This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we dig into a former Anthropic researcher’s AI doomsday warning, the latest upgrades from Apple’s event, and the census report that claimed Trump... This week on Uncanny Valley, an AI researcher’s resignation from Anthropic went viral on social media after he claimed there’s a real chance AI could wipe out humanity within a decade.

What happened

This week on Uncanny Valley, an AI researcher’s resignation from Anthropic went viral on social media after he claimed there’s a real chance AI could wipe out humanity within a decade. WIRED’s Will Knight joins Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger to assess whether the doom narrative is overblown or overdue.

We also discuss Apple’s debut of its $2,000 foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, and the new “always listening” Apple Watch features that have Brian feeling more than a little uneasy. Plus, a WIRED investigation found that the US Census Bureau used faulty data to create a misleading report touted by the Trump administration.

You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger, and Will Knight on Bluesky at @willknight.

The important details

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Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Brian Barrett: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley.

Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.

Context and impact

Brian Barrett: Today on the show, we're discussing an AI researcher who resigned from Anthropic and made waves on social media by claiming that most AI researchers earnestly believe that there's a non-zero chance AI will, well, kill us all. Leah Feiger: And in case you missed it, last month, President Donald Trump was touting a report published by the Census Bureau claiming that noncitizens voted in the 2020 election.

WIRED now has uncovered evidence that the report was made with very faulty data. We're going to get into how the repercussions of the bureau using and publishing this data go way beyond this one report.

Brian Barrett: Also on the agenda today, Apple's big iPhone event.

What comes next

All eyes have been on the new foldable iPhone and the roughly $2,000 price tag that brings with it. We'll talk about what's behind this gamble and other releases that caught our attention from Apple's big event.

The resignation of an AI researcher from Anthropic has been gathering a lot of attention. This guy Jacob Coxon quit the company this week, decided to share his reasons why on a thread on X, which basically boiled down to he thinks that the leading AI companies, which I guess we're going to say OpenAI and Anthropic primarily, are both behaving irresponsibly in their quest to continue advancing their models.

The part that people have really latched onto is this claim that, quote, "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," end quote.

Key signals

• We also discuss Apple’s debut of its $2,000 foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, and the new “always listening” Apple Watch features that have Brian feeling more than a little uneasy.
• WIRED now has uncovered evidence that the report was made with very faulty data.
• Will, thank you so much for being here.

What to watch

Watch for follow-on benchmarks, developer adoption, pricing changes, and reliability feedback.