WIRED Roundup: DOGE Isn’t Dead, Facebook Dating Is Real, and Amazon’s AI Ambitions
Summary
The latest episode of WIRED’s Uncanny Valley (host Zoë Schiffer with senior editor Leah Feiger) covers five headline stories: Amazon’s new frontier Nova models and the Nova Forge customiser; researchers showing AI guardrails can be bypassed by poetry; the surprising size and AI features of Facebook Dating; Hidden, a sex-worker-owned alternative to OnlyFans; and reporting that DOGE operatives remain embedded across federal agencies rather than vanishing.
Key Points
- Amazon announced a family of Nova models (Nova Light, Nova Pro, Nova Sonic, Nova Omni) plus Nova Forge, a tool for customers to customise LLMs to business needs.
- AWS gives Amazon a structural edge in the AI race because much modern AI runs on its cloud infrastructure.
- Researchers found adversarial “poems” can bypass chatbot safety guardrails — handcrafted poetic prompts had ~62% jailbreak success, enabling dangerously sensitive outputs in tests.
- Facebook Dating has become a quiet hit: ~21 million active users and ~1.7 million daily users aged 18–29; it also includes an advanced AI dating assistant.
- Hidden is a new adult-content platform owned and run by sex workers, offering an 18% platform cut and chargeback protections to give creators more control.
- Contrary to some reports, DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) isn’t gone: operatives are dispersed into agencies and influence hiring, policy and programme cuts.
- DOGE-driven changes have immediate and long-term implications — from morale and layoffs in agencies and tech firms to public-health and aid programme disruptions (for example, USAID and parts of CDC).
- Overall themes: rapid AI productisation vs safety, big platforms leveraging scale into new markets, and political/operational shifts inside government with real-world consequences.
Why should I read this?
Short version: if you care about where AI is headed, how it can be misused (yes, even via dodgy poetry), or how tech-style shake-ups are reshaping government and dating apps — this episode bundles the must-know bits. We skimmed the noise and handed you the headlines.
Author style
Punchy: This is important. Read the details on DOGE and the AI guardrail failures — they matter for policy, safety and everyday services. The rest? Useful context on platform power and creator economies.
Context and relevance
Why it matters: Amazon signalling deeper AI ambitions reshapes competition in models and cloud infrastructure. The poetry jailbreak study highlights persistent safety weaknesses that regulators and developers must urgently address. Facebook Dating’s growth shows how incumbents can quietly dominate niches using existing user bases and AI. Hidden reflects a trend of platform alternatives built to return revenue and control to creators. And DOGE’s continued presence inside government demonstrates how tech-minded reforms and staffing changes can have fast, tangible effects on public services and international aid.