Uncanny Valley | WIRED WIRED Roundup: The Five Tech and Politics Trends That Shaped 2025
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Dec 19, 2025 
Brian Barrett, WIRED's executive editor with a keen eye on tech and politics, joins to dissect the year's major trends. They delve into the explosive growth of AI data centers and its economic implications. The discussion highlights the rise of AI companions and the risks of social isolation, along with the geopolitical pressures surrounding open-source AI, especially from China. They also examine the chaotic impacts of the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk and the controversial handling of Epstein-related documents, raising questions about data privacy and accountability.
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Data Centers Became The Centerpiece
- AI data centers are the new big tech infrastructure story driving investment, jobs, and environmental strain.
- Their GPU-heavy costs and three-year refresh cycles make the economics fragile and bubble-like.
Local Boom, Long-Term Backlash
- Local political support masks that data centers create short-term construction jobs but few long-term roles and high energy demand.
- Expect political pushback and an offshoring shift within a few years as costs and impacts become visible.
AI Companions Outpaced Research
- Chatbot companions and AI relationships surged, offering comfort to some and harm to others, with real-world mental-health consequences.
- The tech is ahead of research and regulation, creating risks that companies underestimated.