This week on Uncanny Valley, our hosts discuss Amazon’s controversial decision to drop Luca Guadagnino’s film about OpenAI’s Sam Altman—which reportedly did not paint him in a favorable light. Alongside Google DeepMind’s $75 million brand-new partnership with indie film studio A24, how much of a dent is AI actually having in the films we see? They also dive into the recent upheaval of workers—from electricians to software engineers—against data centers. Plus: Meta’s program to track employees’ data gets paused after a massive leak, and Anthropic is now getting along with the government, thanks to CEO Dario Amodei no longer being in the room.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
- A24 Knows You’re Mad About the Google AI Collab
- Some Electricians Think Building Data Centers Is for Sellouts
- Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak
- The Trump White House Is Over Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at [email protected].
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Brian Barrett: Hey, this is Brian. Before we start, two quick things. If you've been enjoying listening to the show, we would appreciate it if you took a second to rate it in your podcast app of choice. It really helps us reach more people. And second, if you have any questions related to tech, privacy, or politics that you would like me, Zoë, and Leah to take on, now is the time to submit them to [email protected]. It doesn't matter how big or how small, we want to hear from you and get you answers. OK, on to the show.
Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to …'s Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, director of business and industry.
Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.
Zoë Schiffer: Today on the show: AI and Hollywood. We're discussing Amazon's MGM Studios’ sudden decision to drop the OpenAI biographical movie just as they were wrapping up production. At the same time, Google's DeepMind is investing $75 million to develop AI tools with the film studio A24. The AI and film industries are becoming increasingly intertwined, and we're ready to take a look at where this is all headed.
Leah Feiger: We'll also dive into some recent controversies regarding data centers. As national and local backlash against data center construction increases, some electricians are even refusing to work on them, and they're not alone. A group of Amazon workers claim they are being investigated for speaking out in favor of regulation.
Brian Barrett: And if you've been listening to the show in recent weeks or reading …, you know that we've been covering the unfolding internal crisis at Meta very closely. This week we had another scoop, the controversial system that tracked employees’ every keystroke and screen activity has been paused after the company leaked sensitive data from it internally. We'll get into whether this series of frustrating incidents could actually lead to change within the company.
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