As AI agents grow capable enough to probe and disrupt real systems, the security stakes are starting to look less like a one-sided arms race and more like a shared problem. A new conversation on Wired's Uncanny Valley podcast asks whether that common exposure could finally drag the United States and China toward the same table, rather than pushing them further apart.
This week on the podcast, senior writer Will Knight discusses his recent visit to China and the future of AI collaboration between the two powers. Knight uses the reporting trip to ground a broader question about whether rival superpowers, both racing to dominate artificial intelligence, might be compelled to cooperate by threats neither can fully control on its own.
The framing is deliberately speculative, but the underlying premise is concrete: if autonomous agents are already capable of hacking systems, no frontier lab or government can treat the threat as purely domestic. The same tools fueling cyber-espionage and technological rivalry might eventually demand cooperative guardrails.