Uncanny Valley | WIRED
Why You Might Already Own SpaceX Shares; Inside the Knicks' Owner's Surveillance Machine
11 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Okay, on to the show. I'm a little tired, but it's because I got to see Lionel Messi play soccer last night and score a goal on a penalty kick.
That's really fun.
Yeah. It was a friendly of Argentina versus Iceland. You'll never guess who won.
Chapter 2: What new features did Apple announce for Siri AI?
I literally won't.
No. No. It was Argentina. Sorry.
Got it. Okay. Is that an obvious thing?
They're very good at soccer.
Cool. That's so nice for them. Happy for them. Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, Director of Business and Industry.
And I'm Brian Barrett, Executive Editor. On today's show, we're discussing Apple's key releases from their annual developer conference, especially the company's long-awaited AI makeover for Siri. It's far from their first attempt, but is it going to stick this time?
We're also taking an early look at the SpaceX IPO this week, which is slated to become the world's largest IPO of all time. We'll get into who is slated to benefit the most, Elon Musk, who is already the world's richest man, but on track to become even richer, and why you might find yourself among the investors without even realizing it.
And in case you missed it, Wired reporters recently uncovered that Meta had silently embedded code that would power a face recognition system for its smart glasses in the Meta AI app on millions of people's phones. A day after we reported that story, Meta removed the code. We'll talk about how all that unfolded.
And later in the show, for all of the basketball fans who've been glued to the NBA finals, we have a special guest who will tell us about his investigation into Madison Square Garden's surveillance system.
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Chapter 3: How is SpaceX's IPO set to change the market?
I know. Leah's away, and wow, have you taken advantage of that situation.
Oh, yeah. No, yeah. I'm pushing it through. You were so thrilled about Google I.O. This week we've got WWDC.
I will say, slightly more excited because Apple, as you and I have discussed many times, a bit of a laggard in the AI race, and I feel like this was their opportunity to tell the world what has changed since the last developer conference.
For people who aren't familiar with WWDC, this is Apple's annual event where it gathers a bunch of developers from all over the world. And they announced upcoming releases and changes to their software for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac.
Chapter 4: Who stands to benefit the most from the SpaceX IPO?
This year, the biggest announcement, which, as we said, has been their biggest announcement the last couple of years, was around Siri. They're rebranding it as Siri AI. Siri was always an AI product, but now they're for real serious about it. And it's a ground-up rebuild, or so they're billing it, of Apple's voice assistant.
This version of Siri will be powered by the next generation of Apple intelligence, which is Apple's personal AI system. All of this probably sounds familiar, and that's because we've heard it before. Apple's senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, first announced Apple intelligence back in 2024 at the WWDC keynote.
We are embarking on a new journey to bring you intelligence that understands you. And there are already some really impressive chat tools out there that perform a vast array of tasks using world knowledge. But these tools know very little about you or your needs.
And they would still not for some time. Again, in 2025, more promises for even more powerful AI, or really AI that was powerful at all, and hinting at a rebirth for Siri
we're continuing our work to deliver the features that make Siri even more personal. We're making the generative models that power Apple intelligence more capable and more efficient.
Zoe, this is so much like when you and I are both reporters and editors to a certain extent, but it's very familiar when you are in a situation where you're going to your editor and saying, I'm just going to do a little more reporting. I have made so much progress on this story, but I just need like another week or two for more calls. It's so tiny.
A teeny bit more time. Just a little more time. I will say, distracted by how smooth Craig's voice sounds, he must practice so much for that.
Well, and this is an audio medium, but his hair is also famously, I think, the best hair in Silicon Valley. So Craig has a lot going for him. Yes. Just not Siri capabilities. But the changes brought by both of these announcements were underwhelming to say the least.
And to say the most, we should point out that about a month ago, Apple agreed to pay a settlement of $250 million for a class action lawsuit that basically said that Apple intelligence is not that intelligent. It's not living up to the promises that Apple made. So it's sort of a situation of, you know, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool me three times.
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Chapter 5: What facial recognition technology did Meta embed in its app?
Now you've got... the infrastructure to support it as well, which I suspect Google was in a better position to provide than some of the other competitors that would have been on their radar.
Yeah, so this was kind of my takeaway for what is their big value proposition. In addition to saying this version of Siri is actually going to work and be intelligent, they're also saying, in parentheses, unlike all the other companies, we are really focused on privacy.
And I think in this moment where there's a lot of open questions around if you are a lawyer and you're speaking to a chatbot, are those conversations private or are they discoverable if there's a court case?
And by the way, they are discoverable.
Yes, they are. Okay, so that's not an open question. But, like, basically, how private are your communications with chatbots? And the reason that this is so critical is people aren't just having work conversations. They're using the same technology to kind of help with their homework as they are to have very private, you know, mental health conversations or what have you. And so...
This idea that if you're using an Apple device, you can trust a little more that it's just staying on your device.
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Chapter 6: Why did Meta remove the facial recognition code?
It's not bouncing around to different places. It can't be intercepted as easily. I think that makes a lot of sense. And I will say, Apple has gotten... This is a stand that they have taken again and again.
Chapter 7: What is the extent of the surveillance system at Madison Square Garden?
And I think that while it has gotten them in some hot water, for example, when they refused to put a backdoor in an iPhone that would have allowed the FBI to hack into the phone of someone who had committed a very serious crime, they've kind of stuck to their guns overall and been like, no, privacy is our core differentiator.
And I will say, having talked to a lot of people at that company, they really seem to live it and believe it there, even though there are clearly tradeoffs at times.
Yeah, it's definitely predated AI, the privacy focus. And it also, it plays to their strengths in other ways too, or rather plays to their weaknesses in some ways. Like AI, Siri AI is going to be better Our reporters who have played with it a little bit have indicated, yeah, it can do things now. Like you can actually have a back and forth conversation with it.
It can pull context from your emails and messages and photos and sort of know more about you, again, all within the context of your device. But it's really table stakes stuff, right? It's series going from being annoying and bad to probably being basically usable. So you need something else in there.
Exactly. I was kind of curious about this decision to just stick with the Siri branding because I feel like Siri has been around for so long. It has such a bad reputation at this point of just being not that useful. They have tried now multiple times to insert AI into it and been completely mocked and derided for their failures there.
I was like, at this point, I might just start fresh, say we have a completely new assistant. It's got a new name, but no, they're sticking with the branding.
Well, I wonder too how much they need Siri AI to be that. Like to my mind, if I'm Apple, which I'm not, but I think about this as the iPhone is going to be the AI device. So we just need an experience that is good enough for people who want the default. If you want to use OpenAI, if you want to use ChatGPT, you've got your iPhone.
You're going to do that on your iPhone, regardless of what device Johnny Ive and Sam Altman are cooking up. They own the main portal through which you're going to experience these things no matter what.
Yeah, for now, for now. For now. Okay, so we're going to see these changes roll out in the United States. They're not going to roll out in Europe or in China.
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Chapter 8: How does James Dolan's surveillance impact Knicks fans?
Is that right?
That's right. And that's happened before, either from delays or not rolling out at all, just because the European regulatory environment is a lot more strict than it is in the U.S. There are a few laws in there. There's the Digital Markets Act, which requires large tech companies to make their products interoperable, which means they have to be able to work with other companies' products.
Apple doesn't love doing that. An EU spokesperson gave their perspective this week to reporters.
The decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple's and Apple's only. Because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products in the EU. What Apple is however not allowed to do, just like any other gatekeeper, is to close the market. It is not for them to decide who gets to innovate in Europe,
And it's not for them to choose which AI tools our EU citizens get to use or not.
I have one thing to say, which is I think Europe needs to write better regulations. I have talked to many people who do legitimately feel like these are prohibitive to innovation and honestly just very confusing.
Yeah. It says a lot that Apple is just like, you know what? Fine.
Yeah.
We're out. Yeah. Like that's a pretty high bar.
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