Uncanny Valley | WIRED

The podcast discusses Google's AI Overviews, their messy rollout, inaccuracies, and backlash. Writers share personal experiences with AI summaries and the challenges faced by journalists. Controversy surrounds new feature rollouts, plagiarism concerns, and the impact on news media outlets. The episode also includes book recommendations, indie games, and the history of Krautrock music.

Discover the shady world of AI-generated clickbait on squatted domains. Learn how prospectors reuse abandoned websites with clickbait articles. Explore the impact of generative AI tools and the growth of clickbait farms. Dive into the ethical concerns and challenges in combating clickbait in search results. Get recommendations on books and social media platforms from the podcast guests.

Learn about the energy-efficient revolution of heat pumps, how they work, their cost savings, and their impact on traditional HVAC jobs. Get insights from a heat pump expert on how these appliances are transforming the future of residential heating and cooling.

Exploring Google's AI advancements at I/O developer event, focusing on search engine evolution for the AI era. From chatbot demos to AI-powered search, Google is reshaping internet search. Podcast also covers unique startup pitches, AI investment opportunities, and creative recommendations like a Spanish film based on Alice Munro stories.

Guests Joie Jacoby and Prentice Penny discuss the evolution and impact of Black Twitter as a cultural force. They share insights on creating a documentary series about the community's history and activism. Recommendations include Met Opera show and YouTube channel Pitch Meetings.

Discussing the rise of plug-in hybrids in the era of sustainable transportation, addressing catalytic converter theft in hybrid cars, debating the practicality of plug-in hybrids vs. electric cars, exploring Tesla's driving experience, and sharing literary recommendations and tributes to American writers.

Do you know what TCP/IP means? (Hint: you’re using it right now.) What about CDMA? Or GPT? While the concepts and the execution of these technologies are clear to most of us who have been on the internet nearly our whole lives, the acronyms we use to define them are often inscrutable. On this week’s episode, we welcome WIRED’s AI reporter Will Knight onto the show. Along with our hosts Michael Calore and Lauren Goode, the trio takes turns quizzing each other on what exactly these acronyms stand for. Michael is asked to unpack various terms from the early internet era, Lauren is tested on acronyms from the mobile era, and Will tells us what all the AI-related abbreviations mean. Everyone does a pretty good job even if nobody earns a perfect score. Play along at home; maybe you can best our hosts with your arcane knowledge of internet minutiae.Show NotesRead Steven Levy’s story about the Google research paper that kickstarted the transformer-based AI boom.Recommendations:Will recommends the book The Rise and Fall of the EAST by Yasheng Huang. (Watch their conversation at MIT’s Starr Forum.) Lauren recommends the Forest app for the Pomodoro work method. Mike recommends The Jargon File.Will Knight can be found on social media @WillKnight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The podcast discusses Airchat, a social media app where users share audio snippets. It's invite-only for Silicon Valley insiders, similar to Clubhouse. Guests explore the app's features, AI usage, data privacy, moderation challenges, and Wired's new podcast studio.

The podcast discusses how election deniers are using tech to disrupt elections, targeting officials and challenging voter rolls. It explores the impact of FOIA requests and AI disruptions on election processes. It also highlights the challenges faced by election workers and the influence of disinformation on voters, including amusing conspiracy theories.

The podcast explores the trend of social media platforms turning into shopping destinations, focusing on TikTok Shop and the variety of products available. They discuss the evolution of seller fees, impact on consumer behavior, and the rise of zany products. Recommendations include a hangover cap and a German art documentary.