have inspired works of science fiction, but the technology behind them is real and quickly developing. Companies like Synchron and Neuralink are racing to build a model that they can commercialize. Lauren and Mike speak with WIRED’s Emily Mullin to discuss why Synchron’s model is standing out, and the promises and limitations of these interfaces.

Mentioned in this episode:
There’s Neuralink—and There’s the Mind-Reading Company That Might Surpass It by Emily Mullin

You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode, and Katie Drummond on Bluesky at @katie-drummond. Write to us at [email protected].

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Michael Calore: Hey, this is Mike. Before we start, I want to take the chance to remind you that we want to hear from you. Do you have a question around AI or politics or privacy that has been on your mind, or just a topic that you wish that we talked about on the show? If so, you can write to us at [email protected]. And if you listen to and enjoy our episodes, please rate the show and leave a review on your podcast app of choice. It really helps other people find us. Lauren, how you doing?

Lauren Goode: I’m hanging in there.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: It’s been a hectic week, but hectic in a good way, I think.

Michael Calore: Yeah, you’ve been very busy writing a lot of big scoops for WIRED.com?

Lauren Goode: Not a lot, but enough. The Business Desk at WIRED has been really busy this week.

Michael Calore: Of which you’re a part?

Lauren Goode: That’s right.

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: How are you doing?

Michael Calore: I’m doing great, thanks.

Lauren Goode: Wow, you rarely hear that these days.

Michael Calore: I know.

Lauren Goode: We can probably just wrap the podcast now. How are you feeling about the fact that Katie is not with us this week?

Michael Calore: I think that she is going to stun and surprise us all with our third weekly episode that she’s planning. Right now we have two episodes a week of the show. She’s working on this project that’s going to bring a third episode to the show, and I think we’re all going to be very impressed by it. So, it’s bittersweet she’s not here, but the sweet part is that we get a third drop in the feed every week.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, I think it’s going to be really good.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: And also that means Katie still has time to run WIRED, which is another thing that she does on the side.

Michael Calore: I thought you were going to say run nine miles a day.

Lauren Goode: That too. She also runs, runs, runs. But yeah, no, here we are, just you and I in the San Francisco office dealing with the fog. It’s very foggy this time of year. People don’t think that when they think of California, but it is. And is it just me and you?

Michael Calore: No, we have a guest. We have Emily Mullen on the show.

Lauren Goode: You’re kidding.

Michael Calore: No, we’re going to bring her on in just a minute.

Lauren Goode: Let’s do it.

Michael Calore: This is WIRED’s Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Today we are talking about brain computer interfaces. They’re also known as brain-machine interfaces or just BCIs for short. But whatever you call them, these are pretty incredible systems that allow direct communication between the brain and a digital device like a computer or a phone. People who have had a BCI surgically implanted can use their thoughts as commands to make machines perform different tasks. There’s currently a race underway in Silicon Valley to build a model that will stand out from the rest. And among the front-runners are Elon Musk’s Neuralink, and a New York-based startup called Synchron. We’ll dive into why the competition is heating up between these two companies, and what the promises and limitations are behind this futuristic technology. I’m Michael Calore, director of Consumer Tech and Culture here at WIRED.

Lauren Goode: I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a senior Correspondent at WIRED.

Michael Calore: We are positively spoiled today to have a guest on the show who has reported on brain-computer interfaces extensively. WIRED’s Emily Mullin.

Emily Mullin: Hello.

Lauren Goode: Emily, do you have a brain implant yet?

Emily Mullin: No, I do not.

Lauren Goode: Well, really, how committed are you to the bit then?

Emily Mullin: I do not want a brain implant. No, thank you.

Michael Calore: Before we dive into BCIs, I would love to know what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of brain-machine interactions, Lauren? I mean, for example, I think of RoboCop, the 1987 original by Paul Verhoeven, where it’s just the RoboCop, it’s just his head and his torso, and then his limbs and all of his running and walking are controlled by a computer that is implanted in his brain.

Lauren Goode: I have never seen RoboCop.

Michael Calore: Oh, it’s such a good movie.

Lauren Goode: So, cannot comment on that. What I think of, what I think of? Well, this is a much headier response, but I think of all these promises that are being made around AI and healthcare and wondering if AI ends up being the sort of connective tissue between all of this that actually makes it viable. I wouldn’t ever want one of these, because it feels to me like a needs-based technology, not something you should just drill a hole into your brain and for fun. But if you get to the point where you need it, hopefully the technology is in place to actually help you live aspects of your life that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to live.

Michael Calore: Sure.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: I think we all have sort of a vague concept of what a brain-computer interface is and what it’s for.

Lauren Goode: The sci-fi concept of it.

Michael Calore: But I want to ask you, Emily, is there anything remotely accurate in the depictions we’ve seen in media? I mean, in the real world, how do these BCIs generally look and how do they work?

Emily Mullin: Yeah, so I think the first thing to clarify is that these are often called mind-reading devices. And I’m going to hopefully read your mind by clarifying this, and that a brain-computer interface is not doing the kind of mind reading you might be thinking of. It’s not extracting random thoughts from a person’s brain. What it’s actually doing is picking up on movement intention in the brain. When a person gets a BCI, they’re asked to think about doing a specific action such as opening and closing their fist. A person who is paralyzed, who gets a BCI may not be able to physically make that action, but there’s still a signal that’s firing up in the brain that’s this distinct signal that the BCI is capturing. So, the BCI learns to associate that pattern of brain activity with that specific action, and then the BCI is using AI to decode and interpret those neural signals, and then those brain signals get translated into a command. For instance, that opening and closing of a fist, that gesture might correlate to a mouse click.

Lauren Goode: Okay. So, on the other end of that equation, there has to be some kind of physical or mechanical tool that then translates the movement. If you’re a person, for example, who can no longer move your limbs and your brain isn’t making that connection with the rest of your body, would you have to say, for example, have leg braces on that the computer would speak to in order for you to move?

Emily Mullin: Right, yeah. Neuralink and actually other research teams before Neuralink have tried connecting robotic arms to BCIs to do exactly that. They’ve actually helped people feed themselves who were no longer able to do so because they were paralyzed. But this has happened at least in the past in these very controlled laboratory settings with these big clunky robotic arms, and that’s not exactly practical for somebody to have at home.

Lauren Goode: Okay, got it. So, you can have a BCI system that isn’t relying on physical hardware or robotics. What you’re describing is the person is just sending signals directly to a computer and a computer is doing the task?

Emily Mullin: Yeah, exactly. This technology is really meant to provide a direct link from the brain to an external device just to make that faster, that process faster and more lifelike and seamless for a person with a severe disability.

Michael Calore: When we talk about BCIs or we hear about BCIs, the company that most people think of is Neuralink, and that’s because they’re very high-profile company. They’re run by Elon Musk, we all know who he is. But in your most recent reporting you have focused heavily on Synchron. This is a startup that’s been making waves lately, because it has the support of several high profile investors in Silicon Valley. And the fact that unlike other competitors, its technology requires relatively non-invasive surgery. The implant process is much simpler than the Neuralink. Can you talk about the other ways that Synchron is different and why this company is such a big deal?

Emily Mullin: Of course, listeners have probably heard of Neuralink, but I guess to start off this conversation we should go back to the OG BCI implant, which is the Utah Array. And the Utah Array has been the mainstay of BCI research for the past 20 years or so. It looks like a little mini hairbrush, like the head of a hairbrush. It’s got about 100 metal spikes protruding from it. And on the tips of those spikes are the electrodes which record the brain activity, and it is pushed into the brain tissue and records signals in that way. And that device has been implanted in a few dozen people over the years, but it’s not wireless. It requires this really clunky setup that involves a pedestal atop a person’s head. And beyond that you need to get a craniotomy to get this chip implanted, and the chip can cause scar tissue to form over time, and that can interfere with the functioning of the device.

Michael Calore: To be clear, a craniotomy is when you remove a piece of your skull with a bone saw temporarily to access the brain?

Emily Mullin: Yes, that is correct.

Michael Calore: No fun.

Lauren Goode: Oh, sounds slightly less pleasant than a colonoscopy.

Emily Mullin: All these reasons, this BCI technology has been promising for a long time, but there are clear limitations, as you can see, and this is why Synchron and Neuralink and others have been working to improve on the design. I guess back to your original question, Mike, which what’s the major difference with Synchron’s approach? And the major difference is that it doesn’t require brain surgery. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t require any surgery at all. It’s less invasive, it’s not completely non-invasive, but instead of going directly into the brain Synchron’s device is inserted into a blood vessel. It’s a pretty unique approach. It actually is inserted into the jugular vein at the base of the neck, and then it’s threaded up through the vein until it reaches the motor cortex, and that’s the part of the brain that is responsible for movement. And this is a little device that looks like a heart stent used in cardiology, and the company, actually, one of its founders is a cardiologist. And that is what inspired this interesting design. It’s dotted with electrodes, 16 of them, that record the brain activity. During the same procedure a second device is inserted into the chest pocket right below the collarbone, and that’s what processes the brain signals and then beams them out of the body via infrared.

Lauren Goode: Wow. So wait, the chest pocket interprets the brain signals and then beams them out of the body, beams them using what, like Bluetooth?

Emily Mullin: Infrared.

Lauren Goode: Wow. It’s like a remote control, like a TV control?

Emily Mullin: Yes.

Michael Calore: And there’s a receiver, there’s like a second device that you just hold up to your body to read the signals that are coming out of your brain.

Emily Mullin: Yes, there’s this paddle-like device that sits on the person’s chest, and then that device, it’s kind of a complex system. That device is connected via a wire to another device that is doing all of the processing and interpreting of those signals and translating them into commands. But right now, yes, it is a WIRED system, but in Synchron’s 2.0 version they are planning to remove that wire and have that communication happen via Bluetooth so that a person doesn’t have to be physically tethered to the system.

Lauren Goode: And Emily, you wrote about in your story on WIRED.com how Synchron is also being built to work alongside other consumer technologies too. Can you talk about this?

Emily Mullin: Yeah. It seems like Synchron is really thinking about the ways in which its eventual users will want to use technology in their everyday lives. For instance, they have connected their BCI to Amazon Alexa, so their users now can use Alexa with just their thoughts instead of voice control. And you might be thinking like, “Well, why would you do that when you can just use your voice?” But some ALS patients, some people who are paralyzed do not have the use of their voice. That’s where this would come in handy. Last year Synchron also rolled out a feature to allow users to use an AI chatbot operated by OpenAI, and that’s to, again, facilitate communication. And Synchron also has connected its device to the Apple Vision Pro, which obviously if you are paralyzed or severely disabled, you might need somebody to put that device on for you. But the patient that I spoke with for my story on WIRED.com, he uses the Apple Vision Pro to kind of transport him to places around the world that he will never get a chance to travel to, and he actually really loves using that device.

Lauren Goode: Wow. Apple Vision Pro. I take back everything I ever said about Apple Vision Pro.

Michael Calore: Let’s talk a little bit more about a person who you profiled as part of your story. His name is Mark Jackson. He’s a 65-year-old man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who is living with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It’s a disease that causes the person suffering from it to gradually lose all of their muscle functions. He’s one of 10 people that Synchron chose to outfit with its device in a clinical trial that started back in 2023. So, he’s using the device to talk to Amazon Alexa. He’s using the device to control an Apple Vision Pro. How else is he using it?

Emily Mullin: He’s also able to do things like play computer games, and when I visited him recently he was playing this computer game that was sort of reminiscent of Pac-Man. He was in control of this little white circle, and he had to drive it into a target and miss these blue obstacles. And he can also use the BCI to do things like write emails or shop online, text message. He can do his online banking, and as we mentioned, he can use the Apple Vision Pro. And Synchron is also in talks right now with other tech companies to integrate more types of consumer technology.

Michael Calore: As we said at the top of the show, it’s not reading his thoughts. When he’s playing the video game he’s thinking of making a fist and releasing his fist and then making a fist again, and that’s sending certain signals through the motor cortex, which is what the device is picking up. I’m assuming that there’s probably some sort of motor cortex actions he’s doing to write an email or send a text message. He’s not just thinking of words and then it’s writing them down?

Emily Mullin: He is thinking about very specific commands that the BCI is picking up on. Yes, no, or selecting from certain letters, that kind of thing.

Lauren Goode: It sounds like based on your reporting that Synchron is really focused on people who are living with severe disabilities. Elon Musk on the other hand with Neuralink, has talked about this vision of a transhumanist future where the mind and machine meld, not that that sounds dystopian in any way. So, they do have slightly different focuses, is my understanding. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Emily Mullin: Yeah. So, we know Musk obviously has a tendency to present these very grandiose visions of his technology.

Lauren Goode: Does he. Does he do that?

Michael Calore: Sometimes.

Emily Mullin: But like any medical device company Neuralink will need to prove a medical case to the FDA to get its product to market. So yeah, there’s what Elon Musk says, and then there’s sort of the reality of getting a product to market. And I do think he sees his technology as something that will be adopted by everyone someday. I don’t think Synchron sees its technology in that way, but I think like Synchron, Neuralink is first focusing on restoring digital autonomy to people with severe physical disabilities. And while Neuralink is obviously much more explicit about a future in which BCIs are more widely adopted, I don’t think that’s necessarily Synchron’s goal.

Michael Calore: So, Synchron has a major trial coming up in 2026, and it plans to enroll between 30 and 50 patients for the next round of testing. What happens next after they do this trial? How fast do you think that BCIs could become widely available to the public for anybody who needs one to get one?

Emily Mullin: Yeah, so this kind of pivotal trial is really what Synchron needs to show the FDA that their device is safe, it’s effective, and it can restore certain functions to people. In the early feasibility trial they did they enrolled 10 total patients. There were four initial patients in Australia and six in the U.S. that got the Synchron BCI, and they followed those patients for a year after implantation. And they showed that there were no major safety events, which when you’re talking about putting anything in the body, of course there can be risks like infection. As we talked about before, with putting something in the brain there’s a risk of brain tissue damage. With the Synchron device it’s more about the possibility of blood clots or blocking a blood vessel. So, that’s what they want to look for in a bigger trial. And then the question in a bigger trial is sort of, “Well, how do you measure the effectiveness of a BCI?” And the problem is there’s never been a big pivotal trial of a device like this before, a device designed to restore certain functions. So, one of the challenges right now is that these companies are working with the FDA. There was an FDA workshop back in the fall to get together researchers and BCI companies to talk about what are the clinical outcome measures that we are talking about here. We can measure how fast a BCI is, typing speed or how accurately it could decode speech, for instance. But how does that correlate with a person’s quality of life or their autonomy, their freedom? How did they feel when they’re using it? So, these are all questions that these devices are going to face as they head into bigger trials. And Neuralink is hopefully going to get there too. I think it’s still going to be several years before one of these devices is on the market, because there are still some open questions. And also, of course, these devices are going to be expensive. So what is the threshold of benefit where an insurer would cover this device?

Lauren Goode: Emily, this is super fascinating. Your story is great. Everyone should go read Emily’s story. Thank you for joining us in the Uncanny Valley. Come back with more goodness and weirdness soon.

Emily Mullin: Thank you for having me.

Michael Calore: Thanks, Emily. We’re going to take a break and we’ll be right back. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. Today we are talking about brain-computer interfaces, also known as BCIs, and why Synchron and Neuralink are representative of two different approaches to the future of this technology. So Lauren, we just had Emily on. She told us all about Synchron and the challenges and where the technology is and how Neuralink shapes up. Completely wild, what do you think?

Lauren Goode: Mind blown. You know what I think? My first reaction upon hearing about this is, this is the real biohacking.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: One of our earlier episodes of Uncanny Valley, which everyone should go back and listen to, was about the quest to live forever in Silicon Valley and all of the weird biohacking stuff that folks like Brian Johnson or even the Jeff Bezos’s of the world are doing. And of course, there’s been all this lure around like blood boys, Silicon Valley venture capitalists taking the blood of young interns to make themselves more youthful and vital. Of course, there’s a lot of really important and significant investment happening in cancer research and maternal health and things like that. But this is actually hacking the body to achieve outcomes that otherwise just would not be achieved. And it’s high risk, it’s invasive, it’s expensive, it’s all very experimental still. But it just seems like the upside, if you can get it right, is really significant for someone like the subject in Emily’s story who is living with ALS and is paralyzed and is now able to experience the world through Apple Vision Pro. What?

Michael Calore: And iPhones and iPads and computers-

Lauren Goode: Of course, and Alexa and AI.

Michael Calore: Yeah. And I think the idea of giving somebody back autonomy that they have lost, even if it’s digital autonomy is really important. You can communicate again, you can type using motor cortex commands, but you can type again. And giving somebody that ability to exist in the world is something that feels like a pretty significant step. Obviously, there are limitations. There is one anecdote in the story that Emily wrote about the subject Mark trying to do a Venmo payment using voice assistance technology. Like dictating to Siri, basically, send a Venmo payment. But there is no way for the voice assistant to actually put in a reason for the payment, so there are places where voice technology falls short and maybe BCIs are a way to bridge that gap. But I do think it’s novel that they’re using iPhones and Apple Vision Pro as the things that you can control, but really that speaks to how the company is thinking about how people are going to be using this in the future. And I think that’s really smart on Synchron’s part.

Lauren Goode: And it seems like their approach too, even though it’s still invasive, is less invasive. The idea of threading something up through your jugular incredible. It really is. When the alternative is drilling a hole into your brain.

Michael Calore: And Neuralink’s interface is basically a mesh of little electrodes and they’re robotically inserted into the brain tissue, and then they close you back up and they put a little sort of coin-sized plug in your skull where the interface goes in, and that does not feel great. That feels like a stopgap. And going in through the vein and going up close to the brain gets you pretty close. It does not get you as close as Neuralink’s BCI. So, it seems as though there’s less that you can do with Synchron than you can do with a Neuralink implant, but it’s still probably the option that most people would choose.

Lauren Goode: It’s fascinating. Now, I was reading that there’s a pretty big difference in how much funding these two startups have raised. Synchron to date has raised just $145 million. Neuralink has raised $1.3 billion. And I have to wonder how much of that is just because of the halo of Elon Musk being associated with Neuralink, or if there’s something about their business that actually appears that much more viable to investors. I’m guessing it’s the former.

Michael Calore: Yeah, it really feels like the halo around Elon Musk is undeniable. He can just drive, pun intended, all kinds of attention to the companies that he fronts. And I think part of that is just that he has been able to do so much in the industry through sheer will that people sort of believe that, “Hey, here’s this crazy idea. If anybody can do it, then he can do it.”

Lauren Goode: Well. And he gets the engineers to do all of the work for him. He motivates people.

Michael Calore: So, how do you think AI chatbots are going to be used in brain-computer interfaces?

Lauren Goode: This is the part that when you first hear about it sounds like a little hokey, like, “Oh, of course ChatGPT is a part of this.” But actually, it makes a lot of sense. When you think about the way that these language models are built to be predictive and actually anticipate what it is you are trying to say next. Which we as humans who are able to vocalize and communicate the things that we want, you and I, like we even struggle with sometimes. When you think about that predictive technology being applied in a medical setting where someone actually cannot articulate what they need or what they want, it seems pretty smart.

Michael Calore: And I think there are specific things that we can point to, besides just the chatbot use of AI. For example, there is this effect that BCI researchers refer to as the stadium effect. If you think about how thoughts are presented in the brain, if you’re inside a stadium, you can hear the conversations going on around you.

Lauren Goode: Oh, right, yes, this was an Emily’s story, this was really good.

Michael Calore: Yeah, you can hear the thoughts going on around you, and you have pretty good knowledge of what’s going on inside the stadium. If you’re outside the stadium, all you really hear is the roar of the crowd. And you can probably discern when something big happens, like a goal is scored or something like that. So, the Synchron device is a good example of something that is existing outside the stadium. It knows when the person who has it implanted is thinking about trying to make a fist and when they are thinking about releasing that. And it picks up these very broad signals. So, it’s difficult to ascribe any kind of specific intent beyond that, that’s a place where AI can probably fill in the blanks. It can probably understand what the patterns are, what the person is trying to do. And if they keep repeating the same thing over and over again and not getting the outcome that they want, it possibly could be able to try different outcomes or somehow bridge that gap between what the person is really trying to do and what the signal should be.

Lauren Goode: I am a little bit curious too about the long-term support of these kinds of things. Once a BCI is part your body, part of your system, how long does it last for? Does it need to be replaced? Who does the maintenance? I mean, even now with medical devices that are external to the body, a lot of times the manufacturers keep a tight grip on how to repair them, how to maintain them, because those service contracts is very lucrative service contracts for medical device makers. What do you think are the ethical considerations around all of this?

Michael Calore: Well, people are signing up to get this done. People are volunteering to get this done. It is something that’s potentially life-changing, and I think that’s wonderful. I think the ethics come into play when you talk about how the data is being processed, what types of things we’re recording that are coming out of people’s brains. As these devices get more sophisticated, those ethical considerations are going to come into sharper focus. But right now, since it’s in the testing phase, I mean we’re talking about, “Hey, I would like to put my hand up to get a device implanted in my body that will significantly improve my quality of life, please.”

Lauren Goode: And if OpenAI’s model is being trained on your brain signals, you’re probably. “Take my data. That’s okay, because I want to see what I can get out of this.” After hearing all of this from Emily, are you still thinking about RoboCop when you hear BCI?

Michael Calore: I’m thinking more about The Matrix.

Lauren Goode: Because you’re jacking in?

Michael Calore: Yeah, because The Matrix, it’s a spike that drives into the back of the human skull, right? That’s their brain-computer interface. I think that’s a little bit closer to what we’re talking about, but also maybe a little bit more grim.

Lauren Goode: Keanu forever.

Michael Calore: Keanu forever. All right, let’s take another break, and we’ll come right back with recommendations. We’re back, and Lauren and I have some recommendations for you all. Lauren, why don’t you go first?

Lauren Goode: I’m going to toss it back to you, because I need a moment to think of something, honestly.

Michael Calore: How dare you?

Lauren Goode: Yes. Okay. What’s your recommendation, Mike?

Michael Calore: Mine’s sad, but also we’ll fill you with joy.

Lauren Goode: Okay.

Michael Calore: The day that we’re recording this is the same day that Ozzy Osbourne passed. He has been ill for a very long time, so it was not surprising to learn that he died. And just looking at the reactions online, I realized that so many people know Ozzy Osbourne as this guy who was on a reality TV show 20 years ago. He was the guy in the Osbournes that everybody made fun of, because he was sort of like this bumbling guy who just sort of wandered around the house screaming his wife’s name. And that’s not who Ozzy Osbourne is in my mind. He is the guy who is the lead singer in one of the most important bands in rock and roll, which is Black Sabbath, which was formed in the late-nineteen-sixties and just dominated for six years and stuck around for a long time after that. But their most important work was done in those first formative years in the early 1970s, late 1960s. And that made me a little sad. I was sad that Ozzy died, but I was equally sad that the thing that he’s remembered for is not the thing that most of us would consider his best work or his most important work. I would like to recommend that you go into the OzzyVerse, that you go back to Birmingham, England 1969 and listen to the first maybe four Black Sabbath albums.

Lauren Goode: Just four albums.

Michael Calore: Just the first.

Lauren Goode: That’s just a small recommendation.

Michael Calore: You probably have this idea in your head about what they sound like, and it is almost certainly not what they actually sound like. So, familiarize yourself with them, your life will be richer for it. It’s heavy, it’s dark, it’s fun, it’s catchy, it’s bluesy. It will make you do air drums, and it will make you love Ozzy Osbourne.

Lauren Goode: You are so animated right now. You’re really excited by this recommendation.

Michael Calore: I mean, it’s just some of the best music that you can make with a band. It’s so good. How did they do it? It’s one of those things.

Lauren Goode: You know what, Mike, just for you, I’m going to listen to it in the car today.

Michael Calore: Great.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: What’s your recommendation?

Lauren Goode: My recommendation this week is another literary recommendation. Do you remember I stole that book from a hotel room a while back? Talked about it on the show.

Michael Calore: The Bible?

Lauren Goode: No, it’s a magazine called The Sun. Not to be confused with the British tabloid. This Sun is published out of North Carolina, is an advertising-free, wholly subscriber-supported magazine that has a lot of really great nonfiction, fiction, poetry, dispatches from readers, Q&As, it’s honestly, one of my favorite magazines. If you’re just looking for something that gives you a little bit of break from the news and you’re looking for some good fiction.

Michael Calore: So, whenever anybody recommends that I pick up a literary journal, I, in good faith, go to the bookstore and I pick it up and I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s $35.”

Lauren Goode: They’re so expensive. The Sun is $5 per month.

Michael Calore: That’s great.

Lauren Goode: It is 100% worth it.

Michael Calore: Nice. Thank you for telling me about it.

Lauren Goode: You’re very welcome.

Michael Calore: Thanks for listening to Uncanny Valley. If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions you can write to us at [email protected]. Today’s show is produced by Adriana Tapia. Amar Lal mixed this episode, Megan Herbst fact-checked this episode. Mark Lyda was our San Francisco studio engineer. Kate Ozzie Osborn is our executive producer. Katie Drummond is WIRED’s Global editorial director, and Chris Bannon is the head of Global Audio.