Why You Might Already Own SpaceX Shares, Siri’s AI Makeover, and Knicks Owner’s Surveillance Machine

This week on Uncanny Valley, our hosts discuss SpaceX officially going public and who will benefit the most from it, as well as Apple’s WWDC and the brand-new release of Siri AI. They also get into how Meta removed a face-recognition feature after a WIRED report exposed it—and later in the show: an investigation into how New York Knicks’ owner James Dolan created an extensive surveillance system inside all of his Madison Square Garden properties.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2026
• Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After WIRED Report
• The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine

You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett and Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer. 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, would appreciate it if you took a second to rate it in your app of choice. It really helps us reach more people. 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. 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.

Zoë Schiffer: That's really fun.

Brian Barrett: Yeah. It was a friendly of Argentina versus Iceland. You'll never guess who won.

Zoë Schiffer: I literally won't. No. No.

Brian Barrett: It was Argentina. Zoë.

Zoë Schiffer: Got it. OK. Is that an obvious thing?

Brian Barrett: They're very good at soccer.

Zoë Schiffer: Cool. That's so nice for them. Happy for them. Welcome to WIRED’s Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, director of business and industry.

Brian Barrett: 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 it's going to stick this time.

Zoë Schiffer: 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.

Brian Barrett: 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 classes 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.

Zoë Schiffer: 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.

Brian Barrett: So Zoë, another week that we get to talk about a developer conference.

Zoë Schiffer: I know. Leah's away, and wow, have you taken advantage of that situation?

Brian Barrett: Oh yeah. No, yeah. I'm pushing it through. You were so thrilled about Google IO. This week we've got WWDC.

Zoë Schiffer: I will say slightly more excited because Apple, as you and I have discussed many times, is 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.

Brian Barrett: 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 announce upcoming releases and changes to their software for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac. 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.

Craig Federighi, archival audio: 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.

Brian Barrett: 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.

Craig Federighi, archival audio: 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.

Brian Barrett: Zoë, 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 another week or two for more calls.”

Zoë Schiffer: A tiny 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.

Brian Barrett: Well, and this is an audio medium, but his hair is also famously, I think, the best hair in Silicon Valley.

Zoë Schiffer: Yes.

Brian Barrett: So Craig has a lot going for him, 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 fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on you, fool me three times.

Zoë Schiffer: Go to Google and make a deal so you can actually be intelligent.

Brian Barrett: Exactly. So yeah, that's what has happened. Now Apple is going to rely largely on Google Gemini to help power Apple intelligence under the hood. Zoë, what do you make of that?

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense. Frontier models are really expensive and difficult to build. Google has already done it pretty successfully. I think if you look at, say, enterprise coding models, Gemini is not the best of the best, but in a lot of other ways it is quite cutting-edge. And so yeah, it makes sense; these two companies have worked together before to great effect for both of them. I was curious and have been kind of chatting with sources at both companies to see, is this partnership long-term? Has Apple thrown in the towel permanently and just said, “This is fine. We'll rely on it.” Or are they furiously working in the background to try and