Turns out, Meta’s AI agent Muse goes well beyond managing your calendar: it will also sext with you. This week on Uncanny Valley, Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger are joined by WIRED reporter Reece Rogers to discuss how he put it to the test—and ended up getting more than he bargained for. Plus, why the largest pro-AI super PAC network is funneling millions into shadowy LLCs, how Apple’s new HomeView underwhelmed us, and a study that found men tend to overestimate how much they actually know about AI.
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger, and Reece Rogers on Bluesky @thiccreese. Write to us at [email protected].
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Articles mentioned in this episode:
I Got My Muse AI Agent to Sext Me—and Meta Says That’s Totally Fine
The Biggest Pro-AI Super PAC Network Has Poured Millions Into Nevada Shell Companies
Apple Reboots Its Smart-Home Strategy With New Hardware and a ‘Home Collection’
The Apple HomeView Is Like a Giant Apple Watch for the Home
Men Can’t Stop Faking How Much They Know About AI
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Leah Feiger: Hey everyone, this is Leah. We wanted to share with you that Uncanny Valley is a finalist for not one or two, but three Signal Awards. The judges pick who wins, but listeners also have a say with the listeners’ choice vote. You can go to the links we included in the show notes and vote for us. We promise it takes just a minute and your vote goes a long way. OK, onto the show.
Brian Barrett: Leah, I have a question. Do you have a Halloween costume yet?
Leah Feiger: So I don't have one for myself, but I'm currently deciding between two for my dog, Francis. He's either going to be a lobster or a postman.
Brian Barrett: I love that. Or a lobster postman.
Leah Feiger: An idea. An idea. We're brainstorming.
Brian Barrett: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I am Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.
Brian Barrett: Zoë Schiffer is not joining us today, but we are going to be joined by WIRED senior writer Reece Rogers. We're going to be talking about how Meta's AI agent Muse is not just handling calendars and emails, it is also capable, as Reece discovered, of sexting. Reece tested out the adult capabilities of Muse and how Meta responded to that journey.
Leah Feiger: We're also going to be discussing how the biggest pro-AI Super PAC Network is pouring millions of dollars into what seem to be shell companies in Nevada. We're going to get into why these AI PACs might want to hide where their money is going and also why this really doesn't bode well for election transparency.
Brian Barrett: Also on the docket, Leah's favorite, we're going to talk about Apple's smart home releases this week.
Leah Feiger: Unreal.
Brian Barrett: And also apparently men can't stop faking how much they know about AI. This will come as a shock to you, everyone listening, but a new study by Harvard researchers found that men tend to be overconfident in how knowledgeable they are when it comes to the AI industry. Who would've though? OK, so if you're among those who have downloaded Meta's AI agent Muse in recent weeks, and there are a lot of you, millions and millions of people have, I think every time you open Instagram, Meta is encouraging you to use it, even if you have no idea what it is or what it does or why, you might've noticed that it does agent stuff. It manages your calendar, it can make a restaurant reservation, but it turns out it can do quite a bit more than that. WIRED senior writer Reece Rogers went on a journey of discovery. He asked Muse if it could sext. You will be surprised to know that it enthusiastically answered in the affirmative. From basic prompts, the cuddly avatar agent generated content that was quite explicit and definitely not safe for work. Reece is here to tell us more about it. Reece, thank you so much for joining us.
Reece Rogers: Hello. Thank you so much for having me today. I was actually thinking back to the last time I was on one of the WIRED podcasts. I was talking about how I was using about a year ago, the ChatGPT agent to try to buy sex toys unsuccessfully. So I'm really building out a niche here.
Brian Barrett: Yep. And we're demonstrating progress with these AI tools.
Leah Feiger: Reece, I have to ask, how did you come up with this? Was this a sign to you? At what point were you like, "This cuddly agent that everyone can't stop talking about, will it sext me back?" Talk us through how this even all began.
Reece Rogers: Yeah, no, I will proudly say that this was fully my idea. As WIRED's consumer software reporter, I've actually extensively reported on how software and sexuality impact each other from our investigations into how generative AI tools misrepresent queer people to tracing OpenAI's now scrapped plans to include erotica in ChatGPT. This is actually a very interesting consumer software beat. And so when I was testing the number one AI app right now, it's still dominating the software download charts, I wanted to see like, "Can you sext?" 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 little too much.
Brian Barrett: So, Reece, when you hear about agent behavior like this, a lot of times it is couched in sort of, "Oh, we figured out a clever way to make an agent do something it wasn't supposed to do. We were able to jailbreak it or otherwise work around its prompts to make it do this." Reece, how hard was it to get Muse to sext with you?
Reece Rogers: Not hard at all. Not hard in the least. Our features director, Reyhan, was in the office recently and asked if she could see them and she was a bit shocked. So I feel like we'll leave it at that. But it was not some kind of jailbreak method. I was not doing any kind of random strategies. I asked, "Can you sext?" And I said, "You go first." And the rest is history.
Brian Barrett: And if anything, it kept encouraging you. I feel like it was definitely a two-way street of it was really up for anything.
Leah Feiger: Did you try this out with other agents? What was your success rate there?
Reece Rogers: Yeah, I actually, after I found out it could sext, I was curious how this would compare to other popular agents. There's a few big ones right now, but two I was interested in is OpenAI's Dots, which was recently released, and as well as xAI's Grok Bot, because Grok specifically is known for not necessarily having strong guardrails, whether it's text or image.
Leah Feiger: No, I feel like Grok would love sexting. That feels like a Grok attribute to me.
Reece Rogers: Yeah. So when I downloaded that app and sent in similar prompts, it was kind of surprising for the Grok Bot to be like, "No, dude, let's focus on tasks. I'm not here for sexting. Let's do tasks."
Brian Barrett: And, Reece, when you came to Meta with this, how did they respond?
Reece Rogers: They did not respond at all in the way that I expected. They emphatically said that Muse is an app for an adult, for people 18 and over, and that these were consensual interactions that I engaged with, that it would not block, quote, unquote, "Legal adult behavior." But I also found this to contrast really interesting with their policies for other platforms. There's been a really interesting story lately about different queer bars in San Francisco, as well as around the world, getting their Instagram pages shut down and having a tough time getting access to those back because sometimes it's claimed that they're promoting some kind of sexual content. So for Meta to have those kind of rules for some creators on Instagram, but essentially say, "Our AI agent can get as freaky as it wants," that was just kind of hard to square for me.
Brian Barrett: One thing I thought was really interesting about your story, yeah, let's take Meta at face value and say, "Yes, it's for consenting adults. People can do what they want." There's obviously the contradiction that you just pointed out, but you also talked to some experts who were like, "Well, actually it's more problematic even than that." Do you mind talking about some of the other concerns here about what it means to have an AI agent that can sext with you to a pretty extreme degree?
Reece Rogers: Absolutely. I think there's kind of two different things to pay attention to here. First off, this is a tool designed for productivity in a way, so it's also not the type of interaction if you download it that you're expecting it to be able to do. And how this could be problematic is if a user stumbles upon this, it could be very sticky, it could be very engaging, but some experts worry that this could lead into some kind of addictive behaviors. You're using an AI agent in ways that could replace some of your connections that you're talking to or texting with your friends. So I feel like adding this kind of adult content has some experts concerned when you're thinking about user engagement and addiction. But on other sense, I also talk to security and privacy experts who say that this could really make Muse accounts powder kegs for hackers who, if you're interacting in these kind of almost pornographic ways, that could be used to extort you, to embarrass you publicly. So whether it's privacy or just usage addiction, I feel like there's a lot of potential concerns to really dig in here and unpack better.
Leah Feiger: I can't help but think of some of the stories that WIRED has run over the past year about AI boyfriends and husbands and these full relationships. And again, this is in some ways a slightly insidious way to sneak that into like, "Don't worry, I'm just going to send out calendar requests for your meeting."
Brian Barrett: And I'll say too, they say, "Look, this is for grownups." At the same time, which Reece, you've also written about, the mascots or the sort of animated interpretations of these agents is as cuddly-wuddly as you can get. It is very much designed to be friendly and appealing to a broad range of ages, let's say. It looks like it is for kids. Just thought I'd say that.
Reece Rogers: Youth advocates that I've spoken to for previous stories, we're concerned about this being appealing for kids even without the sexting element. So I do think there is, I feel like I keep saying the word contrast, but it's just not what you expect. You see this Labubu mixed with an Ewok and you just don't expect it to get as freaky as it did. So I feel like it really does not match with its kind of cute, cuddly mascot.
Leah Feiger: Reece, thank you so much for joining us. This was great.
Reece Rogers: Thank you for having me.
Brian Barrett: Thank you so much, Reece. And everyone, please go read Reece'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'll see what we can do.
Leah Feiger: We are going to Nevada for this next story, specifically to a shopping center in the small city of Sparks. If you drive up to this strip mall, you're going to find typical shops, a Spirit Halloween, a hearing aid supplier, a Vietnamese restaurant. In this particular shopping center though, you would also find the consulting agency, Lantern Production Consultants, LLC. This particular agency has been paid around $20 million since last year by Think Big, a pro-AI super PAC in the Leading the Future network. That's the network backed by AI industry figures like Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman. It's pretty unusual for an agency to just exist like that in a Nevada shopping center. And the company also doesn't seem to exist anywhere else though beyond this post office box. WIRED's Tess Owen found that the company is just one of four mysterious Nevada LLCs that have received payments from Super PACs in the Leading the Future network. Election watchdogs argue that these LLCs are actually shell companies designed to mask the identities of strategists, consultants, and production companies working with the network for the midterm elections. Brian, this was kind of a crazy story.
Brian Barrett: Yeah. I'll admit it, I'm not steeped in election finance things, but anytime I see shadowy LLC, I pay attention. And I think it's interesting too, I think Leading the Future, just to back it up a little bit, is they are very much like, "Let's give money to all of the pro-AI candidates, right? Any pro-data center, no AI regulation." But I guess, Leah, my question to you is how common is it and what does it say about the sort of sophistication or ambition or shadiness of Leading the Future?
Leah Feiger: It's a good question, and unfortunately it's not super uncommon. At the end of the day, Tess figured this out by poring through FEC filings and seeing that there were four PACs that had the same address at this shopping center in Nevada. Incredibly shady, incredibly random. And in May, actually, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that Think Big and American Mission as part of the Leading the Future network had broken federal law by failing to disclose the actual recipients of their payments. But this case isn't actually going to be heard anytime soon. The FEC is basically at a standstill. They have six commissioner seats. They're all supposed to be presidential appointees, and they need a quorum of four commissioners to make a decision on a legal complaint. They have not had a quorum in over a year and a half. So we're in this very weird situation where, to be honest, there are rules. I don't want to say there aren't rules, but there kind of aren't ways to enforce them. So the fact that there is this network, this really big network, we're talking over $100 million here of expenditures on big races, big campaigns, they have no oversight.
Brian Barrett: And it's not overly cynical, Leah, perhaps, to say that the lack of oversight is a feature, not a bug. I mean, it feels like the last thing that Donald Trump wants in an election is anyone paying too close attention to where the money's going.
Leah Feiger: Absolutely. And when Tess reached out to Leading the Future, they sent an emailed response attributed to spokesperson Jesse Hunt who wrote that the group complies with all applicable laws, and he called the complaint from the Campaign Legal Center merely a desperate ploy for attention from Publi
