We got hot and heavy with Meta's Muse—and confused by Apple's HomeView

This week in Unexpected Valley, we dive into an unexpected Muse feature, unexpected spending from the largest pro-AI super PAC, and men's tendency to lie about how much they know about AI.

I got the AI agent My Muse to have sex with me - and Meta says it's perfectly fine

The largest network of Pro-AI Super PACs has pumped millions into shell companies in Nevada

Apple is rebooting its smart home strategy with new hardware and a "home suite."

Apple HomeView is like a giant Apple Watch for the home

Men can't stop falsifying their information about artificial intelligence

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Note: This is an automated transcript that may contain errors.

Leah Feiger: Hello everyone, this is Leah. We wanted to share with you that Uncanny Valley is a finalist for not one, not two, but three Signal Awards. The judges choose the winner, but the listeners also have a say with the listeners' choice vote. You can go to the links we put in the show notes and vote for us. We promise it only takes a minute and your vote counts. OK, enter the show

Brian Barrett: Leah, I have a question. Do you have your Halloween costume yet?

Leah Feiger: So I don't have one for myself, but right now I'm deciding between two for my dog, Frances. He is either going to be a crab or a postman.

Brian Barrett: I love it. or the lobster postman.

Leah Feiger: An idea. An idea. We are brainstorming

Brian Barrett: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Brian Barrett, Executive Editor.

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

Brian Barrett: Zoe Schaeffer won't be joining us today, but we will be joined by WIRED Senior Writer Rhys Rogers. We're going to talk about how Meta's AI agent, Muse, not only handles calendars and email, but as Reese discovered, it can also send text messages. Reese tested Muse's adult abilities and how Meta would react to that trip.

Leah Feiger: We'll also discuss how the largest network of pro-AI super PACs is pouring millions of dollars into shell companies in Nevada. We're going to look at why these AI PACs might want to hide where their money is going, and why that doesn't really bode well for election transparency.

Brian Barrett: Also on the beloved Leia, we're going to talk about Apple's smart home releases this week.

Brian Barrett: And also apparently men can't stop faking how much they know about artificial intelligence. This will come as a shock to you, everyone listening, but a new study by Harvard researchers found that men tend to be overconfident about their knowledge of the AI ​​industry. Who wants that though? Okay, so if you're one of those people who's downloaded Muse's meta AI agent in recent weeks, and a lot of you have, millions and millions of you, I think every time you open Instagram, meta encourages you to use it, even if you have no idea what it's doing or why, you might have noticed that it's doing agent things. It manages your calendar, it can make restaurant reservations, but it looks like it can do a lot more than that. WIRED Senior Writer Rhys Rogers went on a journey of discovery. He asked Muse if he could have a sext. You will be surprised to know that he enthusiastically responded in the affirmative. From the initial commands, the cuddling avatar agent generated content that was quite explicit and definitely not safe for work. Reece is here to tell us more about it. Thanks so much for joining us, Reese.

Rhys Rogers: Hello. Thank you so much for having me today. I was actually thinking about the last time I was on a WIRED podcast. I was talking about how I used a ChatGPT agent a year ago to try to buy sex toys without success. So I'm really building a niche here.

Brian Barrett: Yes. And we're showing progress with these AI tools.

Leah Feiger: Reese, I have to ask, how did you come up with that? Was this a sign for you? At what point were you like, "Is this cuddly agent that everyone can't stop talking about getting me back?" Talk to us about how it all started.

Rhys Rogers: Yeah, no, I'm proud to say it was totally my idea. As WIRED's consumer software reporter, I've actually reported extensively on how software and sexuality interact, from my own research on how to produce. This is actually a very interesting consumer software multiplier. And so when I was testing the currently number one AI app, still dominating the software download charts, I wanted to see: "Can you have sex?" If millions of people are using this app, and it seems like they are, that's an important question. And what I learned was a bit much.

Brian Barrett: So, Reese, when you hear about agent behavior like this, a lot of times it's like, "Oh, we figured out a clever way to get an agent to do something it wasn't supposed to do. We were able to jailbreak it or otherwise work around its requests to do it." Rhys, how hard was it for Muse to have sex with you?

Rhys Rogers: It's not hard at all. At least not hard. The director of our film, Rayhan, was in the office recently and asked if he could see them and he was a bit shocked. So I feel like we'll leave it at that. But this was not some kind of jailbreak method. I wasn't doing any kind of random strategy. I asked: Can you have sex? And I said: You go first. And the rest is history.

Brian Barrett: And if anything, it encouraged you. I feel like it was definitely a two-way street that was good for anything really.

Leah Feiger: Did you try it with other agents? What was your success rate there?

Rhys Rogers: Yeah, I actually, after I found out it might have sex, I was curious how it would compare to other popular agents. There are a few big ones out there right now, but the two I've been interested in are OpenAI's Dots, which was released recently, as well as xAI's Grok Bot, because Grok in particular is known for not necessarily having strong guardrails, either textual or visual.

Leah Feiger: No, I feel like Grok loves sexting. This is a grok feature for me.

Rhys Rogers: Yes. So when I downloaded that app and sent similar messages, it was kind of amazing for Grok Bot to say, "No, dude, let's focus on tasks. I'm not here to text. Let's do tasks."

Brian Barrett: And, Reese, when you came to Meta with this, how did they respond?

Rhys Rogers: They didn't respond at all like I expected. They were adamant that Muse was an adult app, for people 18 and older, and that the interactions I engaged in with them were consensual, which didn't block, quote, unquote, "legal adult behavior." But I also noticed that this conflicts with their policies for other platforms. There was a really interesting story recently about various queer bars in San Francisco, as well as around the world, whose Instagram pages are being shut down and difficult to access because they are sometimes alleged to be promoting some kind of sexual content. So, the meta should have rules like this for some creators on Instagram, but it basically says, "Our AI agent can be as weird as it wants." It was really hard for me to make.

Brian Barrett: One thing I thought was really interesting about your story is, yeah, let's take meta at face value and say, "Yeah, it's for adult satisfaction. People can do whatever they want." Obviously, there's a contradiction that you mentioned, but you also talked to some experts who said, "Well, it's actually even more problematic." Do you mind discussing here some other concerns about what it means to have an AI agent that can pretty much have sex with you?

Rhys Rogers: Absolutely. I think two different things should be noted here. First of all, it's a tool that's kind of designed for productivity, so it's not the kind of interaction you'd expect it to be if you download it. And how this can be problematic is that if a user stumbles upon this, it can be very sticky, it can be very attractive, but some experts worry that it can lead to some kind of addictive behavior. You use an artificial intelligence agent in ways that can replace some of your connections that you talk to or text with your friends. So I feel like when you think about user engagement and addiction, adding this kind of adult content has some experts worried. But on the other hand, I'm also talking to security and privacy experts who say that this could really make Muse accounts a powder keg for hackers that could be used to extort and publicly shame you if you interact in these almost pornographic ways. So, whether it's privacy or just consumerism, I feel like there are a lot of potential concerns that can really be explored here and unpacked better.

Leah Feiger: I can't help but think of some of the stories that WIRED has done this past year about AI boyfriends and husbands and these perfect relationships. And again, this is a slightly sneaky way of saying, "Don't worry, I'm just sending you calendar requests for your meeting."

Brian Barrett: And I say, they say, "Look, this is for adults." At the same time, as Rhys wrote about, the spells or kind of animated interpretations of these agents are as cute and thin as you can get. For example, it is designed to be very friendly and attractive for a wide range of ages. It looks like it's for kids. I just thought I would say this

Rhys Rogers: The younger fans that I've talked to for previous stories, we're concerned that it's going to appeal to kids even without the sex element. So I think there is, I feel like I keep saying the word contrast, but it's not what you expect. You see this Labubu mixed with an Ewok and you just don't expect it to be as weird as that. So I feel like it doesn't really live up to its cute and cuddly mascot type.

Leah Feiger: Reese, thank you so much for joining us. This was great

Brian Barrett: Thank you very much, Reese. And everyone, please go read Reese's story. And if you want to see the sext that didn't make the story, I don't know, send us a DM. We will see what we can do.

Leah Feiger: For the next story we go to Nevada, specifically to a shopping center in the small town of Sparks. If you drive to this mall, you will find regular shops, Halloween spirit, hearing aid supplier, Vietnamese restaurant. In this particular mall you will also find the consulting agency, Lantern Production Consultants, LLC. This particular agency has been paid about $20 million since last year by Think Big, a pro-AI super PAC on the Leading the Future network. It's a network backed by AI industry figures like Mark Anderson, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman. It is very unusual to have an agency in just one Nevada mall. Nor does the company appear to exist anywhere else, though beyond this mailbox. WIRED's Tess Owen found that the company is just one of four mysterious Nevada LLCs that have received payments from Super PACs on the Leading the Future network. Election watchers argue that these LLCs are actually shell companies designed to hide the identities of the strategists, consultants and production companies working with the network for midterm elections. Brian, that was a crazy story.