on Uncanny Valley today, Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger break down Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s 6,500-word AI manifesto and why it ultimately rings hollow. Plus, why are job seekers scheduling bot-run interviews at 1 am? …'s Andy Greenberg also joins to unpack the best findings from Black Hat and Defcon, from a hacked kids’ smartwatch to a coin-sized device that can hijack a Boeing 737.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
- The Rise of the 1 am Job Interview
- Hackers Stalked Me by Hijacking a Smartwatch for Kids
- This Coin-Sized Device Can Hack a Boeing 737
- McDonald’s Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I’ll Never Stop Eating There
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger, and Andy Greenberg on Bluesky at @agreenberg. Write to us at [email protected].
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Brian Barrett: Leah, how did you like The Odyssey?
Leah Feiger: I liked it.
Brian Barrett: Good.
Leah Feiger: I really liked it. I thought it was fun. The dialog was kind of whatever, beautiful shots of the Sicilian ocean. And I went with my husband who loves to remind me that he studied Latin and Greek in high school, and he actually liked it too. So frankly, 10 out of 10 from our family.
Brian Barrett: Good. Yeah, I agree. I think everyone who is complaining about it needs to stop. Anyway, welcome to …'s Uncanny Valley. I am Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.
Brian Barrett: Today on the show, we're going to be talking about Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto on AI, which weighs in at over 6,500 words. We will be talking about it for less time than it would take to read it, so you're welcome for that. But most importantly, we'll discuss what it says about Meta's strategy as it continuously tries to catch up in the AI race.
Leah Feiger: We'll also get into the rise of the 1 am job interview. As more people talk to a bot instead of a human for their first interview rounds, some job seekers are choosing to schedule theirs very late at night. We're going to look into that and how it's far from the only way that AI is changing job interviews as we know them.
Brian Barrett: And later in the show, we'll be joined by …'s Andy Greenberg to dive into some of the most exciting research that came out of Black Hat and Defcon, two of the world's biggest cybersecurity events. So on Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a roughly 6,500-word essay on AI titled "The Future Is for Everyone." And doesn't that sound nice? It's the latest entry in the unfortunate genre of philosophical manifestos from tech CEOs. They've all got one. Sam Altman, Dario Amodei. Everyone's got a manifesto these days.
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