Uncanny Valley is back! This week, senior writer Kate Knibbs joins Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger to discuss the two incidents that have been making noise in prediction markets: George Santos getting lifetime ban from Kalshi and a Google engineer’s Polymarket insider-trading case. Plus, reporters reverse-engineered Flock’s AI-powered person-search tool and spoke to experts about the accuracy of such technology, and the hosts unpack the online meltdown over how to talk about “rogue” AI agents.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
- George Santos Just Got Hit With Kalshi’s First-Ever Lifetime Ban
- Google Engineer Accused of Polymarket Insider Trading Says He Was Just Gambling
- This Is Flock’s AI Search Tool for Cops
- What We Still Don’t Know About OpenAI’s Hugging Face Hack
- The Logical End Point of AI Job Interviews Is Two Bots Talking to Each Other
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger, and Kate Knibbs on Bluesky at @knibbs. Write to us at [email protected].
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Leah Feiger: Hey guys, so nice to be back after our two-week summer break.
Zoë Schiffer: Longer for me. It's so nice to see you guys.
Leah Feiger: I missed you.
Zoë Schiffer: I missed you.
Leah Feiger: Brian, don't worry. We missed you too.
Brian Barrett: I assumed that the you was for all of us.
Zoë Schiffer: It was the royal you.
Brian Barrett: But now that you've carved me out, that's telling. Thank you.
Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to …'s Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, contributing editor.
Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science. This week we're discussing some recent high profile incidents in prediction markets. Former US representative George Santos was the first person to be given a lifetime ban from Kalshi, and a Google engineer was accused of insider trading at Polymarket. We'll get into why both of these cases show that there are still plenty of blurry rules when it comes to prediction markets.
Brian Barrett: We'll also check in on perhaps the most hated tech in the US at the moment, maybe a runner-up to data centers, Flock surveillance cameras. This week, … reporters were able to recreate Flock's AI powered search tool, the same one that has a track record of being misused by police officers. We're going to break down how it works, and whether the backlash against Flock cameras might have reached its boiling point.
Zoë Schiffer: And because I simply cannot help myself, we will also be getting into why tech bros on X are melting down over how to discuss rogue AI agents and what happens when they jump their guardrails and coordinate attacks on other systems.
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