内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-podcase-apple-sued-openai-new-york-data-center-moratorium-cyclosporiasis-outbreak/

内容总结：

WIRED《Uncanny Valley》本周热点速递：苹果起诉OpenAI窃密、OpenAI员工自建政治行动委员会、纽约州数据中心禁令引发特朗普不满

苹果起诉OpenAI窃取硬件机密
上周五，苹果对OpenAI提起诉讼，指控其通过前员工窃取未发布的iPhone零部件、原型机及机密设计文件。诉讼特别点名OpenAI硬件负责人唐坦（Tan Tang，在苹果任职24年），称其鼓励离职员工携带公司专利技术投奔新东家。分析认为，苹果此举意在遏制OpenAI的硬件野心——该公司正研发一款类似“智能音箱”的AI设备，可能威胁iPhone作为AI时代核心平台的地位。数据显示，OpenAI已雇佣超400名前苹果员工，并斥资65亿美元收购由苹果元老联合创立的IO Products公司。

OpenAI员工“造反”：自建PAC推动AI监管
WIRED独家获悉，OpenAI部分员工出资成立名为“Guardrails Alliance”（护栏联盟）的超级政治行动委员会（Super PAC），初始资金500万美元，旨在推动对前沿AI实验室的严格监管。这直接对标OpenAI高管格雷格·布罗克曼等人资助的、反对AI管制的1亿美元“引领未来”基金。分析指出，OpenAI内部存在严重的政治撕裂：年轻员工多持自由派立场，而新引入的部分员工则倾向支持特朗普的“增长至上”政策。该PAC计划在选举周期内筹集1500万美元，重点投入地方选举。

纽约全美首个州级数据中心禁令
纽约州州长霍楚尔签署行政令，暂停建设50兆瓦以上的大型数据中心（为期一年），直至完成环境影响评估。此举引发特朗普激烈批评，他在社交媒体上称该禁令“为政治正确牺牲就业”，并警告“纽约将输掉AI竞赛”。但业内人士指出，数据中心面临社区反弹是全美性现象——高耗电、高耗水、噪音污染等问题在红蓝州均引发争议。目前加州、俄勒冈等州也有类似法案在酝酿。

DOGE用AI制定住房政策却拒绝公开细节
由马斯克领导的“政府效率部”（DOGE）被曝在住房与城市发展部（HUD）使用AI工具分析政策决策，但该机构以“AI豁免FOIA公开”为由，拒绝披露AI模型的开发细节和使用方式。调查发现，一名大学三年级学生和一家地产科技初创公司前员工深度参与该项目，被指“用AI随意筛选合同清单”。目前相关AI决策者已进入白宫预算管理办公室担任高级职务，引发“黑箱作业”担忧。

30多州暴发“爆炸性腹泻”疫情
美国正经历有记录以来最严重的环孢子虫病（cyclosporiasis）疫情，超3700例确诊，实际感染人数或达7000。该寄生虫通过受污染食物传播，典型症状为持续1-2周的严重水样腹泻（患者一天如厕可达40次）。疾控中心怀疑生菜是感染源，但环孢子虫对漂白剂和氯气有耐药性，专家建议彻底清洗蔬菜，并尽量避免在外食用沙拉。HHS否认预算削减影响疫情应对，但CDC此前已被裁减约四分之一员工。

中文翻译：

本周《恐怖谷》节目中，团队探讨了苹果公司起诉OpenAI涉嫌窃取硬件机密的具体细节。但该公司的麻烦远不止于此——一群OpenAI员工刚刚成立了一个超级政治行动委员会，主张建立更强有力的AI护栏。此外，纽约州率先在全国实施的数据中心暂停令引发了唐纳德·特朗普的愤怒；效率部（DOGE）在使用AI处理住房与城市发展部事务时拒绝了《信息自由法》的请求；《连线》杂志的艾米丽·穆林解释了正在蔓延至30多个州的环孢子虫病疫情。

本期节目提及的文章：

• 苹果起诉OpenAI涉嫌窃取硬件机密
• OpenAI员工资助竞争对手超级政治行动委员会对抗老板
• 纽约州长签署全美首个全州数据中心暂停令
• 效率部使用AI制定住房政策，政府拒绝透露细节
• 爆炸性腹泻疫情即将进一步扩大

您可以在Bluesky上关注布莱恩·巴雷特（@brbarrett）、佐伊·希弗（@zoeschiffer）和莉亚·费格（@leahfeiger）。来信请发送至[email protected]。

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文字记录
注意：此为自动生成的文字记录，可能含有错误。

佐伊·希弗：欢迎收听《连线》杂志的《恐怖谷》。我是特约编辑佐伊·希弗。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我是执行编辑布莱恩·巴雷特。

莉亚·费格：我是政治与科学总监莉亚·费格。

佐伊·希弗：本周我们将讨论OpenAI持续的戏剧性事件，涉及法律和声誉两方面。上周五，苹果公司起诉了该公司，基本指控OpenAI窃取机密硬件信息。而本周，《连线》杂志获悉，一些OpenAI员工正在发起一个超级政治行动委员会，推动AI护栏建设。我们将深入探讨这些细节，以及这些发展是否会进一步损害OpenAI，特别是其在对抗Anthropic的斗争中的处境。

布莱恩·巴雷特：同样在AI领域，本周纽约州正式通过了全美首个全州数据中心暂停令。我们将剖析其具体含义，以及此举是否会为其他州效仿铺平道路。

莉亚·费格：我们还将讨论所谓的“政府效率部”成员如何利用AI实际影响住房政策。此外，我们将关注席卷全美的疾病——环孢子虫病，它正在全国范围内引发“涡轮增压式腹泻”。

佐伊·希弗：好了，各位，我真的很兴奋能从OpenAI的闹剧开始聊起，因为这家公司最近频频登上头条，而且原因可不太妙。事情是这样的，上周五苹果公司对OpenAI提起诉讼，指控其窃取信息，包括未发布的iPhone零部件和原型机、机密设计、秘密项目文件等。这一指控对OpenAI来说很糟糕，相当激烈，但事情变得非常棘手，因为苹果基本上声称这些盗窃行为（所谓的盗窃）主要通过前雇员实施。OpenAI的硬件主管唐探曾在苹果任职24年，他在诉讼中被点名，并指控其鼓励即将离开苹果的员工携带专有信息和未发布的技术。布莱恩，我很想知道你对这件事的看法。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我觉得这很有意思。其中有很多非常有趣的指控。我认为这也是苹果策略的一部分，我们有一段时间没见到这种策略了，但苹果以前也做过或威胁过类似的事情。托尼·法德尔是苹果的老员工，后来创立了恒温器公司Nest。他最近在这件事之后讲了一个故事，说当他创立Nest时，他雇用了数百名苹果员工。史蒂夫·乔布斯打电话给他，威胁要提起诉讼，大发雷霆。但我认为法德尔说的有一点很有意思，我不知道是否直接适用于这里，但据报道他说：“我的工作是雇用优秀的人。你的工作是留住他们。”

佐伊·希弗：我忘了苹果是一家相当爱打官司的公司。他们曾因涉嫌泄露信息或离职时带走专有信息而起诉过员工，其他公司偶尔也会这么做，但特别是在泄密方面，提起诉讼的情况很少见。但我觉得这是苹果最在意的领域。它对产品如此保密，以至于当这些东西开始外泄时，我认为他们真的会迅速采取行动。我的看法是，莉亚，我很想听听你的想法，这并非为了从OpenAI那里获得赔偿。我认为苹果真正想要的是减缓OpenAI的硬件野心，因为苹果正在继续全力押注iPhone作为AI时代的首要计算平台。我确实认为，如果我们看到一个以音频为主的平台，更适合那些不需要看屏幕、只需与代理对话的场景，这可能会让他们感到威胁。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我认为这也是我觉得有趣的地方。本周也有一些报道来自彭博社，关于这款设备最终会是什么样子，说它会像一个音箱。它会带有一些电动部件，所以可以在一定程度上移动。我希望里斯·罗杰斯不会介意我分享，他说这听起来像是一个菲比精灵，我觉得可能差不多。但话说回来，如果OpenAI押注硬件，我持怀疑态度。我觉得归根结底苹果仍然可以制造音箱。而且因为苹果在这一切中是一个更中立的角色，苹果可以制造一款可能提供几种不同AI选项的音箱，或者搭载由Gemini驱动的Siri AI。最终，我认为关键还是在于你最常使用的设备将是手机。

佐伊·希弗：嗯，这一点已经很久没有变过了。我认为我们也看到苹果试图摆脱我们都在经历的、这种高度依赖屏幕的生活，比如面部电脑。名字我一时想不起来了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：Vision Pro。

佐伊·希弗：Vision Pro。非常感谢。

布莱恩·巴雷特：你难道不是每天都想着Vision Pro吗？

佐伊·希弗：不。我不得不说它火得快也凉得快，从那以后我就没再想起过它。但我认为问题在于，其他AI硬件设备也是如此，比如Humane AI那个著名的别针等等。有很多事情在屏幕上做更好，我不认为这会发生改变。然而，如果你能得到一个运行得非常非常好的智能体和语音模式，有些事情你真的可以只让智能体为你执行，你可能更愿意不用一直盯着屏幕。所以作为与屏幕关系颇为纠结的人，我准备好迎接能更好运作的东西了。但正确执行起来很困难，我认为到目前为止我们还没有看到能够做到这一点的产品。为了让我们讨论的内容更具体一些，根据诉讼，OpenAI已经雇用了超过400名前苹果员工。

莉亚·费格：哇哦。

佐伊·希弗：去年，它斥资65亿美元收购了一家名为IO Products的初创公司，该公司由苹果长期高管共同创立，包括唐探、斯科特·坎农、埃文斯·汉基，以及最著名的人物乔纳森·艾维。

布莱恩·巴雷特：是的，这是他们在该领域进行的一项巨大投资，而且显然对苹果来说，失去所有这些人是相当痛苦的。此外，他们还失去了其他公司的AI研究人员。苹果正在流失AI人才，现在硬件人才也在流失，这确实击中了其要害。我对整个过程最兴奋的一点（我们甚至还没到那一步）是诉讼意味着证据开示——

佐伊·希弗：耶。

布莱恩·巴雷特：耶，证据开示，耶。证据开示意味着我们将能读到这么多这些公司互相贬低和自贬的电子邮件。那将是非常令人愉快的。每当这些事情发生时，总是充满乐趣。

佐伊·希弗：太有趣了。没有比处理知识产权问题的律师更尖刻的人了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：把它印在杯子上吧，佐伊。

佐伊·希弗：他们确实是。

布莱恩·巴雷特：哇哦。我们有周边产品了吗？能把这个印在——

佐伊·希弗：我喜欢。

布莱恩·巴雷特：那是我们的周边产品。没错。

佐伊·希弗：那是我们的周边产品。

布莱恩·巴雷特：OpenAI的麻烦并不仅限于本周的苹果诉讼。《连线》杂志获悉，OpenAI员工正在资助一个竞争对手的超级政治行动委员会，主张对前沿AI实验室实施更严格的监管。这当然是针对格雷格·布罗克曼（OpenAI高管）等人投入大量资金以推动AI发展并取消护栏的行为。这个新的超级政治行动委员会名为“护栏联盟”，挺引人注目的。它上个月启动了。

佐伊·希弗：听起来像是一个保险计划。

布莱恩·巴雷特：确实像。而且不是你一定会想加入的那种。就像唯一一个愿意给你提供抵押贷款的那种。它上个月启动，初始资金为500万美元。它自称是科技工作者、工会和其他团体的民粹主义努力。这里的关键点是，它将作为我们刚才提到的那个1亿美元的“引领未来基金”的制衡力量。

佐伊·希弗：对。你说500万的时候，感觉像是很多钱。我当时想，看起来确实不少。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我正在努力炒作，我是说，他们需要——这是“护栏联盟”。他们需要一点助力。

佐伊·希弗：是的，他们确实需要。我得说，自从我们发现格雷格·布罗克曼向MAGA和特朗普相关事业捐赠了这么多钱以来，我一直在等待这个时刻。《连线》杂志记者麦克斯韦尔·泽夫对此进行了相当广泛的报道。这一切都是为了推动AI和AI政策。我认为他和业内许多其他人的观点是，特朗普及其盟友更倾向于“不惜一切代价增长、AI优先”的政策议程。但如果你和任何普通研究人员交谈过，绝大多数公司都充斥着相当自由派的年轻员工。这种紧张关系对我来说感觉潜在的非常混乱。OpenAI仍然有一种人们愿意反击和发声的文化。如果你看看他们的Slack，它有早期科技公司的感觉，人们在公开场合真正解决问题，尽管这些东西确实经常泄露。与此同时，公司的构成正在发生巨大变化。过去一两年里引入了一些较新的员工。我听说有些员工称他们为“MAGA金发女郎”。老实说，我甚至不知道他们是不是金发或者MAGA倾向，但我认为有一种感觉，OpenAI正在发生巨大变化，存在特朗普派系。然后还有更自由派的派系。

莉亚·费格：看，这对我来说很大程度上是草根与亿万富翁的对决，但都来自同一家公司——我们有时把硅谷说成一个整体，但它显然不是铁板一块。不同层级有这么多不同的人。我注意到一个事实是，最大的捐赠者之一是一位研究工程师。他捐了20万美元，研究工程师胡安·费利佩·塞隆·乌里韦，他捐了20万美元，并花了多年时间研究公司减轻AI潜在社会危害的策略。我很想看到他在这一切之后的表现评估。我真的很想知道人们是否对此感到紧张。佐伊，这类公司是否有防护措施，可以防止一个更倾向特朗普的经理对更倾向自由派的员工下手，尤其是当这体现在政治竞选的经济投入中并且肯定会产生影响的时候？

佐伊·希弗：是的。我是说，看，OpenAI是一家相对成熟的公司。它有流程。它有人力资源部门。这并不意味着这种事情不会发生。绝对有可能，我们以前也见过。但我认为，除非它成为一个重大问题，除非我们看到这场斗争实际影响到OpenAI的工作及其推出新模型的能力，坦率地说，我认为他们会坚持说：“我们有开放的文化，人们可以持有不同意见，这完全没问题。”他们会试图将其包装成一件积极的事情，我们拭目以待。

布莱恩·巴雷特：莉亚，我的问题是，500万美元在全局来看并不算多。他们的更大目标是在选举周期内筹集1500万美元。用这些钱，他们能合理地期望实现什么？如果你是他们的决策者，你会如何花这笔钱？实际潜力有多大？你提到了影响力。在实践中，这大概是什么样子的？

莉亚·费格：这是一个非常好的问题。我的意思是，如果我不提由Anthropic员工发起的另一个政治行动委员会，那就是我的失职，该委员会也在试图对抗“引领未来”。它叫“公众优先行动”。他们有大约2000万美元。所以还有其他资金来源。AI领域还有其他人在某种程度上对抗像格雷格·布罗克曼这样的人。但话说回来，当你谈论这些能带来什么时？2500万对1亿，显然仍有巨大差距。对我来说，这说明他们需要致力于地方选举的下级竞选。老实说，在支出较少的较小州，你可以获得很大的投入产出比。说实话，当我们谈论目前一些大型竞选时，每个人都想谈论的是德克萨斯州和缅因州。毫无疑问，那里有非常昂贵的广告购买。但当你谈到缅因州时，有很多地方志愿力量非常有兴趣以极低的成本参与进来。还有地方组织也能够以极低的成本再次动员。缅因州的广播时段对比奥斯汀的广播时段，这里有不同的能力。所以对我来说，这实际上意味着，而且我们不会——我的意思是，实际上我不能说，因为我此刻不知道他们所有的政治顾问具体是谁，但这真的将取决于顾问团队。他们是否被告知要参与纽约州最大的竞选等等？他们不应该这样做。是的，当然要表达你的想法，尤其是当你谈论AI监管、纽约数据中心等所有这些不同事物时。但如果你想有一些更重大的时刻和运动，你必须深入下级竞选。所以我很好奇这将如何发展。对我来说，这也将表明：这是为了博取名声吗？这是一种说“看，有很多OpenAI员工不同意你的观点”的方式吗？还是这是实际影响竞选、或许让参议院变蓝的一种方式？我们拭目以待。

布莱恩·巴雷特：是的。这是个好观点。从某些方面来说，大声疾呼、明确表态“嘿，我们并非都对此持相同看法”可能同样重要，甚至更为重要。无论结果如何，以及背后的资金支持如何。

莉亚·费格：说到政治中的AI，我要谈谈我最喜欢的话题之一，一如既往：由埃隆·马斯克创立的政府效率部。它仍然在新闻中，本周它出现在新闻中有一个非常具体的原因，那就是我们无法获得更多关于它的新闻。在住房和城市发展部工作的政府效率部成员使用AI来影响政策决策。这是我们去年报道并弄清楚的事情，但现在该机构似乎拒绝回应针对AI工具的开发和使用以及它们如何实际影响这些政策决策的信息自由法案请求。这一切都是根据从“民主前进”这个非营利法律组织通过信息自由法案请求获得的文件而曝光的。这相当令人担忧。你会认为在尘埃落定一年后，我们能够获得更多信息。从一个政府机构到另一个政府机构，住房和城市发展部只是最新的例子。我们一直遭遇到大量关于效率部到底在做什么、他们拥有的权限、他们使用的材料的进一步细节被拒绝的情况。这很大程度上是关于他们使用了AI，但也关于他们如何使用AI？系统中还剩下什么？当时的法规是什么？哪些被忽视了？谁知道这件事？这些都是缺失的非常重要的细节。尤其是现在，当人们回去试图解开他们留下的乱七八糟的蜘蛛网时。这对员工来说非常令人沮丧，可以理解，而且坦率地说，对于任何将在未来20年内在美国受到住房政策影响的人来说，这都应该是令人沮丧的。

佐伊·希弗：是的。我的意思是，我认为这反映了我们都在努力解决的一个问题，那就是AI工具可以以非常合法和有益的方式使用。如果你告诉我他们用AI进行研究和核实来源，我会说：“看起来挺聪明，不错。”然后它可能被用于可能引入歧视的方式。它可能被用于一些人称之为作弊的方式。我认为，可用的工具种类繁多，这提出了很多问题，而且我要说，公众有权得到某种形式的答案。但如你所说，目前我们有点被挡在门外。

莉亚·费格：你说得百分之百正确，佐伊。在这个具体案例中，当时这一切刚曝光时与《连线》杂志交谈过的住房和城市发展部员工发现，这些效率部员工使用AI来识别可能被废止或取消合同的机构规则。这发生在整个政府范围内。但再次，我只想非常清楚地说明这意味着什么，因为他们当时说：“这里有大量合同清单。你认为我们应该削减哪些？”然后有点像：“看看会怎样。”再次强调，我们没有更多关于哪些被削减、如何被削减、整个过程如何进行的细节，以及我们因此现在缺少了什么。这一切仍在拼凑中，这使得情况更加糟糕。尤其是当你想到做这些事的人，实际使用AI的人。《连线》杂志曾报道，克里斯托弗·斯威特，当时是芝加哥大学三年级学生，是真正参与这项工作的关键人物之一，还有斯科特·朗马克，他来自一家名为Kukun的房地产科技初创公司，后来加入了效率部。所以这些人（A）甚至不一定非常精通政府工作，更不用说（B）用AI浏览大量政府合同清单然后说“是，可以了”这种想法了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我必须说一下，对于喜欢创意公司拼写的人来说，那是Kukun，K-U-K-U-N。

莉亚·费格：不是吧。

佐伊·希弗：是的，就是它。

布莱恩·巴雷特：就是。所以他们声称这种AI豁免权，对吧？他们说：“哦，我们不可能把这些发布给你，因为这是AI，而AI可以豁免于信息自由法案。”但事实并非如此。但我想分成两部分问，莉亚，这样做的后果是什么？我们是否在住房和城市发展部之外看到这种情况，其他机构也会效仿吗？下一步是什么？我们会上法庭吗？不是我们，而是人们会上法庭对此进行抗辩吗？

莉亚·费格：我是说，好问题。很可能。如果这是美国公众想知道的信息，如果这是“民主前进”认为值得花时间的信息，那么信息自由法案下没有AI豁免权。AI与人对话以及AI之间对话不属于保密通信，这是这里提出的论点。美国没有法律要求政府披露是否在规则、政策或法规的制定中使用了AI。因此，同时，像这样的信息自由法案请求是你会发现这一点的唯一途径。而声称存在这种AI豁免权则创造了一个完全的黑箱。

佐伊·希弗：我还要说，不仅仅是他们如何使用工具，还包括工具如何做出他们所做出的决定，因为任何使用过AI智能体的人都知道，你不能只是说：“找出我们可能需要进行某些操作的法规。”你必须给它们大量背景信息。即使那样，非常重要的是要质问这些工具并问：“你是如何做出那个决定的？”这样你才能理解AI考虑了哪些因素，忽略了哪些因素？这些工具并非完全中立。它们由人类构建，内置了偏见。我真诚地希望，但我并没有抱太大希望，效率部考虑了所有这些因素，而不是随意地将AI释放到这些系统上。

莉亚·费格：百分之百。

布莱恩·巴雷特：佐伊，你实际上抱有多大希望——

佐伊·希弗：是的，没有。

莉亚·费格：关于这一点，我想最后告诉你们的是，上述房地产科技初创公司Kukun的朗马克，根据他的领英资料，他现在是管理和预算办公室（属于总统行政办公室）的AI放松管制执行主任。所以这个人并没有从此销声匿迹，他的决策——实际上我们对他的决策知之甚少，因为他们不告诉我们。它得以继续待在这个黑箱里，这再次说明，感觉像是效率部在同一波浪潮中扫过并扫走，但事实并非如此。那些从一开始就深度介入并确立这些政策的人，不仅仍然在政府中，而且正式在政府中，担任着稳固的、严肃的职务，有薪资等级等等。这是我们正在密切关注的一个故事。非常感谢我们的资深记者维多利亚·埃利奥特为我们深入挖掘这件事。

佐伊·希弗：好的。再讲一个AI故事。纽约州成为美国第一个在全州范围内实施新建数据中心暂停令的州。该暂停令由纽约州州长凯西·霍楚作为行政命令签署，规定在州政府制定新的环境和电网标准期间，暂停大型数据中心的开发一年。

凯西·霍楚（档案录音）：关键是，进步不应带来更高的水电费、耗尽的水资源或噪音污染。因此，我们别无选择，只能应对这些巨型设施带来的挑战。这就是为什么今天我将签署全国首个全州范围的超大规模数据中心暂停令。

佐伊·希弗：好的。不过有几个注意事项需要指出，然后我想听听你们的看法。第一，这项暂停令仅适用于大型数据中心，即50兆瓦或以上，并且不影响已经开始建设或拥有现有许可证的设施。一旦州政府最终确定一份通用的环境影响报告，该禁令就会解除。这可能需要一年或更长时间。我想说的是，我觉得这个暂停令正在应对两个故事。有全国性的故事，实际上这个国家需要AI。它是我们经济的重要组成部分，并且在某些方面是我们下的一个大赌注。感觉我们现在没有太多别的了。而且——

莉亚·费格：我是说，电动车已经完了，所以就是这个了。

佐伊·希弗：天哪。然后还有地方性的故事，那就是住在数据中心附近非常不舒服，坦率地说很糟糕。它确实会推高你的电费账单。它确实消耗大量水资源。这些事情将继续存在矛盾。

莉亚·费格：我必须提这个，因为目前大规模的数据中心不受欢迎。它们最终就是不受欢迎。感觉每隔一个头条新闻都是：“这个社区正在反抗这个，那个社区正在反抗那个。”其他州也曾尝试通过类似的暂停令但失败了。所以我有点好奇纽约州的将如何进行。我还必须告诉你们，在我们录制这期播客之前（我们在周三录制，这期将在周四早上发布给你们），我一直在刷新Truth Social，确信特朗普会发表意见。我绝对肯定，他确实发表了。在12:39，特朗普发表了意见，他说：“数据中心是未来就业的最大驱动力之一。”想象一下里面有很多随机的大写字母。“它们是为所在州带来巨额财富的庞大、强大、大胆的赚钱机器。州长凯西·霍楚，出于政治原因，终止了所有在纽约州正在建设或将要建设的数据中心。这些公司现在正在被阿拉巴马州、佛罗里达州、德克萨斯州、亚利桑那州和许多其他州争取，但税收和就业机会相当于流动的黄金。纽约州做出了一个可怕的决定——”

佐伊·希弗：那是——

布莱恩·巴雷特：那不是真的。

佐伊·希弗：——不是真的。

布莱恩·巴雷特：不是真的。

莉亚·费格：他继续讲，继续讲，继续讲。我是说，从这一切的政治层面来看，我知道我们有很多关于科技和气候等需要解读的东西，但不管是谁告诉唐纳德·特朗普数据中心将成为他中期选举的制胜议题，我很想和那个人同处一室。这太不可思议了。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我真的很惊讶，因为正如佐伊和我在你说他错了的时候都嘀咕的那样。他的论点是错误的。他可以提出一个论点，类似于佐伊提出的论点。这正好符合他的风格。这是一个“美国优先”的论点。那就是这至关重要。AI是下一个太空竞赛。我们需要击败中国。我们需要数据中心来实现这一点。不要问你的国家能为你做什么——

莉亚·费格：他最终会说到那点的。

布莱恩·巴雷特：等等，反了。反了。

莉亚·费格：到最后，他说到了。“绝不能允许激进的左派‘蠢驴党人’让我们把数据中心、AI和所有这些令人难以置信的新技术输给中国和其他国家，唐纳德·J·特朗普总统。”他确实再次说到了那点，然而，错误百出，而且我认为他遗漏了他选民中一个非常关键的部分，这个部分不仅仅存在于蓝州，他们会想：我到底该怎么支付这个费用并与之共存？

佐伊·希弗：对。我的意思是，这就是问题所在。我们已经看到其他州通过了法规。最终，这是我的看法。我认为我们需要专注于让数据中心更安全、更好、对周边社区影响更小。我们需要尽可能地将它们放在不直接毗邻居民区的地方。我们需要尽可能地降低它们的能源消耗。我个人会说，一刀切的暂停令，再说一次，这并不完全是这个情况，但是一个错误，仅仅因为整个经济目前对AI的依赖程度，以及这些AI数据中心对于AI竞赛和繁荣的持续重要性。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我不同意。我认为这里的例外条款是有道理的。你仍然可以建造任何不超过50兆瓦的东西。你仍然可以建造一些相当规模的大型中心。不是巨大的数据中心用途，但你可以得到一个相当不错的数据中心。听着，有人正在距离我家10英里的地方建一个数据中心。它会相当大。它将紧挨着本来要搬去的动物收容所。这很糟糕。目睹那个过程，它发生在任何人意识到之前就发生了。我认为这是这个国家很多地方的真实情况，作为一个社区，这些协议是很久以前达成的，或者当它们确实发生时，你未必知道直到许可完成才知道它要来了。所以我确实认为某种暂停、某种暂停令、某种限制，直到我们某种程度地弄清楚（A）通知人们正在发生什么的方式，（B）一个更好的计划来处理这些东西的选址及其影响。再说一次，我与此有利害关系，所以我并不是说我是完全中立的视角。

佐伊·希弗：嗯，不，我认为这是一个公平的观点。我只想说，与许多业内人士交谈后，我真的很惊讶于初创公司，尤其是受到计算能力限制的程度。你会听到关于SpaceX、OpenAI这些地方，它们有大量的数据中心访问权限，大量的计算机。其他所有人都在为获得访问权而拼命争斗，他们需要比目前能获得的更多的资源。这让我对AI泡沫的讨论稍微不那么焦虑了，因为我想，我不知道。至少如果你在硅谷，感觉需求仍然巨大。布莱恩，我看到你长舒了一口气。

布莱恩·巴雷特：不，不，不。是的，总是这样。但是不，在我继续之前，我想确保我问莉亚一个问题，那就是这至少在我看来正在成为中期选举中的一个真正问题，至少在某些地方。我想知道，你的感觉是——但同样让我感兴趣的是，尽管特朗普发了帖子，但这似乎并不完全按党派界限分明。这会如何发展？感觉它会成为一个问题，我不知道是对谁、在哪里或如何。

莉亚·费格：我在Truth Social上刷新的原因是，我有一位政府消息人士告诉我，这是特朗普总统未来的优先事项。我不完全确定这是否会真的实现。很抱歉，如果你正在收听，我的消息来源，只是因为这，如你所说，这确实不是一个阵营分明的问题。你有共和党人和民主党人反对他们社区的数据中心，要求改革，要求暂停令。同样，因为社区影响就是社区影响，无论它是蓝州还是红州。

布莱恩·巴雷特：休息之后，我们将深入探讨环孢子虫病疫情爆发。这是我能想到的最委婉的说法，它让很多人在想是否应该跳过午餐沙拉。请继续关注我们。

莉亚·费格：接下来的故事对胃不太好的人不友好，但这是一个重要的公共卫生故事。所以请忍耐一下。美国正处于有记录以来最严重的环孢子虫病疫情中，这是一种讨厌的寄生虫感染，会导致爆发性的、持续数周的腹泻。它正在迅速蔓延，目前已在超过30个州确认病例。为了分析实际发生了什么，官员们知道什么以及仍然不知道什么，以及我们将来会如何发展，我们请来了《连线》杂志的艾米丽·穆林。艾米丽，非常感谢你来到这里。

艾米丽·穆林：你好。很抱歉在这种情况下来到这里。

莉亚·费格：你能先解释一下环孢子虫是什么，以及为什么今年的疫情被称为有记录以来最严重的吗？

艾米丽·穆林：是的。关于这个没什么好说的，我向佐伊和我们的听众道歉。环孢子虫是一种微小的寄生虫，会引起相当严重的肠道疾病，这种疾病被称为环孢子虫病。人们通过食用或饮用被这种寄生虫污染的食物或水而感染。疾病控制与预防中心怀疑全国可能已有接近7000例病例。密歇根州占了其中大部分，周三他们的病例数刚刚更新到超过3700例。作为背景，在典型年份，各州可能报告几例到几十例。所以这真的很不寻常。实际病例数几乎肯定更高。疾病控制与预防中心和外部专家都这么说，这是因为大多数人在腹泻时不会寻求医疗护理。我们不会都出去因为我们的如厕习惯而给医生打电话。即使他们去了，实验室也不会常规检测这种寄生虫。但现在既然有了这方面的意识，如果你有症状，你绝对应该要求你的医生专门检测这个。

莉亚·费格：我是说，我得说，腹泻也分程度。我们听到的这个原因就像——不，不，不。我需要每个人都真正理解这远不止于此。这不是几次糟糕的排便。我听说过一个人的描述，他一天上了40次厕所。这远远超出了偶然发作对人体的影响。

艾米丽·穆林：是的。所以这不是一次性的那种。这可能持续数天，可能长达一两周的腹泻。这种长期腹泻的一大担忧是脱水。所以如果人们认为自己有这种症状，应该注意这一点并保持水分。专家说的一件事是，如果你年纪较大，如果你免疫功能低下，如果你特别有严重脱水的风险，你真的应该对此感到担忧并留意脱水迹象。

布莱恩·巴雷特：艾米丽，病因仍然有点神秘，对吧？我听到有人说受污染的生菜可能是元凶，但也可能是生水果和农产品。所有这些本应对你有益的东西现在都成了问题。有没有什么食物相对更安全？人们应该留意什么？我们甚至知道了吗？

艾米丽·穆林：我们目前还不知道疫情的确切来源。疾病控制与预防中心仍在调查几种食品，尽管密歇根州卫生官员表示，生菜在他们的调查中反复作为一种常见产品出现。总的来说，我们知道生菜和绿叶蔬菜是其他食源性疾病的常见来源。我们知道，例如，罗马生菜总是与大肠杆菌、沙门氏菌疫情有关。其他绿叶蔬菜与诺如病毒有关。所以如果生菜最终被证实是元凶，那真的不会令人惊讶。生菜之所以有问题的一个原因是它是生吃的。你不会听说抱子甘蓝引起疾病爆发，因为我们烹饪它们。另一个原因是生菜和其他绿叶蔬菜有微小的褶皱和裂缝，这使得难以完全洗掉病原体。

佐伊·希弗：那么如何去除它呢？

艾米丽·穆林：是的。嗯，这是个好问题，因为环孢子虫寄生虫对漂白剂和氯有抵抗力，醋也杀不死它。所以你应该知道的一件事是，如果你购买袋装生菜，上面写着已预洗，仍然要洗。这种寄生虫非常善于附着在水果和蔬菜的表面。所以目前你真的需要深入进去，好好地清洗你的绿叶蔬菜。你应该擦洗所有生蔬菜，尤其是生菜。

莉亚·费格：这对于我们这些今年夏天避开生菜、真正投入油炸食品的人来说是个好消息——

佐伊·希弗：莉亚级别的对所有生菜的禁令。

莉亚·费格：莉亚级别的禁令，百分百。我觉得不谈医疗保健领域的政府削减就无法真正讨论这个。你去年报道了疾病控制与预防中心FoodNet的削减。卫生与公众服务部有点反驳了这种类型的资金削减是原因的论点。他们说这种报告通过他们的系统等一直在继续。但是，削减实际上在多大程度上起了作用？我们能把情况变得这么糟糕归咎于效率部吗？请让我把情况变得这么糟糕归咎于效率部。

布莱恩·巴雷特：我们能不能发明“效率部尔腹泻”这个词？

佐伊·希弗：我想说我们应该用“库昆”这个词来代替“腹泻”以显得有趣，但我感觉有点太生僻了。

莉亚·费格：我会联系你们的。非常感谢。

艾米丽·穆林：一位前疾病控制与预防中心官员告诉《华盛顿邮报》，FoodNet并非为这种实时疫情检测或响应而设计的。它的功能更多的是追踪长期趋势。但我认为更大的问题是我们在疾病控制与预防中心看到的巨大人员削减。我们去年报道过，在本届政府领导下，疾病控制与预防中心大约四分之一的人员被裁减，这将在整个公共卫生领域产生连锁反应。所以在这种情况下，这意味着进行疫情调查的人员减少，这确实会妨碍响应工作。

佐伊·希弗：好的。那么对于正在收听的听众，也许包括我在内，实际可行的指导是什么？人们应该避免沙拉吗？我们应该完全避免生菜吗？

艾米丽·穆林：我是说，我个人对沙拉的看法，你可能不想听，但我认为还有其他更有营养的蔬菜。我只是说说。

佐伊·希弗：哦，天哪。我们需要为此再开一整期播客。

艾米丽·穆林：我是说，如果你买生菜，你应该把它擦洗干净。我认为就家里吃和外面吃而言，也许你不要在外面吃沙拉，因为你不知道清洗过程是怎样的。如果你更相信自己能做到，那么我会说，是的。如果你喜欢沙拉，仍然可以吃。如果你愿意冒险，那由你自己决定。

布莱恩·巴雷特：你仍然可以想加多少牧场沙拉酱就加多少。对我来说，这就是沙拉的精华。所以我认为我们没问题。

艾米丽·穆林：当然。

莉亚·费格：艾米丽，非常感谢你今天加入我们。这太棒了。

艾米丽·穆林：是的，谢谢邀请我。

佐伊·希弗：这就是我们今天的节目。我们将在节目说明中链接我们谈到的所有故事。阿德里亚娜·塔皮亚制作了本期节目。由普兰·班迪混音，他也是我们纽约录音室的工程师。由马特·吉尔斯和丹尼尔·罗曼进行事实核查。马克·莱达是我们旧金山录音室的工程师。凯特·奥斯本是我们的执行制片人，凯蒂·德拉蒙德是《连线》杂志的全球编辑总监。

英文来源：

This week on Uncanny Valley, the team discusses the details behind Apple suing OpenAI over alleged stolen hardware secrets. And the company’s headaches don’t stop there—a group of OpenAI employees just started a super PAC to advocate for stronger AI guardrails. Plus, New York’s first-in-the-nation data center moratorium draws Donald Trump’s ire, DOGE stonewalls FOIA requests on its AI use at HUD, and WIRED’s Emily Mullin explains the cyclosporiasis outbreak spreading across more than 30 states.
Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Apple Is Suing OpenAI for Allegedly Stealing Hardware Secrets
• OpenAI Staffers Are Funding a Rival Super PAC to Take on Their Boss
• New York Governor Signs First Statewide Data Center Moratorium
• DOGE Used AI for Housing Policy. The Government Won’t Say How
• The Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak Is About to Get Much Bigger
  You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at [email protected].
  How to Listen
  You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how:
  If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too.
  Transcript
  Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
  Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, contributing editor.
  Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
  Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.
  Zoë Schiffer: This week we're discussing OpenAI's ongoing drama, both legal and reputational. Last Friday, Apple sued the company basically alleging that OpenAI has been stealing confidential hardware secrets. And now this week, WIRED learned that some OpenAI employees are launching a super PAC to push for AI guardrails. We'll get into all those details and whether these developments could further hurt OpenAI, particularly in its fight against Anthropic.
  Brian Barrett: Also on the AI front, this week, New York State officially passed the first statewide data center moratorium. We'll dive into what that means exactly and whether this move could pave the way for other states to follow suit.
  Leah Feiger: We'll also talk about how some members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, used AI to actually shape housing policy. And we're going to check in on the disease sweeping the nation, cyclosporiasis, which is causing "turbo diarrhea" across the country.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK, you guys, I'm really excited to start with this OpenAI drama because the company has been in the headlines a lot lately and not for fantastic reasons. So basically what happened was last Friday, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly stealing information like unreleased iPhone parts and prototypes, confidential designs, documents about secret projects. That accusation sucks for OpenAI. It's pretty intense, but it gets really messy because Apple is basically saying that this theft, this alleged theft, mostly happened through former employees. OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple, is named in the lawsuit and accused of encouraging people who are leaving Apple to bring with them proprietary information and unreleased technology. You guys, Brian, I'm so curious what you thought when this dropped.
  Brian Barrett: I think it's fascinating. There's a lot of really interesting accusations in there. I think it's also like it's part of Apple's playbook that we haven't seen in a while, but it is something that Apple has done or threatened to do before. Tony Fadell, who is a longtime Apple guy, but then went on to start Nest, the thermostat company. He had also, I think he told a story recently in the wake of all this about how when he had started Nest, he hired several hundred Apple employees. Steve Jobs called him, threatened to sue, scream bloody murder. But what I though Fidel said was interesting, and I don't know that it applies directly here, but reportedly what he says is that he said, "It's my job to hire great people. It's your job to keep them."
  Zoë Schiffer: I forget that Apple is a pretty litigious company. They've famously sued employees for supposedly leaking stuff or taking proprietary stuff with them when they left Apple, which companies will do occasionally, but particularly for leaks, it is rare to see lawsuits come. But this is the area that I feel like Apple cares most about. It is so secretive about its products that when that stuff starts to get out of its hands, I think they really are quick to jump on it. My take here, and Leah, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, is that this isn't about getting damages from OpenAI. I think what Apple actually wants is to slow down OpenAI's hardware ambitions because it's really continuing—Apple is continuing to go all in on the iPhone as the primary computing platform for the AI era. And I do think that if we see an audio-first platform that works better for stuff where you do not need to look at a screen and you can just talk to an agent, that could be intimidating for them.
  Brian Barrett: I think this is what's interesting to me too is some reporting came out this week also about what the device is eventually going to look like from Bloomberg and said it's going to be like a speaker. It's going to have some motorized elements so it'll move in some capacity. Reece Rogers, I hope he doesn't mind my sharing, said it sounded like a Furby, which I think is probably right. But look, if OpenAI is banking on hardware, I am skeptical. I feel like ultimately Apple can still make a speaker. And also because Apple is a more neutral party in all this, Apple can make a speaker that has a few different AI options to choose from potentially or has Siri AI, which is blown from Gemini. And ultimately, I do think it's going to come down to the device that you use most of the time is going to be the phone.
  Zoë Schiffer: Well, I mean, that has been true for a long time. And I think we've seen even Apple try and get away from this very screen heavy life that we're all living with the face computer. The name is escaping me.
  Brian Barrett: Vision Pro.
  Zoë Schiffer: The Vision Pro. Thank you so much.
  Brian Barrett: You don't think about Vision Pro every day?
  Zoë Schiffer: No. I have to say that it lived and died very quickly, and I haven't thought about it since. But I think the issue, and this has been true for other AI hardware the devices, like the famous pin from Humane AI and all of that. There just are many things that are better to do on a screen, and I don't think that's going to change. However, if you can get agents and voice mode that works really, really well, there are other things that you really could just ask an agent to execute for you, and you might prefer not to look at a screen the whole time. And so I personally, as someone who has a very tortured relationship with my screens, I'm ready for something that could work a little bit better. But it's hard to execute correctly, and I don't think we've seen a product so far that has been able to do that. Just to ground what we're talking about a little bit more, OpenAI has hired more than 400 former Apple employees according to the lawsuit.
  Leah Feiger: Wow.
  Zoë Schiffer: And last year it paid $6.5 billion to acquire a startup called IO Products that was co-founded by longtime Apple executives, including Tan, Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and the most famous person, Jony Ive.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah, it is a huge investment that they're making in this space, and it's obviously got a sting for Apple to be losing all of these people. Plus they've lost AI researchers to other companies as well. Apple's hemorrhaging AI talent and now hardware talent too, which really hits them where it hurts. What I am most excited about about this whole process is we're not even really there yet, is that lawsuits mean discovery, and—
  Zoë Schiffer: Yay.
  Brian Barrett: Yay, discovery, yay. And discovery means we're going to get to read so many emails of these companies talking trash about each other and themselves. And it's going to be such a delight. It's always a joy when these things happen.
  Zoë Schiffer: It's so fun. No one is cattier than a lawyer with an IP issue.
  Brian Barrett: Put that on a mug, Zoë.
  Zoë Schiffer: They are.
  Brian Barrett: Wow. Do we have merch yet? Can that be on—
  Zoë Schiffer: I love it.
  Brian Barrett: That's our merch. Yeah.
  Zoë Schiffer: That's our merch.
  Brian Barrett: OpenAI's headaches are not just limited to the Apple lawsuit this week. WIRED learned that OpenAI staffers are funding a rival super PAC to advocate for tighter regulations on Frontier AI Labs. It's a rival, of course, to all of the money that people like Greg Brockman, OpenAI executive, and others have put towards boosting AI and shutting down guardrails. This new Super PAC called Guardrails Alliance, catchy. It launched last month.
  Zoë Schiffer: Sounds like an insurance plan.
  Brian Barrett: It does. And not one that you necessarily want to sign up for. It's like the only one that'll give you a mortgage. It launched last month with $5 million in initial funding. It bills itself as a populist effort by tech workers, labor unions, and other groups. And here's the key aspect. It's going to be a counterweight to that $100 million Leading the Future fund that we talked about a second ago.
  Zoë Schiffer: Right. The way you said five million, it was like five million was a lot. And I was like, it seems like it.
  Brian Barrett: I'm trying to hype up, I mean, they need—it’s Guardrails Alliance. They need a little bit of a boost.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, no, they do. I have been kind of waiting for this moment, I will say, since we found out that Greg Brockman was donating so much money to MAGA and Trump related causes in his view and Maxwell Zeff, WIRED reporter, has reported on this pretty extensively. It's really all about boosting AI and AI policy. And I think his view and the view of many others in the industry is that Trump and those aligned with him are more favorable toward a growth at all costs, AI first policy agenda. But if you've talked to any average researcher, overwhelmingly the companies are filled with younger employees who are pretty liberal. And so that tension felt potentially really messy to me. And OpenAI still has a culture where people are willing to push back and speak out. If you look at their Slack, it has that earlier tech feel of people really working out the problems in public, even though this stuff does tend to leak so much. At the same time, the composition of the company is really changing. There are these newer employees that have been brought in over the past year or two. I've heard some employees call them the MAGA blondes. I honestly don't even know if they are blonde or MAGA oriented, but I think there's this feeling that OpenAI is really changing, and there is the Trump aligned contingent. And then there's the more liberal contingent.
  Leah Feiger: Look, this is so much to me the grassroots versus the billionaire, but it's all from within the same company, which is—we talk about Silicon Valley sometimes as a monolith, but it is so clearly not a monolith. You have so many different people at different rungs. And I was really taken with the fact that one of the largest donors was a research engineer. He gave 200K, research engineer Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, and he gave 200K and has spent years working on the company strategies for mitigating potential societal harms caused by AI. I would love to see a performance review of him after all of this is done. And I actually really do wonder if people are nervous about this. Are there stopgaps, Zoë, at these kinds of companies to prevent perhaps a more Trump aligned manager from taking it out on a more liberal coded person, especially when this is playing out financially in political races and will certainly have impact?
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, look, OpenAI is a relatively mature company. It has processes. It has an HR department. It's not to say this stuff can't happen. I absolutely can and we've seen it happen before. But I think until it becomes a major issue, until we see this fight actually impact the work and OpenAI's ability to ship new models, frankly, I think they're going to go with the line of, "We have an open culture, people are allowed to disagree, this is totally fine." And they'll try and spin it almost as a positive and we'll see.
  Brian Barrett: Leah, my question for you is $5 million in the grand scheme of things, not a lot of money. They have a larger goal to raise $15 million during the election cycle. What can they reasonably expect to accomplish with that kind of money? If you were them, how would you go about spending it? What's the actual potential? You mentioned impact. What does that look like in practice probably?
  Leah Feiger: That's a really good question. And I mean, I'd be remiss to not also call out the other PAC that was started by employees from Anthropic that's also trying to combat Leading the Future. It's called Public First Action. They have something like $20 million. So there is other funding. There are other people in the AI space that are kind of making moves against the Greg Brockmans of the world. But again, when you're talking about what does that bring us to? 25 million versus 100 million, that's obviously still a massive difference. To me, this says that they need to be working on down-ballot local campaigns. You can honestly get a lot of bang for your buck in smaller states with less expenditures. Honestly, as we're talking about some of the big races right now, the races that everyone wants to talk about are Texas and Maine. And there are, without a doubt, very expensive ad buys to be had. But when you're talking about the state of Maine, for example, there's a lot of local volunteer power that would be very, very interested in getting involved for very, very cheap. And local organizations that are also able to mobilize again, very cheaply. Radio spots in Maine versus radio spots in Austin, there are different capacities here. So to me, what this really says, and we're not going to—I mean, actually I can't say because I don't know exactly who all of their political advisors are at this moment, but this is really going to come down to advisory staff. Are they being told to get into the biggest races in New York and what have you? They shouldn't. Like, yeah, absolutely. Make your thoughts known, especially when you're talking about AI regulation, New York data centers, all of these different things. But if you want to have some of these bigger moments and movements, you got to go down ballot. And so I'm curious to see how this goes. And to me, this is also going to say, is this a play for notoriety? Is this a way to say, look, there's a bunch of OpenAI employees that don't agree with you? Or is this a way to actually impact races and perhaps turn Senate blue? We'll see.
  Brian Barrett: Yeah. That's a good point. In some ways it's as if not more important to be really vocal and visible saying, "Hey, we don't all think the same about this." Yeah, regardless of the outcome and the money behind it.
  Leah Feiger: Speaking of AI in politics, I'm going to talk about one of my favorite topics as always, DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, started by Elon Musk. It's still in the news, and it is in the news for a very specific reason for us this week, which is we can't get more news out about it. Members of DOGE who are working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, used AI to inform policy decisions. This is something that we were reporting on and figured out last year, but now the agency appears to be denying Freedom of Information Act requests for information on the development and the use of the AI tools and the way they actually informed these policy decisions. This all came out according to documents obtained by a FOIA request from Democracy Forward, which is a nonprofit legal organization. And it's pretty concerning. You would assume that a year after some of this dust has settled that we'd be able to get a little bit more information. And from government agency to government agency, HUD really is the latest example here. We've been just getting tons of stonewalling on additional further details as to what DOGE has been up to, the access they had, the materials they used. It's very much about the fact that they used AI, but it's also how did they use AI? What is still left in the systems? And what were the regulations there? What got blown by? Who knew about this? And these are so many important details that are just missing. And especially now as people are going back and trying to untangle the spaghetti web that was left in their steed. It's very frustrating for employees, understandably, and frankly should be frustrating for anyone who is going to be impacted by housing policy in the next 20 years in America.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, I think it speaks to an issue that we're all grappling with, which is AI tools can be used in ways that are very legitimate and helpful. If you told me that they were using AI for research and checking their sources, I would be like, "Seems smart, cool." And then it can be used in ways that are possibly introducing discrimination. It could be used in ways that some would call cheating. And I think the just huge range and the types of tools available, they create a lot of questions, and questions that I would say the public is entitled to some form of answers on. But like you said, right now we're being a little bit stonewalled.
  Leah Feiger: You're 100 percent right, Zoë. And in this specific case, HUD employees who spoke to WIRED at the time that this all was coming out found that these DOGE employees were using AI to identify agency rules for potential rescission or contract cancellations. And this was happening across government. But again, I just want to be so clear about what this means as they were saying, "Here's this massive list of contracts. What do you think we should cut here?" And just kind of like, "Let's see what happens." Again, we don't have more details on everything that got cut, the way that it got cut, the way that it all went down, what we're missing now as a result. It's all still coming together, and that makes it so much more unfortunate. And especially when you're also thinking about the people that were doing this, that were actually employing the AI. WIRED had reported that Christopher Sweet, who was then a third-year student at the University of Chicago, was one of the people really involved in this effort, as was Scott Langmack, who came to DOGE from a property technology startup called Kukun. So it's not like these were people who were (A) even necessarily that well-versed in government work by any means. But then additionally, the idea of going through massive government contract lists with AI and being like, “Yep, good to go.”
  Brian Barrett: I do need to say for those who love creative company spellings, that's Kukun, K-U-K-U-N.
  Leah Feiger: No.
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, it is.
  Brian Barrett: It is. So they're claiming this AI exemption, right? They're saying like, "Oh, we can't possibly release these to you because it was AI, and AI is exempted from FOIA," which is not the case. But I guess a two-parter, Leah, what are the implications of that? Are we seeing it beyond HUD or other agencies going to embrace this? And what's the next step? Do we go to the courts with this? Not we, but do people go to the courts with this to fight this?
  Leah Feiger: I mean, great question. Probably. If this is information that the American public wants to know, if this is information that Democracy Forward decides is worth their time, there is no AI exemption under FOIA. AI talking to people and AI talking to each other is not privileged communications, which is the argument that was being made here. There are no laws in the US that require the government to disclose if AI has been used in the creation of rules, policies, or regulation. And so simultaneously, a FOIA like this is the only way that you would find out. And saying that there is this AI exemption then just creates an entire black box.
  Zoë Schiffer: I would say also that it's not just how they used the tools, but how the tools made the decisions that they made, because anyone who's used AI agents at all knows that you can't just say, "Identify regulations that we should potentially do X, Y, Z too." You have to give them a lot of context. And then even then it's very important to interrogate the tools and say, "How did you make that decision?" So you can understand what the AI is taking into account and what it's ignoring? These tools are not completely neutral. They are built by humans. They have biases baked in. And I would sincerely hope, but I don't have that much hope, that DOGE was looking at all of that and not just unleashing AI on these systems willy-nilly.
  Leah Feiger: 100 percent.
  Brian Barrett: Zoë, how much hope do you actually—
  Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, no.
  Leah Feiger: The last thing I want to leave you guys with of this too is that Lang Mac of the aforementioned property technology startup Kukun, he's now the executive director of deregulation AI at the Office of Management and Budget, which falls under the executive office of the president, according to his LinkedIn. So it's not like this person has now disappeared into obscurity and his decisionmaking—or we actually don't know a ton about his decisionmaking, because they won't tell us. It gets to continue being in this black box, which is again, just to say that it very much felt like DOGE swept in and swept out in the same wave of the year, but that's really not the case. The people that got very involved and entrenched these policies from the beginning are still not just in government but officially in government, entrenched, serious roles, pay scales, etc. And it's a story we're paying really, really close attention to. And big ups to our senior reporter, Vittoria Elliot, for staying in the weeds on this for us.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. One more AI story. So New York became the first state in the country to impose a statewide moratorium on building new data centers. The moratorium was signed as an executive order by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and it puts into place a one-year pause on the development of large-scale data centers while the state develops new environmental and energy grid standards.
  Kathy Hochul, archival audio: The bottom line is progress shouldn't arrive with a higher utility bill, depleted water supply, or noise pollution. So we have no choice but to address these challenges created by these massive facilities. That is why today I'll be signing the nation's first ever statewide moratorium on hyper scale data centers.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. Well, there's a few caveats to just point out, and then I want to hear what you guys have to say. One, this moratorium applies only to large scale data centers, so 50 megawatts or more, and it doesn't affect facilities that have already started construction or have existing permits. And it'll also lift once the state finalizes a generic environmental and impact statement. So that could be a year or more out. The thing that I want to say is that I feel like there are two stories that this moratorium is wrestling with. There's the national story, which is we actually need AI in this country. It's a big part of our economy, and it's like in some ways the big bet we have taken. We don't have a lot else it feels like right now. And then-
  Leah Feiger: I mean, EVs are done, so this is it.
  Zoë Schiffer: Boy. And then there's the local story, which is it is very uncomfortable and it frankly sucks to live near a data center. It does spike your energy bill. It does suck up a lot of water. And those things are going to continue being intention.
  Leah Feiger: I have to bring this up because data centers right now on a large scale are unpopular. They're just ultimately unpopular. I feel like every other headline is like, "And this community is rebelling against this and this community is rebelling against this." Other states have tried and failed to actually pass a similar moratorium. So I'm kind of curious how New York's is going to go. And I also have to tell you guys that I was, before we recorded this podcast, which we record on Wednesdays, this is going to be released to you all on Thursday morning. I was refreshing Truth Social, convinced that Trump was going to weigh in. I was absolutely positive, and he did. At 12:39, Trump weighs in and goes, "One of the biggest driving forces in the future for jobs are data centers." Just imagine a lot of random capitalization in there. "They are big, strong, bold, and money machines for the state in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all data centers being built or to be built in New York State. These companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other states, but the taxes and the jobs amount to liquid gold. New York State has made a terrible decision—“
  Zoë Schiffer: That's—
  Brian Barrett: It's not true.
  Zoë Schiffer: —not true.
  Brian Barrett: Not true.
  Leah Feiger: He continues and continues and continues. I mean, from the political side of all this, and I know that there is so much we need to unpack with the tech and the climate and everything, whoever told Donald Trump that data centers was going to be his winning issue for midterms, I want to be in a room with them. It's incredible.
  Brian Barrett: I'm really surprised, because as Zoë and I both muttered while you were saying that he's wrong. His arguments are wrong. There is an argument he could make, similar to what Zoë made. It's right in his wheelhouse. It's an America-first argument. It is that it is crucial. AI is the next space race. We need to beat China. We need data centers to do that. Ask not what you can do for your country.
  Leah Feiger: He gets there in the end.
  Brian Barrett: Wait, other way around. Other way around.
  Leah Feiger: By the end, he gets there. "The radical left 'dumbocrats' must not be allowed to cause us to lose data centers, AI and all of this incredible new technology to China and other countries, President Donald J. Trump." He does get there again, however, littered with errors and also I think missing a really key part of his electorate that is not just in blue states that's going, how on earth am I supposed to pay for this and live with this?
  Zoë Schiffer: Right. I mean, that is the issue. And we've seen other states pass regulations. Ultimately, this is my take. I think we need to focus on making data centers safer, better, less impactful to the communities that they're near. We need to put them in areas that aren't directly adjacent to where people are living as much as we're able. We need to make them less energy intensive to the extent that we are able. I personally would say a blanket moratorium, which again, that's not exactly what this is, but is a mistake just because of how dependent the entire economy is on AI right now and how important these AI data centers continue to be for the AI race and boom.
  Brian Barrett: I disagree. I think the carveouts here make sense. You still build anything up to 50 megawatts. You can still build some pretty decent-sized mega centers. The data center is not huge, use, but you can get a pretty good data center. And look, someone's building a data center 10 miles from my house. It's going to be pretty big. It's going to be right next to where the animal shelter was going to move. It's bad. And to have watched that process, it happened before anybody realized it was happening. And I think that's the story that's true a lot of places in this country whereas a community, these deals were made a while ago or when they do happen, you don't necessarily know until the permitting's done that this is even coming in. So I do think some sort of pause, some sort of moratorium, some sort of restrictions on until we sort of figure out, (A) way to inform people what's going on, (B) a better plan of attack for where these things go and the impact they'll have. And again, I have a dog in this fight, so I'm not saying I'm an unbiased perspective here.
  Zoë Schiffer: Well, no, I think that that's a fair point to make. I will just say talking to a lot of industry people, it really surprises me how constrained startups feel in particular by compute. You hear about SpaceX, OpenAI, these places that have a lot of access to data centers, a lot of access to computers. Everyone else is fighting tooth and nail to get access, and they need a lot more than they're currently able to get. It makes me a little less stressed about AI bubble talk because I'm like, I don't know. If you're in Silicon Valley at least, it still just feels like the appetite is enormous. Brian, I can see you taking a big sigh.
  Brian Barrett: No, no, no. Yes, always. But no, I did want to, before we move on, because I want to make sure I asked Leah a question, which is that this is shaping up at least to me to be a real issue in the midterms, at least in some places. And I want to know, want your sense of— But also what's interesting about it to me too is it doesn't seem necessarily, despite Trump's post, that clearly divided among party lines. How is this going to play out? It feels like it'll be an issue I don't know for who or where or how.
  Leah Feiger: The reason I was clicking refresh on Truth Social is because I'd had a government source tell me that this was a priority of President Trump's going forward. And I wasn't 100 percent sure if that was going to actually bear out. Sorry to my source if you're listening, just because this has, like you said, this has really been a not-down-the-line issue. You have Republicans and Democrats that have been opposing data centers in their communities asking for reform, asking for moratoriums. Again, because community impact is just community impact, whether it's a blue state or a red state.
  Brian Barrett: Coming up after the break, we'll be diving into the cyclosporiasis illness outbreak. That's the nicest possible way I can put it that has a lot of people wondering whether they should skip that salad for lunch. Stay with us.
  Leah Feiger: This next story is not for the faint of stomach, but it's an important public health story. So bear with us. The US is in the middle of its worst outbreak on record of a nasty parasitic infection called cyclosporiasis, which causes explosive weeks long diarrhea. It is spreading fast with cases now confirmed in more than 30 states and to break down what's actually going on, what officials know and still don't know. And where we're going from here, we're joined by WIRED's Emily Mullin. Emily, thank you so much for being here.
  Emily Mullin: Hello. I'm sorry to be here on this occasion.
  Leah Feiger: Could you just start by explaining what cyclospora is and why this year's outbreak is being called the worst on record?
  Emily Mullin: Yeah. So there's no good way to talk about this, and I apologize to Zoë and our listeners. Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that causes pretty bad intestinal illness and the illness is called cyclosporiasis. So people get it by consuming food or water that's contaminated with this parasite. The CDC suspects there may be close to 7,000 cases already nationwide. Michigan makes up the bulk of those, and on Wednesday, their case count was just updated to more than 3,700 cases. Just for context, in a typical year, states might report a handful of cases to a few dozens. So this is really unusual. The actual case count is almost certainly higher. Both the CDC and outside experts have said this, and it's because most people don't seek medical care when they get diarrhea. We're not all going out and calling our doctors about our bathroom habits. And even when they do, labs don't routinely test for this parasite. But now that there's awareness about it out there, if you do have symptoms, you should definitely be asking your doctor to get tested specifically for this.
  Leah Feiger: I mean, I have to say there's diarrhea, and there's diarrhea. What we're hearing this cause is just like something—no, no, no. I need everyone to really understand this is so much more than that. This isn't like a couple of bad bowel movements. I heard accounts of one man who said that he was on the toilet 40 times in one day. This is beyond what a casual bout would do to a human.
  Emily Mullin: Yeah. So this is not like a one and done type of thing. This can be days, possibly up to a week or two of diarrhea. And one of the big concerns with this prolonged diarrhea is dehydration. So people should just be aware of that if they think they have symptoms of this and just keep hydrated. One of the things that experts say is that if you are older, if you are immunocompromised, if you are particularly at risk for severe dehydration, you should really be concerned about this and be on the lookout for dehydration.
  Brian Barrett: Emily, the cause is kind of a mystery still too, right? I've heard people say tainted lettuce could be a culprit, but also maybe raw fruits and produce. All the things that are supposed to be good for you are now this. Is there any food that's safer than not? What should people look out for? Do we even know yet?
  Emily Mullin: We do not know the exact source of the outbreak right now. The CDC is still investigating several food products, although Michigan health officials have said that lettuce keeps coming up as a common product during their investigation. And just in general, we know that lettuce and leafy greens are a common source of other foodborne illnesses. We know that romaine lettuce, for instance, always linked to E. Coli outbreaks, salmonella. Other leafy greens are linked to norovirus. So it would not really be a surprise if lettuce does end up being the culprit here. And one of the reasons lettuce is problematic is because it's eaten raw. You don't hear about disease outbreaks from Brussels sprouts because we cook them. Another reason is that lettuce and other leafy greens have these small folds and crevices that make it difficult to wash off pathogens completely.
  Zoë Schiffer: So how do you get rid of it then?
  Emily Mullin: Yeah. Well, this is a great question because the cyclospora parasite is resistant to bleach and chlorine and also vinegar does not kill it. So one thing you should know is that if you're buying the bagged lettuce that says it's pre-washed, still wash it. This parasite is very good at latching onto the surfaces of fruits and vegetables. So right now you really need to get in there and give your greens a good scrub. You should be scrubbing down all of your raw vegetables, but especially lettuce.
  Leah Feiger: That is great news for those of us who are avoiding lettuce this summer and just really leaning into fried food that you-
  Zoë Schiffer: Leah-wide moratorium on lettuce of any sort.
  Leah Feiger: Leah-wide moratorium, 100 percent. I feel like we can't really talk about this without talking about government cuts in the healthcare space. You reported on CDC's FoodNet cutbacks last year. The HHS has pushed back a bit on the idea that these kinds of funding cuts are to blame. They've said that this reporting has continued throughout their systems, etc., etc. To what extent though do cuts actually play a role? Can we blame DOGE for how bad this has gotten? Please let me blame DOGE for how bad this has gotten.
  Brian Barrett: Can we coin the phrase DOGErrhea perhaps?
  Zoë Schiffer: I was going to say we should replace the word diarrhea with Cocoon just to be funny, but I felt like it was a little too obscure.
  Leah Feiger: I'll circle you guys. Thank you so much.
  Emily Mullin: So a former CDC official told the Washington Post that FoodNet was not designed for this real time outbreak detection or response. Its function is more in tracking longer term trends. But I think the bigger issue here is the huge staffing cuts we've seen to the CDC. We reported last year that about a quarter of the CDC has been cut under this administration, and that is going to have ripple effects across all of public health. So in this situation, it means fewer people conducting outbreak investigations which can really hamper response efforts.
  Zoë Schiffer: OK. So for people who are listening right now, perhaps me among them, what is the actual practical guidance? Should people be avoiding salads? Should we be avoiding lettuce altogether?
  Emily Mullin: I mean, my personal opinion about salads, you probably don't want to hear, but I think there are more nutritious vegetables out there. I'm just saying.
  Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh. We need a whole other podcast on that.
  Emily Mullin: I mean, if you're buying lettuce, you should be scrubbing it clean. I think in terms of eating at home versus out, maybe you don't eat salads out because you just don't know what the cleaning process was like. And if you trust yourself to do that more, then I would say yeah. Still go for the salad if you like salad. If you want to risk it, that's up to you.
  Brian Barrett: You can still eat as much ranch dressing as you want. And to me, that's what a salad is. So I think we're fine.
  Emily Mullin: Absolutely.
  Leah Feiger: Emily, thank you so much for joining us today. This was the best.
  Emily Mullin: Yeah, thanks for having me.
  Zoë Schiffer: That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. It was mixed by Pran Bandi, who's also our New York studio engineer. It was fact checked by Matt Giles and Daniel Roman. Marc Leyda is our San Francisco studio engineer. Kate Osborn is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director.