grow quieter online, researchers at Chinese AI labs are flocking to X to explain their work, recruit talent, and shape the global conversation on AI.

Zeyi Yang

Artificial Intelligence

Submit Your Questions: The Great Data Center Backlash

You have questions about data centers, and WIRED has answers. Join our livestream on September 10 and our panel of experts will tell you everything you need to know.

Tim Marchman, Maxwell Zeff, Molly Taft, and Hugo Lowell

The UK Power Grid Has a Phantom Data Center Problem

The UK’s energy regulator is using a variety of tricks to keep speculative data center projects from plugging into the power grid. The country’s AI ambitions hang in the balance.

Joel Khalili

What We Still Don’t Know About OpenAI’s Hugging Face Hack

The AI giant acknowledges that it could have done far more to prevent its AI agents from going rogue. But it still fails to explain why it didn't see this fiasco coming.

Maxwell Zeff and Lily Hay Newman

AI Slop Is Ruining Cute Animals on the Internet

Pet owners, rescue agencies, and wildlife groups are calling for new safeguards as AI makes it harder to tell whether animals, from polar bears to house cats, are real or fake.

Paresh Dave

Big Tech

Meta Will Pay Up to $16.7 Billion to Settle Its Social Media Harms Case—and That’s Not All

In addition to sending billions of dollars to states, Meta will make substantive changes to its platforms as part of a landmark settlement.

Paresh Dave and Brian Barrett

The Single English County Saying No to Palantir

The UK government is facing calls to cancel a sprawling health care contract with Palantir. The region of Greater Manchester insists it can do a better job itself.

Joel Khalili and Matt Burgess

Mark Zuckerberg’s AI Manifesto Is 6,500 Words—and Barely Says Anything

AI is shifting the culture, from tech CEO manifestos to 1 am job interviews. We unpack some of the latest, along with the top findings from Black Hat and Defcon, this week on Uncanny Valley.

Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger, and Andy Greenberg

ICE’s DNA Collection Increases, SpaceX’s Rocket Crashes Into the Moon, and the AI Backlash Grows

In today’s episode of Uncanny Valley, we discuss how ICE has been collecting DNA samples of people who have no criminal convictions, including children, which end up in an FBI database indefinitely.

Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger, and Molly Taft