Our political class has lost control.
The right is getting more right than
ever. And [music] anytime you have a
combination of economic problems and
social and stability and cultural
problems, you put all those things
together, it's not a good time. It's a
time when conflict, violence, civil
unrest, all of these things are [music]
much more likely. Oh, civil unrest is
absolutely guaranteed.
>> And what you are now seeing is I I fear
the beginnings of a totally new level of
separation between people. We are on the
road to civil unrest and violence. But
I'm glad we're having this conversation
cuz these are difficult things to talk
about.
>> And that's why China is outperforming
the rest of the world. [music] There are
so many freedoms you don't get in
America that you do get in China.
>> Would you prefer a Chinese system if you
>> to America?
>> Yes.
>> What about political freedom, freedom of
the individual, freedom of speech? Do
you think Steven could run his show if
he was a Chinese citizen in China and
have any conversation he wanted?
>> And you think communism [music] is bad?
>> I grew up in the Soviet Union, so yes, I
do think communism is bad. and you end
up in a place where the the economy is
just screwed. So you get equality, but
everyone's just equally poor.
>> Constantine, [music] what is your
perspective on AI?
>> I think the biggest threat to humanity
if you talk about AI is actually the
fact that you're creating something
that's smarter than you. And if you're
creating a superior species, you will
become an [music] inferior species. Best
case scenario, you become a pet. Worst
case scenario, you become a cow.
>> So my next question logically becomes,
what can we do about it?
>> There is an actual solution that's
available that's clear. I think what we
should really be focusing on is
>> you're wrong.
>> This is where we're likely to have very
strong disagreement.
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Please help us. Really appreciate it.
Let's get on with the show. [music]
Constantin,
in terms of everything that's going on
in the world at the moment, what are the
subjects that are most concerning to
you? I think that I wrote an article a
couple of years ago called Why I Fear
the Future in which I basically
predicted that what you were about to
see was the rise of far-left populism
and the rise of right-wing populism and
ina some cases farright populism uh
particularly in Europe but also
elsewhere. And I think that's exactly
what you're seeing in the Western world.
And then geopolitically the war in Iran
uh will have an impact on the global
economy that's only going to fuel that
further. So I think the trend you people
have spent the last 10 years talking
about polarization without really
understanding the process that was
driving it in my opinion uh particularly
in Europe and what you are now seeing is
I I fear the beginnings of that process
actually going to a totally new level of
uh separation between people
>> and what's the root cause of that
>> well the root cause of that is a mixture
of things of course part of it is
economic Europe has basically stag
stagnated uh since the great financial
crisis. This country, Britain in
particular, has stagnated economically,
but a lot of it is uh the consequence of
mass unfettered immigration and people's
concerns about what has happened
culturally and demographically. And
these are difficult things to talk about
which you know some people find
challenging to even discuss. But it it's
very clear to me if you look at you know
the AFD in Germany, Marine Le Pen in
France, Georgia and Maloney in Italy,
Farage and Rupert Low in the UK, what we
saw in Sweet or however, however you
pronounce it, uh a couple of weeks ago
in Spain. These are all things just, you
know, the visual medium is very
powerful. When you see 60,000 people
enter a country illegally in in a day,
that sort of imagery is likely to create
a very strong amount of push back. Oh,
you came prepared, huh? Yeah. Well, you
know, if you're a normal person and you
see this, whatever your other views, you
just go, well, like like what's going
on? That that will be your question.
Whether you're a really nice, not racist
person who really really thinks, you
know, no human is illegal, like you're
thinking what is going on here. And uh
the compassion and empathy you might
feel for people um fleeing conflict for
example is unlikely to extend to
something like this because we know that
these people are economic migrants
overwhelmingly and they're coming if you
ask them which many people did and ask
them why are you here they will say I
want to have a better life for myself
which you know I don't blame people for
I myself have moved from a foreign
country to Britain you
>> and if you were in their position would
you do the same thing
>> well I I don't know the exact position
that they're in I I I what I can tell
you is I came to Britain legally because
that's what I thought you're supposed to
do. Are you supposed to follow the
rules? So, if I were in that position,
it depends what you mean by that
position. You know, if I had a wife and
children, would I abandon them to try
and get go get get to Europe? And, you
know, I don't know. But a lot of these
people are overwhelmingly young men who
probably don't have a wife and child.
So, it's difficult. I don't know. But if
you're in a situation where you had a
wife and child, let's say, and there was
a promise that if you got over that
border over there, you could have a
better life for your wife and child, a
significantly better life for your wife
and child and send the money home and
potentially even bring them over at some
point. Um, if you were currently living
in a point of hardship, would you cross
the border?
>> I don't know. I've never been in that
situation and we don't know. But but the
issue for for us, I think, in the West
is not so much do we have empathy for
those people. It's kind of unimportant
actually for this conversation. At at a
personal level, you want to feel like
we're all empathetic, but the reality is
it's a practical issue. We've talked
about this so many times on your show
about how so much of our decision-
making and public conversation is driven
by what makes us feel good as opposed to
what works. This doesn't work.
>> I think there is an element of the
importance of that question in the sense
that if you don't have empathy for them,
you blame them. You shut them outside
the hotels. I I think the blaming of
them is a pointless distraction and is
kind of irrelevant. The question is what
should we be doing about this, right?
And the fact is this is not acceptable.
>> And what caused it?
>> Yes. Well, what caused it is the world
is unequal and there are poor parts of
the world from which people would like
to move to richer parts of the world.
It's very understandable decision. But
unless you have a world in which
everybody has the same quality of life
everywhere, which we're never going to
have cuz that's not how the world works,
then countries will have to have borders
that they enforce. And that was the
consensus view around the West for for
the entirety of of its history.
>> And how is this contributing to the
problems that you described in the West?
If you're looking at that and you are uh
in the center, center center right,
maybe old school leftist who who sort of
believes in high levels of
redistribution but believes in borders
at the same time. You are looking at
that and you're going, "Our political
class has lost control. Our political
class allows tens of thousands of people
to enter Britain illegally on small
boats every year." People on the right
will look at that and say, "We need to
get tougher on borders. We need to get
tougher on immigration. We need to get
really tough on illegal immigration."
And as long as the political class left
and right refuses to address that issue,
as they have done for this entire time,
you will see more people on the right
adopting harder line slogans, harder
line policies when it comes to illegal
immigration and immigration more
broadly.
>> So it sounds a little bit to me like
we're saying unless we dress address
this, then the right has a very
effective marketing campaign. Well, the
right has a very legitimate grievance
about what's happening to their society
and that will be very effective
electorally of course.
>> And the other thing you said was
stagnation, economic stagnation, I'm
presuming.
>> Yeah, of course.
>> So this polarization that you're talking
about, this economic stagnation in
Europe, where does this lead us? Well, I
hate as you know to to make predictions
about the future with any great
confidence, but I think anytime you have
a combination of economic problems and
social and stability and cultural
problems, you put all those things
together, historically speaking, it's
not a good time. It's a time when
conflict, violence, civil unrest, all of
these things are much more likely.
Doesn't mean they're guaranteed. Doesn't
mean you can't change course. Doesn't
mean you can't course correct. But if
you don't, we are on the road to ci best
case scenario, civil unrest and violence
for sure.
>> Do you see evidence that there's going
to be a remedy to course correct the
issue you've described?
>> Currently, I don't see that being
addressed, but we are in in a in a time
when unusual things are possible. And so
at the next election in Britain, you may
see the right-wing populist come in. And
then the question is, can they do the
things that they're promising to the
people who will vote for them? And
there's a big question mark about that
because the things that they'll be
promising which is about addressing not
just this problem in terms of people
currently coming in but the people who
are already here you know I don't know
how much exactly we spend now but there
was a point at which we were spending8
million pounds a day on hotels for
illegal immigrants. So it tells you the
scale of the problem and it's a very
difficult problem to address because the
legal system and uh international
conventions and all sorts of other
things that are now in place and they're
now enforced make it very difficult to
address. It's not a dishonesty but the
thing that people on the right don't
tend to say is even once you've dealt
with illegal immigration, the country is
not magically going to be better. You
have to have an economy that's growing
for people to feel like their law has
got better. The fact that you have
rightly removed people who should never
have been allowed in in the first place
will contribute somewhat to easing their
concerns, but that's not going to solve
the problem. And so even if you get
right-wing populists into power, that's
not necessarily a remedy for addressing
the tensions that I'm talking about.
>> And in the United States, a different
set of issues, but maybe symptoms are
similar. polarization is leading to and
inequality is leading to a rise in
socialism and [snorts] and then the
right is getting more right than ever.
>> The right is getting more right than
ever. I think Trump's election was kind
of like the peak of it and and it's just
carried on in terms of ICE and
deportations and and whatever. And look,
there's a lot to be criticized about the
Trump administration. The one thing they
have done is close down the border. And
I think that's a very good thing and it
was very necessary. But in terms of the
the rise of socialism, and look,
democratic socialism, we should be
honest and just call it communism
because that's that's what it is. It's a
very unwise but understandable reaction
to the economic circumstances of young
people's lives in particular. If you're
locked out of the housing market, which
historically speaking is really the only
way for an ordinary person to accumulate
capital. If you don't have access to
capital at a time when asset prices are
inflating and and have been inflating
for a long time, you're basically
watching the possibility of capitalism
run away from you. Of course, you're
going to turn over the apple cart.
>> And you think communism is bad?
>> I I grew up in the Soviet Union, so yes,
I do think communism is bad.
Ideologically, it might sound great to
people, and I understand why. Equality
to all men, everyone being, you know,
equal in every way, it's wonderful. It
just doesn't it's not compatible with
human nature for all sorts of reasons.
The most obvious one is you know the the
basic 80/20 rule 80/20 rule of things.
Most people are not aware of it. But
what communist try communism tries to do
is to take from from the
disproportionately productive 20% and
spread it out across everybody else. The
problem is that disincentivizes the 20%
from doing anything. And so you end up
with a communist system like the one we
had in the Soviet Union where no one
really has any incentive to produce, to
create, to innovate. And so you get a
very stagnant econ economy. And on top
of that, then you have central planning
where the government is trying to decide
what to do. They're not getting market
signals about what's the right or wrong
thing to do. And you end up in a place
where the the economy is just screwed.
So you get equality, but everyone's just
equally poor.
Steve, uh,
>> what do you think in terms of what
Constantine said to me? What he said
that he thinks there's civil unrest
potential? Well,
>> civil unrest is absolutely guaranteed.
Uh, there's all I can see is civil
unrest ahead of us because it isn't just
communism in that sense. The Russian
Soviet version that you experienced uh,
that's failed us also capitalism. And
>> capitalism has failed us.
>> I think capitalism is going to fail. And
you guess who I blame for it?
>> Who? [clears throat]
>> Economists.
>> You're an Neocclassical mainstream
economists have a fantasy vision of
capitalism and that fantasy vision has
led them to trivialize what's happening
with global warming [snorts] and most
people simply aren't aware of that
they've they've done this. So nobody is
worrying about global warming because
they think it's something not nobody but
the the political authorities are not
putting any effort into global warming
because they read the economists and the
economists tell them that by 2100 if
temperatures rise by 3° there'll be a
tiny fall in GDP. So why worry about it?
In fact, we're starting to see the
beginning of it this this year with the
crazy on the coming our way, the crazy
weather we're living through in in
England right now and the system is
going to collapse because the productive
system won't be able to cope with the
change in the climate. So that's what I
see as the main source of conflict. I
don't I think the everything else we're
seeing is trivial compared to what
that's going to do.
>> What about So Constantin talked about
these crosses in Sua in Spain.
>> Yeah. and he was alluding to the fact
that this needs to be addressed or this
polarization which is having lots of
downstream consequences isn't going to
change. What is your perspective on I
again there's so much of a fog of
misinformation around these days that
it's very hard to know whether what you
hear is accurate. But the proposition
I've been told is that Morocco has close
relations with Israel and the Zionists
wanted this as a way of destabilizing
Spain, which is about the only country
in Europe that is attacking the Zionist
state. And so this was a political
setup.
>> Well, hold on a second. But Spain has
the ability to enforce its own border.
>> Of course it does. The fact that this
actually happened is arguably is being
argued and I don't know whether it's
right or not. I'm given up on trying to
say whether something is AI or not these
days, but it's the argument has been
that because the Spanish government came
out and was critical of Israel, critical
of Zionism, then this was a setup by the
Israelis through Morocco to disturb
Spain.
>> Hold on. What I'm I'm making a different
point of which is if my four-year-old
wants sweets at 11:00 at night,
that's true. But I am the idiot who
gives it to him and that and he then
stays up all night. and European
countries refuse to enforce their
borders. Whatever you think Israel is
doing, by the way, I've seen literally
zero evidence to support this theory,
but let's say it's true just for the
sake of argument. It's ultimately up to
Spain, it's up to Italy, it's up to
Britain, it's up to other European
countries to enforce the border. That is
something that we are capable of doing.
And it's not like this incident is the
only time this has happened. 3 million
people, slightly under, but around 3
million people have crossed the
Mediterranean on boats in the last 10
years.
>> Yeah. And of course,
>> so and that's not Israel doing it.
That's us allowing it to happen.
>> But also of destabilizing Libya.
>> Okay. If we if the Libyan slave markets
exist because we came, we saw he died.
Quote Hillary Clinton on that. The
extent to which the West has
destabilized the regions from which the
migrants are coming has to be
acknowledged. If you don't acknowledge
it, then you're blaming the people who
are the sandwich between two political
blocks.
>> But I I did acknowledge it. I'm I
completely understand and I've been
against a lot of the foreign
interventions that the West has engaged
in. But a lot of people, and we know
this from surveys, from interviews, from
the types of people who come, most of
these people are economic migrants.
Doesn't mean that they're wrong to
pursue a better life, but they want to
move to Europe. And I have I look, this
is not me saying it. It's a friend of
mine who is an Iraqi and this is what he
says. He says in the Middle East we have
a saying.
>> If you want to work, you go to America.
If you want to live on benefits, you go
to Europe. We are creating an incentive
structure in Europe that allows people
to come and feel like this is a place in
which we will provide a life for them
that they don't have to provide a life
for themselves in that incentive. I
mean, you're an economist although an
economist
>> an anti-conomist. Do you remember that
idea? But I doubt we disagree about the
importance of incentives and
>> incentives but also incentives to push
people out of where they are rather than
to reconstruct where they are and make
it more livable.
>> I am all I'm
>> and that I mean the one country we're
not seeing a lot of economic migrants
from is China. Now you say what
>> China's very
>> nonetheless nobody wants to leave the
place because it's booming. If there was
an economic stagnation in Europe, would
this subject be as
>> inflammatory for people? Would this be
we're failing on all sorts of fronts and
the UK is not a booming economy? You
>> you've often said, Constantine, that
we're spending too much money.
>> Well, we're borrowing money now to pay
off money we borrowed before.
>> This is wrong.
>> Tell me why.
>> Okay. Have you ever done accounting?
>> I've done my own accounting.
>> Okay. Okay. do the do the accounting and
you'll see the government does not
borrow when it spends more than it takes
back on taxation.
>> You you were asking me about spending
too much money. I don't want to get a
bogged down on this. The reality is if
you spend more on welfare than you do on
defense or if you spend more on welfare
than you do on education or if you spend
more on welfare than other things,
you're not spending money to help
somebody get the mental health
intervention they need to get back into
work. That's not what we do in this
country. And Andy Burnham actually is
talking at least about attempting that.
what we do instead and we've had people
like Fraser Nelson uh was the editor I
think he was the editor spectator at the
time now he's at the times who's done a
lot of research into this and what he
basically uh came to is that what we're
really doing is putting people in a
position where they they are getting
money in order not to get back into work
the incentive structure is such that it
actually makes no sense for them to to
get a starting job which will not
necessarily be well paid but the tax
incentives just mean that that they're
actually better off on welfare. If you
do that and if you spend a significant
portion of your budget on that, plus
you've got an aging population, so
you're spending a tremendous amount of
money on pensions. Pensioners vote.
There's lots of them. They have the
ability to make sure the government is
really looking after them. If you do
that over time, your ability to do
productive things, you talked about
productivity, is not going to be there.
And and by the way, the difference
between the US and and Britain and
Europe more broadly, in my opinion, is
partly cultural. uh you you've moved to
the US recently or you certainly spend a
lot of time there. There is a business
mindset that exists in America that just
isn't there here. And the other thing
is, you know, their uh attitude to what
we call welfare, what they call
entitlements, is different. And there's
a there's a good and bad side to that
coin. In America, you really really have
to work very hard to to to survive. Um
because the welfare system isn't there
to catch you when you fall nearly as
much. you don't get the same quality of
health care if you don't have the money
to pay for it. You can fire and hire
people much more easily as you know as
an employer. All of those things mean
that the US economy can accelerate a lot
faster. But, you know, I always say
America is a is a a great place to be
rich, hard place to be kind of middle
class and a very difficult place to be
poor. Europe is kind of the other way
around. And and so I think those are
some of the differences in productivity
as well. I'll agree with Constantine
that America does have that can do
attitude and they also do have the
attitude that failure is the first step
on the ladder of success. Okay, there is
an expectation or acceptance that people
can fail and then recreate. It's not a
stigma in America where it's more of a
stigma over in in the United Kingdom and
Europe. So I think that is part of it.
It's also the scale of the American
economy. Uh England, I think, has
suffered more from the Thatcherite SW uh
twist. Cutting back government spending,
meaning people have less money in their
pockets to spend, meaning there's less
econ economic activity, meaning you've
got to go into debt to be able to start
a business. All these things end up
slowing down the rate of economic
growth. America has not made the same
mistake that the European Union had made
with something like the master treaty.
There are elements of the American
system uh which give you a higher rate
of technological innovation and
development than England gets. For sure.
>> Uh
>> so Steve, so just to pick up on some of
those points then are you saying that
the UK
>> don't have a spending problem?
>> No, they don't have they they have the
problem. They're not spending enough.
The government should be spending more.
>> The government should be spending more
money on the opposite on what education,
>> welfare, infrastructure, dams for a
start. You know how many dams? One of
the reasons that we've got a potential
crisis in the UK right now is the UK
after privatizing its water 40 years ago
has one less dam now than it had 40
years ago.
>> So you want the government to spend
more.
>> The government should be providing the
infrastructure. The foundation that
enables economic activity to act to
occur. That's what we're seeing
happening in China. And that's why China
is outperforming the rest of the world.
When you cut back on providing the
infrastructure, you mean you've got to
build your own roads to connect your
factories together. Okay. So, by not
providing the long-term stuff which a
government should finance, you end up
hobbling your private sector rather than
enabling it.
>> But what you've done there is you've
packaged a bunch of things together.
Some of which in my opinion are accurate
and some of which are really inaccurate.
When you say infrastructure, welfare du
infrastructure like I'm in favor of
government borrow money to invest in
things that generate productivity
>> and I'm in favor of them spending money
to create that stuff. Same thing, but
the borrowing is not important.
irrelevant where where you get that
money from is actually irrelevant.
>> The government spending money to invest
in useful infrastructure, productive
infrastructure. I mean, one of the other
reasons the US is growing in a different
way to us, uh, the UK has the highest
industrial electricity prices in the
world. So, if you're trying to do AI,
>> you're not going to do it here. If
you're trying to do industry, you're not
going to do it here. Right? So if if the
government had actually made it easier
to build nuclear power plants, to do
other energy things that drive down the
cost of electricity, then you are
putting yourself in a position to
succeed in industry and to succeed in
business. And the government spending
money, whether it's borrowed or not, to
build infrastructure, housing, roads,
there is definitely a a case to be made
for that. Giving money to people not to
work, which is what a lot of the welfare
bill is, that is not productive. And so
you got to separate these two things
out. Money for infrastructure,
wonderful, great. Money for keeping
people unproductive, very bad. And
culturally, it creates a lot of problems
as well because you create a society of
people who are effectively takers and
not creators and it's terrible.
>> I don't think we're doing that. I mean,
I've seen unemployment benefits used to
be adequate. Like, I'm talking from my
Australian experience now. Uh they're
not anymore. So, the welfare that's
provided to people doesn't mean that
they can survive and live with with
nothing. There should be a button just
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>> The other point was you said you think
the government should be spending even
more money.
>> Yeah.
>> Um the point around how we generate
growth does link fundamentally to
energy. Um, we have there's a big
conversation happening at the moment
with with Andy Bernham. I think he spoke
to Trump about this with about the North
Sea.
>> Yeah.
>> And about the oil in the North Sea. Do
you think we should be drilling there?
>> Uh, look, the energy conversation it
this is where we're likely to have very
strong disagreements, but I think it's
important to get the the groundwork in
place before we have the conversation.
>> Um, we I mean Steve said that, you know,
no one's taken climate change seriously.
I would argue and I think we I think
it's based in in what we have seen.
We've talked about climate change in
such a way for such a long time now that
you literally have people who are so
terrified they're not having children.
They're so terrified they've got climate
anxiety. We had, you know, the
phenomenon on Greta Tumbberg going
around, you know, giving speeches
everywhere being taken as a credible
person. Let's look at the reality, okay?
Almost all of the CO2 emissions, not
almost all but the overwhelming bulk of
the CO2 emissions of the future, the
greenhouse gases of the future are going
to be produced in two countries, India
and China. That's just a fact. Uh the
world now uses more oil, more gas and
more coal than it ever has done ever.
And people will say, well, China is
building dams and wind turbines and
solar panel arrays, etc. It's true, but
they're also building coal power
stations every week. They're building
every form of energy that they can
because they know something we in the
West have forgotten, which is GDP is
energy transformed.
>> No, they would completely agree.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. That's a shock, but I do.
Fantastic. Okay.
>> In other words, if you don't have
energy, if you're not creating energy,
you are going to be poor. Almost all
wealth creation in the history of
humanity has been about using more dense
fuel.
So you go from hay which you put into
horses and cows and other animals to
coal to wood to coal to uh oil to to gas
to nuclear you get denser denser denser.
You're creating more energy and you
convert that energy into wealth into
prosperity into hospitals into schools
into money into everything. Right? So
any society which creates a structure
where energy is expensive and not
abundant is going to get poorer. It's
one of the main reasons we are
stagnating in Europe in a way that
America is not. Okay.
>> Now in terms of climate change I don't
want to get bogged down in how impactful
this is, who's doing this, who's doing
that. The hard reality is Britain can
literally do absolutely nothing about
climate change. Britain produces 1% of
global carbon emissions, right? And the
narrative was, well, it doesn't really
matter that we only produce 1% of global
carbon emissions because Britain has
moral leadership in the world. And so,
if we reduce our energy consumption and
if we increase our energy prices and we
slightly repackage and we use slightly
more wind and slightly more solar, uh,
then other countries will follow suit.
That was the argument. It's very clear
now that that is not remotely happening.
India and China. If you talk to people
in India and China, they're like, "We
want to grow. We need our people to be
prosperous. We need our people not to
die." I mean, life expectancy in India
at the time of partition in 1930, 1947
was 32 years old. That's how long people
lived. Life expectancy at birth was 32
years old. It's now I think over 70 or
maybe 80 now at this point, right? And
that's because they've been burning
fossil fuels and they're going to keep
burning fossil fuels and they're going
to keep using nuclear and they're going
to do everything else. Britain can't
affect that. We can't do anything about
it. and climate the planet will get
warmer. So what we should be doing is
investing in infrastructure that allows
us to cope with that reality in exactly
the way the Dutch have done. So they
build flood defenses and other ways of
managing the fact that sea levels
change. That's the only thing that we in
Britain can do about that issue. And in
the meantime, rather than suiciding our
economy by creating less energy and
therefore reducing our our ability to
grow our GDP, what we should be doing is
creating a system where we produce
abundant cheap energy. And you know,
Nick Kle, former deputy prime minister,
there's there's a very instructive video
of him 15 or 20 years ago being asked
why we're not building nuclear power
stations. Him saying, "Well, it's going
to take 15 20 years. Well, it's been 15
20 years and we don't have any bloody
nuclear power stations because of the
short-sightedness of our political
leaders on these issues." So, should we
be pumping out as much CO2 into the
atmosphere as we can? Absolutely no, we
shouldn't be. Should we have a sensible
energy policy that is about making sure
that we actually grow our economy and
keep our people wealthy and also have
the money to make the adjustments we're
going to have to make to the fact that
climate will change and we can't control
that. That's the real question. It's not
about do you believe climate change or
whatever. This is silly conversation.
The real conversation is what can we do
about the inevitable reality of the
climate changing?
>> And you're saying we can't do anything
to stop it. But you're also then saying
we should just build defenses to deal
with the symptoms.
>> We should adapt. And this is what human
beings have done throughout the history
of our of our of our civilization and of
our species. There have been times when
the planet has been way warmer than it
is today. 12,000 years ago. So there
were hippopotamuses swimming in the
temps and elephants.
>> No, not 12,000 years, please.
>> I'm pretty sure it is 12,000 years ago
is the beginning of coming out of the
ice age.
>> Would you just check check me on that
please?
>> No.
>> 12,000 years ago, Britain was coming out
of the last ice age. The climate was
cold. Y tundra-like.
>> Um,
>> just let let them finish.
>> So, because it was cold, but it says
120,000 years ago.
>> Yeah. Naming it. Yeah. 120,000 years
ago. What I'm saying is the climate has
changed in in all sorts of different
ways. 2,000 years ago, the Romans group
rapes on Hadrien's wall, right? And, uh,
200 years ago was really cold. The temps
would freeze every year, etc. This
happens. People have to adapt to it. Uh,
and we're going to have to do it. So
Steve, the assertion there is that the
UK can't do anything about climate
change in terms of affecting on a global
scale, but they can defend themselves
against it by
>> No, you can't.
>> You can't walk.
>> You can't you can't you cannot defend
yourself against what England faces if
climate change continues. England will
become a this is the most some of the
most recent research on what's called
the Atlantic medional overturning
circulation. you're aware of the AMO
that translates about 10 degrees Celsius
of heat from the south actually the
middle of the of the Atlantic up to
Europe. If it stops running,
temperatures in Europe on average fall
by 10°.
>> So I guess the central question here is
there is there something the UK can do
to affect global climate change?
>> Not on its own.
>> Okay.
>> Not on its own. Okay.
>> Because when you look at China and
India,
>> yeah,
>> they have increased their carbon
emissions. China is actually having
falling per capita emissions at the
moment. Even though they're building a
power stations, they're building so many
nuclear for cheaper than they're doing
in the west. So many wind and solar that
they're actually reducing their carbon
footprint
>> per capita
>> and their capita is falling as well.
Okay.
>> So, so they're reducing their carbon
emissions.
>> They're reducing their carbon emissions.
Are they? Okay. And that's been the last
two years. It's only in the last two
years this has started to happen. But
China is now reducing.
>> What about India? India absolutely going
gang busters in the opposite direction
because it's far less developed of
course than China. So they'll keep
developing.
>> They will keep on doing it until such
time as they have their first wet bulb
catastrophe.
And when say 10 or 20 million people die
from heat in one day, then I think India
will start doing something very
different. But there's there's a belief
this is something we can adjust to and
the forces we're talking about are far
beyond anything humans have any capacity
to adjust towards. Now the amock the
reason I mentioned the Atlantic midional
overturning circulation I love the
abbreviation it's going to make this
country go on mock because the
temperature range for London if the AMO
fails is estimated to be between minus
20° C and plus 35.
>> See can the UK do anything about it if
if our emissions are
>> so we can't we cannot do anything as as
as a bunch of nations fighting each
other. Okay, this whole attitude that
we're this contest with that country,
this country's better than that country,
etc., etc., this is derming us to
extinction.
>> But is this real?
>> I'm going to out Greta Thanberg, Greta
Thunderberg in this conversation now
because I know a lot more than you guys
do about the climate science. Okay,
>> agree. What what I'm really saying is if
we talk about human incentives, do we
have any control over what India decided
to do?
>> No, we don't.
>> Do we have any control over what China
decided to do?
>> None whatsoever.
>> So, can does the UK then need to does it
need to be a bit selfish? We need to
realize how serious the situation we're
in is
>> and what will we then do? We realize
it's ser let's say we accept your point.
This is the reality.
>> Okay.
>> What what do we do?
>> We would have to drastically reduce
energy consumption.
>> Ah
>> okay. Energy consumption is vital for
GDP completely 100% agree. I know the
statistics on this front.
>> The link between gross world product
this equivalent of GDP for the planet
and energy is incredibly tight. They're
one for one. Okay. If energy goes up so
does gross world product. If GWP goes
down, so does energy consumption.
They're one for one.
>> So, Steve, when you say we need to
reduce energy, do you mean the UK?
>> I mean the species. I mean human
species.
>> So, how does Andy Burnham do that?
>> We are not set up to deal with this
problem because we're broken into nation
states. We can't make decisions that
have
>> So, we need world government to reduce
world energy consumption.
>> We're going to be stuck with that. Yes,
we're going to be stuck with it.
>> Well, see this what I'm glad we're
having this conversation cuz at least
this is the first time and I mean this
in a genuinely respectful way. It's the
first time I've ever heard anyone be
honest about this issue. That's what you
want. You want world government.
>> I don't want it.
>> You believe it's inevitable by ignoring
this problem. We've got to the scale.
You believe it's a potential threat to
us. We have a world government that
reduces world energy consumption and
therefore the prosperity of everyone.
>> And if we had taken the advice of the
limits to growth 50 years ago, we would
not be having this conversation. Okay.
We have delayed for half a century.
>> Is there any solutions that you believe
are actually possible then? No.
>> No.
>> There we go. You've done a public
service here because you have showed
what it is that sits underneath all the
conversation about climate. It's a best
case scenario people who know there's
nothing we can do. But what we should do
is flail about in the meantime and in
order to not address this issue
impoverish not just in this case our
citizens and our fellow people but
actually the entire world. That's that's
what this is. And the entire challenge I
have to this is I don't believe in
suicide for token gestures towards not
solving a problem you're claiming to
solve. Right? We are not going to solve
this problem by creating a world
government and reducing energy
consumption. That is never ever in a
billion years.
>> What we're going to do instead is run
into the crisis and fall apart from the
process. What we're going to do instead,
and look, you may there's a possibility
you're correct about that, but the only
choice we actually have to solve this
problem is to create forms of energy
that do not produce CO2, but produce
GDP. Clean energy. That's what we're
going to have to do. By the way, it's
what we've done throughout history.
>> And we need to make that clean energy
more favorable in terms of the economics
to India and China. Did you need a world
government to reduce usage of the horse
and car and replace it with the
automobile? No, you didn't. You came up
with a better technology and people
adopted that technology voluntarily
because it was advantageous. This is not
going to be solved by making everybody
poor. Well, for the reasons that Steve
himself articulated, but it's also not
going to be solved by making everybody
because people will not do it. You say
you need everybody to to hold hands on
Sink Kumbaya and
>> what I'm saying is we need to have
engineers in control and we're talking
about it 50 years ago.
>> Engineers in
>> engineers we should stop having
elections.
>> Sorry
compared to with politicians we get Yes.
I'd rather get rid of elections and have
engineers running everything. They do a
damn side better job than a politicians
have done.
>> Well, and this is why I say this is a
public service because this is what this
is the true face of the climate
catastrophe narrative. We need world
government. don't want elections and we
want to make everybody and we've got it
out in the air.
>> Okay. Now, I'm going to go back and say
where it started. It started in 1972
when the limits to growth study was
published and the limits to growth said
that if we if we continue on the current
trajectory, we're going to have an
ecological catastrophe sometime in the
21st century. Okay, they deliberately
left the dates vague. They knew they
couldn't predict the actual date. So,
they said 1900's the start of our work,
2100's the end. in the middle of their
projections, roughly speaking about the
time we are now between 2030 and 2050,
the system would start falling over
because we'd be eliminating the capacity
of the planet to support our species at
the energy consumption levels that we
have now. So they said we had to reduce
dramatically pollution per unit of
output. Uh it uh stabilized population
at 4 billion people. That was the
argument they wanted to stabilize at 4
billion people in 1975. Okay, we
wouldn't be having this dilemma if we'd
actually taken the advice of the
engineers who wrote that report. It
wasn't written by hippies. Most people
think limits are growth by a bunch of,
you know, dope smoking hippies in in in
Rome. It was written by engineers in
MIT.
>> Steve, one of the things, you know, one
of the things that I um I spend a lot of
time doing on this podcast is trying to
find reality through like wishful
thinking. And you know, I have a lot of
conversations about AI, for example. it.
I see so many parallels with AI because
we're saying look AI could be a big
problem but when you look at human
incentives the US are trying to beat
China and China are trying to beat this
person and they're trying to beat them
and even in the US you've got you've got
open AI trying to be anthropic so when
you look at incentives you go okay I
kind of see can see how this is going to
play out there's an inevitability to it
>> in the example you gave there what I'm
hearing is reduce pollution which would
have meant getting China and India and
the US and the UK and Europe to all
cooperate y
>> which is as has proven to be
>> impossible without political systems.
>> And the other thing you mentioned was
stopping people having babies,
>> stabilizing at 4 billion,
>> which would have come with a a lopsided
economy, lots of other problems.
>> I mean, we've seen it. It it wasn't it
just like it wasn't
>> and and the fossil fuel lobbies and
conventional economists undermined all
that stuff. So, the reason we're having
this conversation now is you basically
think we've got to adapt. It's like
we're going up a hill, so we've got to,
you know, have a lighter car or more
power for the car or whatever else. I'm
saying we're 5 in from from a brick
wall. Okay? And we're not going to slow
down in time to hit the wall. We're
going to hit the wall. Brace yourselves,
okay? Brace for impact. That's the
advice I've given.
>> But when I asked you earlier if we need
world government, you said yes. If I
asked you, it's not going to happen. I
know it's not going to happen. The only
way out of this is to do it collectively
with with this obvious example. We're
going to do it competitively and shoot
each other in the foot in the process.
We'd realize that each nation had to
reduce its energy consumption or get a
higher efficiency out of its energy 50
years ago with the engineering.
>> Who's the wei that would have realized
this? You would have needed a world
government back then.
>> You would need you needed politicians
who understand what the engineers told
them,
>> right?
>> Instead, you had politicians who
listened to the media and listened to
the oil interests and trivialized these
whole dangers. And that's why now it's
in a catastrophic I mean I truly believe
we're on the edge of a catastrophic
breakdown of human civilization. In that
situation if you wanted to stop it
happening you would need to have global
coordination authoritarian etc etc. If
we done it 50 years ago we wouldn't need
any of this.
>> Steve how would you go to India and tell
them that they can't use energy when
they're they're at the very some people
in India
>> the women are dying in child birth and
their children are starving.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean the
>> and you go to India. No, no, no. You
can't grow.
>> We have an ignorance about the biosphere
on which we live. Okay. The the our
understanding of the biosphere itself
and the impact that our civilization has
on the biosphere is trivial and
therefore we have these discussions as
if the biosphere will take care of
itself.
>> I think we all agree that climate change
is both real and a huge existential
problem. And the evidence for that is we
can we can observe it. We can measure
it. I mean, even now we're going through
one of the sort of record-breaking
periods of weather volatility. Both sort
of the western United States and Western
Europe are experiencing historically
severe record-breaking weathers at the
moment we get. So my next question
logically becomes what can we do about
it?
>> It's too late.
>> Okay. The extent to which we're unaware
of the energy forces we've unleashed on
the planet are huge. And when when you
find that people think all this stuff is
going to happen in, you know, it's a
couple of, you know, decades away or,
you know, half a century away and
somebody else's problem.
>> When is it going to happen?
>> I've got a feeling the next 10 years.
>> Next 10 years.
>> What's going to happen?
>> The beginning of the breakdown of our
our capacity to maintain a civilization
on the planet. I'm probably wrong in
terms of timing. I'm probably putting it
too far in the future. Okay. I might be
wrong.
>> Might be less.
>> Yeah, could be less. I really really
hope all three of us live long enough to
be able to sit down. So do I. I hope I'm
wrong. This is I'm desperately hoping
I'm wrong.
>> Can you define what you mean by climate
breakdown specifically? What does that
look like for me as I walk out on the
street?
>> Let's say the one of the the big ones
again, the Atlantic Maral overturning
circulation, the AOK. The most recent
estimates is that's going to stop
functioning sometime between last year
because hasn't yet happened and 2095.
When that happens, the temperature on
Europe will fall roughly speaking by 3°
per decade for three decades. So the
temperature in Europe on average will
fall by 10°. The extremes will become
even more ridiculous. So this is
research from Tim Lenton, Exod
University professor of climate change.
The range of temperatures in London will
be between minus 20 and plus 35. Okay.
Now, what's the chance of London
surviving that scale of temperature
range? You can you can't even cope with
leaves on the train lines here. That's
one thing I found ridiculous. As an
Australian arriving in London and find
my train from from from Waterloo to
Kingston is slowed down because there
are leaves on the rail. Leaves on the
rail. Has that never happened before?
What are your engineers doing about
that? Why don't you have trains that
move the leads? This sort of unprepared
nature. We are completely unprepared for
the scale of what we face.
>> Look, as someone who is Russian, minus
20 is a nice spring day for me. But
[laughter] look, we're being silly about
it. I I think if we ground this
conversation in the realms of the
possible uh and look at what we can do,
it seems to me that the only thing we
can do is create forms of energy that do
not produce emissions that we believe
are contributing to the changing
climate. A world government is not going
to happen. that the level of
coordination is not going to happen. The
authoritarian uh world run by engineers
is not going to happen. These are not
realistic things to be talking about.
Let's talk about what we actually can
do. What we can do is plow all the money
we have wrongly plowed into trying to
mitigate this issue into trying to
create forms of energy that are actually
going to work not only to solve this
problem but actually to fuel prosperity
to fuel technological innovation and to
to create a better world as opposed to
uh thinking that you know like we're all
doomed and nothing is possible.
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life. So let's let's take a look at this
situation which is somewhat linked. This
is uh the straight of Hormuz.
>> Yep.
>> This is US oil reserves at the moment in
rapid decline.
>> Yep. Yep. Yep.
>> What is your perspective on what's going
on in the the Middle East at the moment?
Constantine. Why has this happened?
>> So
one of the things I think it's very
important not to do is project our own
ideas onto people who we've never met
like President Trump. I assume none of
us have met President Trump etc. So I
can only tell you what I know from
speaking to people in his
administration, other people who have
some access to the administration's
thinking etc. My understanding and it's
a very frustrating thing uh to have to
articulate and to believe but it is true
is that the level of analysis we all
have about the complicated minations of
how different departments in the US
government you know work out the complex
it really isn't
>> as complicated than that and I think we
all wish it was sometimes Trump walked
into a trap I think he walked into a
trap that it was a sugar high from
Venezuela you know there was a kind of
feeling of perhaps invulnerability and a
and a sort of belief that we can solve
every problem. And Iran is different to
Venezuela. Iran has the ability to choke
off the world's supply, not just of oil,
but I think as you discussed with Steve
when you recently had him on, of gas, of
helium, natural gas, of helium, uh
fertilizer, and lots of other things.
And it hasn't quite fed through to the
global economy in the way that people
have talked about in a catastrophizing
way. Uh but if this carries on, it will
do because our stocks, you you you've
got this talking about oil. M
>> but it's stocks of other things too are
going to start running out and the price
of those things is going to go up and so
then the many predictions that people
like Steve have been making are likely
to come true. We had Senator Ted Cruz on
our show around the time this war was
launched. He's not only a huge supporter
of President Trump but a huge supporter
of this conflict that he advocated for
it and when I said to him look come the
midterms this is not going to be good
for you and for your party. and his
words, his exact words, I'm quoting from
memory, so maybe they're not his exact
words, but the the the broad theme of
what he said was, uh, if we're still in
this conflict come the midterms, we
failed. I suspect that that is almost
certainly going to happen. You've just
shown me a picture of President Trump's
approval ratings. They seem to verify
what I'm saying. And so, I I think he's
walked into a trap. And uh you've had
people on on your show to articulate why
the trap will continue to to bear uh
fruit for the Iranians. You know,
there's this great saying in in the
east, in the west, you have all the
watches. In the east, we have all the
time.
>> They don't have midterms in Iran. They
can wait. They can take the pain and the
punishment that they're currently
experiencing for as long as they really
need to. This is kind of like their
battle of Stalingrad. They can take the
pain. They can throw men at the problem.
they can throw bodies at the problem as
long as they need to because they know
the US can't go the distance. Uh and
because of that, the incentive structure
is for the Iranians to hold on as long
as possible because they know that the
US will have to deal with this reality.
So I think it's been a catastrophic
mistake.
>> And do you think Iran are actually going
to be stronger on the other side of
this?
>> Nobody knows exactly. They're definitely
stronger now than they were. But look,
this all of this is very unpredictable.
I think we should be very careful about
uh making predictions about the future
of countries that we understand very
little in the west from the outside.
This is very difficult for anyone
outside of Iran today to understand
what's happening in Iran. The example I
like to give is Nicholas Nichol Chowesk
uh the Romanian dictator. He had a 92%
approval rating the day before he was
seized with his wife and sumearily
executed. The predictability of how long
a regime survives in in these countries
is difficult to judge from the outside.
Currently, Iran has a chokeold on the
global economy and they're leveraging it
very powerfully.
>> You predicted a famine, Steve.
>> Yeah, I think it's still going to
happen. But the thing is, it's again
there's a question of what the stocks
are. Like for example, we know this
story about the US strategic oil
reserve. We also know that China had a
huge reserve and they've run that
reserve down from about one and a half
years of supply of oil for them to I
don't know what amount, but they're
going back in the opposite direction
now. So we didn't need to know what the
stocks of all these products were around
the globe beforehand. So when you make
an estimate, yes, there's going to be a,
you know, running out of oil. Well,
China reduced its oil consumption.
America's running at stock down. At some
point though, with the because the flow
is still blocked through this straight
and there won't be the oil, there won't
be the fertilizer, there won't be the
sulfuric acid. All these things will not
be available. And then we'll have a a
physical hit coming out of all that. And
I can completely agree. Trump was sold a
pup. It's the old expression. And we're
paying the price.
>> Is there any way out of this in your
view, Steve?
>> I think America has to leave the Middle
East. That's about the only long-term
resolution. America stops interfering in
the Middle East.
>> If if they were to leave now, the issue
that they face is they've now given
Iran, they've sort of established a
precedence where Iran can use the
straight of Hormuz, which is like a
proxy for the global economy, as a
bargaining chip. And so if you're Iran,
you now can proceed potentially with
your nuclear program and if they come
back, you shut down the global economy
via the straight up moose.
>> Yeah.
>> Or you you you sort of kneecap it at
least,
>> which is why it was a catastrophically
bad decision to provoke them in the
first place.
>> The thing that no one really talks about
and it's an issue close to my heart with
the Ukrainian family and and you know
the conflict there is something that's
very important to me is one of the hopes
I had for the Trump presidency was that
he would find a way to bring that
conflict to a close. This has only made
things better for Russia. The the fact
that they've had to lift sanctions on
Russian oil, for example, in order to
compensate for the lack of supply. This
is allowing Russia to continue this war
and to fund its war. And so I just it's
been a disastrous intervention um and
really really unfortunate uh in the way
that it's been done.
>> Do you think this is going to completely
tarnish his presidency more than any
other issue?
>> It depends on how it ends. The only way
out of this that I can see at the
moment, look, there's
>> again, these things are very
unpredictable. I think we really should
be very honest about that. But the way
that that I see it at the moment is his
only way out really. I don't know about
pulling out the Middle East. That seems
a bit extreme. But the best way for him
to get out of this is to find a way to
to sell Americans on the lie that it's
been a success.
>> Yeah, that is the only way he's going to
get out of this. if he can find a way to
sell a terrible deal, which he's going
to have to sign with Iran as a victory
for America, which Trump is uniquely
placed to do, let's be honest, right?
His ability to sell things is pretty
pretty strong. Then he can leave with
less egg on his face than otherwise. at
which point how the world judges him for
a temporary interruption of oil and
fertilizer and gas supplies. How history
judges him is hard to say, not least
because he's still got time in his term
to either do good things or or to do
more things that don't work out well.
But uh at the moment, this is a conflict
who whose only resolution that it seems
to me is for him to accept the reality
that he made a mistake and to find a way
to extricate himself from it without
admitting it was a mistake. Steve
mentioned that he predicts a famine is
coming, a global famine.
>> Yeah.
>> Do you agree with that?
>> Depends how long it runs.
>> It depends how long I mean I have
friends in Australia who are farmers and
when this first started they were
telling me they can't get hands on
fertilizer be even at the quotas they
already had
>> and again context here is that a lot of
fertilizer comes from via the straight
of Hormuse.
>> Yeah to all over the world. But even if
even if say you get your supply of
fertilizer not from the Middle East,
well given that the supply of fertilizer
is no longer coming from the Middle
East, the people who used to get it from
the Middle East now have to get it from
somewhere else and there's less of it to
go around. Therefore, price goes up,
quotas allocations go down, you can't
plant the crops, etc., etc., etc., etc.
>> Yeah. Like on the the Australian front,
I've got friends in the same boat and
they tell me that uh about half the
usual wheat crop has been laid because
of the cost of fertilizer which and
Australia used to produce seven times as
much food as it needs for its people. So
it's going to produce three times as
much food, three and a half and that
means of course less availability for
food around the world. And this is going
to be a global phenomenon when where it
hits again very hard to say because you
don't know what stocks exist. You don't
know how dependent different
agricultural systems are on the
fertilizer they that they bring in. But
yeah, it's it's a catastrophically bad
decision and the only way that Trump can
get out of it is to lose and declare
victory. That's what he'll do. Well,
>> there's midterm elections coming up
which could have a big impact, but
there's also the 2028 elections coming
up for the presidential position. Um, a
lot of people are now forecasting that
the Democrats, the left side of politics
or potentially even a socialist
candidate is going to get into office.
Do you think that would be a net good
thing for the United States?
>> Well, after Trump, anything is going to
be better. Okay. So, yes, I do because
again, I think America's pushed far too
far in the, you know, independent
self-reliance, don't let the state do
anything. Uh, and you get an unbalanced
economy out of that.
>> Do you think the US needs a democratic
socialist candidate? Yeah. Yeah.
>> Why?
>> Because they will promote the need for
the the public goods that the private
the public sector provides and the
private sector does not. We've got the
classic illustration here with water
supplies for the UK. We privatized them
40 years ago. What's the consequence?
You can't swim in any river in the
United Kingdom anymore because they're
polluted with feces. The beaches are
impossible as well. We have one less dam
than we had 40 years ago. Privatizing
resources which take a long time to
construct is a recipe for those
resources not to be constru created in
the very first instance. Whereas China
with obviously a socialist economy has
built the energy supplies you were
mentioning earlier. They have provided
the uh the transportation the education
it's extremely hard to get in. You can't
buy your way in that the education is
publicly funded. All these things show
that you need a balance between the
public and private sector. And America's
gone too far in the private direction
and we now need to swing switch switch
back in the opposite direction.
>> China's model would be better.
>> Yeah. Because I mean if if it it
provides the infrastructure that enables
a private sector to thrive if you don't
have the energy as you were saying
earlier then you can't even imagine
building the private sector facilities
or if you do they've got to be used at
the expense of some other activity. So,
we're seeing Americans protesting about
rising energy prices because of data
centers being established and rising
problems with the water supply for the
same reason.
>> Steve would prefer a socialist
government coming into the United States
in the next election cycle.
>> Democratic socialists, there's a big
difference. Democratic socialism is is
the same idea that has been tried
repeatedly and failed repeatedly, which
is communism. It's sort of the idea that
if we elect communists instead of having
them win in the revolution that it'll
all be better. It won't be. policies
don't work. And by the way, the one
thing
>> the Soviet policies obviously did not
work.
>> Yeah.
>> Russia failed. No doubt about that.
Okay. China's succeeding. So what's the
difference between the two? Why is the
Chinese system being so successful and
the Russian success been so abjectly a
failure?
>> Well, in the 1930s, a lot of people
thought that the the rapid
industrialization of the Soviet Union
was a massive success. I I think it's
worth remembering that communist
societies lie all the time about the
real figures in their economy and they
create fake growth and fake numbers
about all of these things. We know for
example that almost certainly according
to the intelligence assessment of pretty
much any every western intelligence
service that the the uh co virus came
from a lab in China something they lied
about to the world and still haven't
paid any price for and the way they lie
about that is the way they will lie
about other things including economic
growth and all sorts of other things in
the short term models can look appealing
uh if you don't understand the full
implications of what it is but also you
got to remember that uh the Chinese
system is not just about the economy
it's also about what rights people have
and don't have. The right to express
your opinion freely, the right to
criticize the government, the right I
mean, we talk about private enterprise
in China. If you're a private uh
business owner in China, there's no such
thing really cuz the moment you are
inconvenient to the government, you're
going to disappear and come back
suddenly with a totally different new
set of beliefs about what's right and
wrong and who's right and who's wrong.
So, um I think we should be very very
very careful about pray praising
communist dictatorships.
I have friends in China, both nationals
and and immigrants,
>> who tell me that the the level of
discussion and argument in China is far
far greater than people think. You don't
get left versus right conversations.
Okay, you've got a political system
which you're uh you're not going to
change communist party be in control and
so on. But the level of debate over what
policy should be uh whether the
government should balance its books,
whether the government should run a
deficit, whether the government should
build infrastructure or not. Um there's
enormous debate there.
>> So people do have there's more conflict,
but it's mediated. It's not conflict
that leads to flipping from one party
one year to opposite attitude at the
next election and so on. Do you think
Steven could run his show if he was a
Chinese citizen in China and have any
conversation he wanted?
>> I think so. I maybe not as broad as this
one. Probably more limited. I will agree
with that. Okay. They probably would be
more limited. But I've been involved.
You know, if you have you spoken on the
Chinese Global Television Network, I
presume
>> I haven't.
>> Okay. Well, that's the conversations
that I've had there are comparable to
what I'm having here. And so those
conversations get broadcast in China.
>> Well, you're clearly very in favor of
China. It doesn't surprise me that they
would have you on their TV channel.
That's not the point I'm making. The
point I'm making is Xi Jinping, the
current president of China, has purged
dozens of people who are internal
critics within his own party, people in
the military, people in the political
system who disappear one after another
and uh business leaders of all kinds.
The reason I keep having to remember
things, I've got I've got the Jackmar,
but others too. Um I've got young I've
got new dad brain, so I haven't slept
properly for fair enough. I understand
that problem. Um uh but yeah, so if
you're a business owner in China, it's
not really your it's like kind of like
in Russia, there's no private private
enterprise.
>> I think that's an exaggeration. Okay.
Because the the Russ the Russian
situation, yes, there was only one
motorbike making company in the entire
country. China apparently has about 130
car companies. Okay. um they have
managed to combine the central planning
that the Soviets had with the
competition that the west has in one
model and a lot of it comes back and I'd
love to know the extent to which they
were influenced by
a friend of mine called Janus Cornai who
was a Hungarian economist he died about
four years ago who tried to understand
why did the Soviet system fail and why
did American system grow and he came
down to saying that the Soviet system
was constrained by supply you couldn't
get all the input you needed. So, and
you had only, you know, one, there was
no innovation taking place in the Soviet
system. The Chinese system is rampant
with private sector innovation and
companies are competing against each
other rampantly in that system. Somehow
they've managed to combine the state
providing the infrastructure and the
foundation and letting private diversity
occur both between different
corporations and between different
provinces in China. So it is a comp it
is it's the same family of systems but
they've managed to overcome the drawback
that the Soviet system had.
>> Let's accept that at face value. What
about the point I was making about
political freedom, freedom of the
individual, freedom of speech, political
repression of opponents, imprisonment of
people who don't agree, state sanctioned
murder, etc. What about that?
>> Well, I look at America's prison system
and say you've got a different version
of the same poison. I mean, I've been
>> critics of the government on mask.
>> Well, a couple have been shot. The whole
stuff we're doing, the ICE, you know,
and they're talking about the stuff
that's happening with Trump now is
awful. America has the world's largest
prison populations. There are so many
freedoms you don't get in America that
you do get in China.
>> Would you prefer a Chinese system if you
>> to America? Yes.
>> Even though you can't criticize. I've
spent enough time in American cities and
Chinese cities to know which ones I
prefer. And I'm down to cities of a mere
4 million people, which is a small city
on Chinese standards. I didn't see the
homelessness. I didn't see the poverty
levels and that I see in American cities
in Chinese cities.
>> That's totally true. But but it's
exactly the sort of thing that people
would have said about aspects of the
Soviet Union and
>> the Soviet never pulled that off. I mean
the Soviet one thing.
>> What about the Moscow Metro? This is
what every
>> Moscow metro is, you know, great. Every
western idiot like Tucker Carson goes to
to Moscow and says
>> he raves about the underground.
>> Oh my god, the underground. Well, that
was built by totalitarian dictators with
slave labor. You can get a hell of a lot
done with slave labor and
>> that's being done in China right now,
which has the world's greatest metro
systems and the world's greatest
highspeed rail. So again, your
experience, you know, I'm not Russian. I
wasn't born there. I respect your
experience is very different to what I
had growing up and it's a horrific
society and it led to you know a whole
range of horrors as we know the people
things instantly say what happened in
Soviet Union is happening in China
>> is misidentifying those two systems
>> well first of all what happened in China
if you take the entire history of China
under communism is actually much worse
than what happened in the Soviet Union
>> uh well like I was in there in 818
>> 45 million people killed
the great war is a disaster the
ideological stuff in her mouth was
horrific and I saw literally I saw
examples of that in Sichuan with
children who clearly had quarkaw protein
deficiency disease because of the flip
and flopping of the central committee
about grain versus legume crops horrific
things like that it's what's happened
since Dang Xiaoping that has made the
huge difference now also they did manage
to get rid of the landlords so you
didn't have the inequality that occurred
in the Chinese system beforehand you did
have an education system as distorted as
it was everybody had education. They set
the foundations. What's happened since
Dang Xiaoing is what's been a remarkable
transition and politically they still
have the you know the party is still in
control. You have the potential to get
the sort of dynasty effect that we see
in North Korea.
>> According to the major global happiness
surveys and the UN world happiness
report, people in the United States
report overall happier life satisfaction
in people in China.
>> Does that matter?
>> I don't know. I don't know the survey.
So maybe essentially it's saying that
the United States ranks as 30 as 23rd
>> and China ranks as 65th. The report uses
several mechanisms asking residents of
each country to evaluate their current
life on a scale of zero which is the
worst possible life
>> to 10 the best possible life.
>> Yeah.
>> And China ranks as 65th.
>> If you go back 40 years ago you would
have found China down 150th. Okay. It's
the rate of change in China over the
last 40 years which is breathtaking.
This is something that I've made for
you. I realized that the divers here
audience are strivvers. Whether it's in
business or health, we all have big
goals that we want to accomplish. And
one of the things I've learned is that
when you aim at the big big big goal, it
can feel incredibly psychologically
uncomfortable because it's kind of like
being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
and looking upwards. The way to
accomplish your goals is by breaking
them down into tiny small steps. And we
call this in our team the 1%. And
actually this philosophy is highly
responsible for much of our success
here. So what we've done so that you at
home can accomplish any big goal that
you have is we've made these 1% diaries
and we released these last year and they
all sold out. So I asked my team over
and over again to bring the diaries back
but also to introduce some new colors
and to make some minor tweaks to the
diary. So now we have a better range for
you. So, if you have a big goal in mind
and you need a framework and a process
and some motivation, then I highly
recommend you get one of these diaries
before they all sell out once again. And
you can get yours at the diary.com.
And if you want the link, the link is in
the description below. So, bringing this
back to the sort of where we started a
little bit, um, on the United Kingdom,
we've just appointed a new prime
minister, Andy Bernham. Do you think
he's going to be successful?
>> What do you mean by successful? Do you
think he's going to
improve the UK's position to such extent
that we changed our trajectory?
>> No. He has absolutely smashed the PR
side of things. There's no arguing with
that whatsoever. But in terms of the
tectonic stuff that we've been
discussing today, he is not remotely
going to address any of it. You know, we
started the conversation with popular
populism, immigration, illegal
immigration, etc. He seems to be totally
doubling down on on what the Labour and
before that the Conservative government
were doing on that. On the economy, he
is not going to restart the British
economy, not least because it takes a
long time and a mandate he doesn't have
for the reasons that Steve alluded to.
>> And the only question really is, is he
going to call an early election, which
would be the ballsy and probably smart
thing to do because I don't think he's
ever going to be as popular as he is
now. That is a question that remains
because it probably would be the sens
the rational thing to do but it is a big
risk because elections are
unpredictable, election campaigns are
unpredictable. Nobody knows what will
happen once it kicks off. But uh
fundamentally I don't believe he's going
to be the transformative candidate that
will change Britain for the better. No.
>> Can anybody?
>> That's a very good question. I think
it's it's a very difficult job. I think
it's theoretically possible. You need a
whole different set of policies. Um
>> what would those policies look like?
>> We talked about it already. uh we want
uh abundant cheap energy.
>> So would you drill in the North Sea?
>> It's not something that I'm I'm not an
expert in the oil industry. So I don't
know. I mean one of the things I've
never understood is why we don't build
more nuclear power stations. Part of it
is they're so expensive to build here
because of the regulations and the
famous example is with like bat tunnels
for train lines that cost more than the
trains and all this kind. It's very
difficult to build energy infrastructure
in the UK. I would pursue every avenue
of every kind and probably including
drilling for oil and other things to
create the cheap abundant energy that we
need to grow the economy. Number one,
for the reasons that we talked about in
the climate discussion. The other thing
is you've got to uh the situation where
you literally have tens and maybe even
hundreds of thousands of young people
now completely on the scrap heap. No
chance of ever getting into employment
because they have anxiety or they have
depression. You know, when I remember
being 20, going to the to to get a job
as a student to the student employment
office and sweating buckets because I
was so anxious. It was an an like a
weird experience. I'd never been
through. I'm sure you know, I know your
background. You've had times when you
were scrapping and scraping and you
would have been depressed or anxious and
all sorts of things. Those are obstacles
in life you have to get over. Those are
not medical problems by and large. Some
people have really serious depression.
We shouldn't trivialize that. But by and
large, you have to overcome anxiety. you
have to overcome your feelings of
discomfort about the reality you face
and get into the workplace. So we have
to do that as well. Uh for the reasons
that we talked about earlier, I think
one of the most important policies to
pursue is to make sure that there are no
benefits of any kind for foreign
nationals. That will create a system
where rather than doing terrible optics
like the ICE, you know, rounding people
up and trying to get them out of the
country, people will just leave. The
people who shouldn't be here, who not
contributing, will leave of their own
valition.
>> Is that really what will happen?
>> Yeah.
>> Or does does is crime not a consequence
of desperation.
>> Crime? I'm not talking about crime. I'm
talking about if you are a foreign
national and you live in social housing
and you receive benefits, I don't
understand why you're here.
I I understand taking care of British
people who who were born here or even
who've become British citizens. You
know, once you become a a citizen of the
country and you commit to it, that point
you you fall through the net, you get an
injury like we should look after you.
But by and large perhaps other than
health care, which I think is something
we'd as a compassionate country would
want to provide to anybody who who needs
it. Uh I don't think you should get
access to social housing, unemployment
benefit, or any of the other things if
you're not a citizen of this country.
And I'm very pleased to see that more
and more parties are adopting that
policy because what it will do is it
will create a system where people who
are not contributing will leave of their
own accord and and go to other places.
>> Is that truly what happens? Cuz I'm
imagining, you know, I'm imagining
people start coming over on boats or you
remove the current social housing
infrastructure. Wouldn't that just
result in a lot of homeless people that
we then that creates another problem?
>> No, because I'm not talking about
illegal immigrants. legal immigrants
apply for asylum and there's a different
process for that. I'm talking about
people who are here legally who have
settled status here or who have a visa
to be here or whatever.
>> So they shouldn't get social housing.
>> They shouldn't get any benefit.
>> So what if you removed that today?
>> They will leave.
>> How?
>> What do you mean? How they'll get on a
plane and leave?
>> If they can get on a boat to get here
and pay people smugglers €3,000, they
can pay hundred quid for easy jet to fly
back to wherever they came from. It's
not hard.
It's exactly how I would leave if I had
to go back to where I've come from. It's
not difficult. People pretend you like
this is complicated. It's really not
complicated. People will follow the
incentive structure that's in front of
them. If you can come to Britain and get
benefits as a foreign national, you will
come. If you can't and you are the sort
of person that wants benefits, you will
leave. It's really simple. And the
people we want here, if if you want to
talk about immigration, there's some
really good things about immigration.
You want immigrants who come here from
other countries and create businesses,
they will come, they will stay and they
will continue to do what they do.
>> So you think Andy Burnham's ultimately
going to not be successful
>> by the definition that you gave, which
is like a transformative prime minister
who changes the the the fate of the
country. No,
>> there's this term called wokeism that
people talk about a lot. It's often
associated with
h I mean, you can probably explain it
better than I can.
>> I believe I can.
>> Yes. I think you should explain it.
>> Okay. Wokeism uh in certainly in the way
that it's been implemented is a
hierarchy of oppression uh based on
various demographic characteristics. In
other words, it's a system that says an
outsider looking in to this conversation
between the three of us can say without
knowing anything about any of us which
one of us is more oppressed than others
and which one of us is doing more of the
oppression and therefore to whom victim
status should be accorded and to whom
oppressor status should be accorded. So,
you don't win on this one, I'm afraid,
Steve. You're a pale male and stale
and therefore you're the oppressor. Um,
I am an immigrant, so somewhat
oppressed. You're black, so you are
like, you know, way at the top of the
chart of oppression. You've been, and
you know, if I think if you compare all
our three bank balances, you might find
that's not quite true. But nonetheless,
my point is it's it's a very simplified
uh and frankly racist way of looking at
the world. And then it says from that it
follows that we must pursue policies
that seek to address these imbalances
and inherent privilege between people
who look like us. It's a way of judging
people by as groups, not as individuals.
and pursuing social policy aimed at
ensuring what's called social justice.
>> Last time you said to me we need to stop
worrying about how things make us feel
rather than the consequences of our
actions.
>> Yeah. Wokeism is the idea that we should
really really focus on what makes us
feel good and really ignore what works.
I think what we should really be
focusing on is what works. And I thought
our climate discussion I misspoke about
the years but the the actually where we
came to I thought was very constructive
which is like what do we do about this?
And when you have that conversation, you
get to a constructive place, right?
Which is I think we all agreed the only
way to do it is to create forms of
energy that are actually going to be
clean,
>> right?
>> Innovation.
>> Innovate. But that's what we came to.
Yeah. But but before that, we were all
talking about how what makes us feel
good and bad and what we're scared of
and etc. So I I think that's part of it.
>> Steve, we need to stop worrying about
how things make us feel rather than the
consequences of our actions.
>> We actually need to understand the
consequences of our actions. Absolutely.
That's
>> Do you think we focus too much on what
makes us feel good?
>> Yeah. And not enough about how does our
system actually function,
>> right? What works.
>> Okay. And that leads was widely to my
position on climate change as well as my
position on economic policy.
>> Last thing I want to talk to you both
about is um just getting any of your
thoughts on all of this stuff that's
going on with AI at the moment
>> and the impact you think that's going to
have.
>> AI is a potentially transformative
technology without a doubt. Okay. You
think about the sort of future we might
imagine for, you know, a wonderful human
species is to the stage where all have
universal high income to take a quote
from Elon Musk. The machines do the work
and we live in a world where the
machines are doing it Star Trek style.
That's that would be a dream outcome.
>> To get there, how are you going to give
people income if they're not working
anymore? Okay. The only way to do that
is the government has to create the
money. Now that is something which I
don't think Musk has thought through. If
people who don't own capital and that's
the vast majority of the population
therefore don't have an income they
can't buy the goods being produced by
the robots in the first place. So you
need a mechanism that enables people to
pay for the basic goods and services to
stay alive and then if you want to
become wealthy you've got to become an
entrepreneur as well.
>> So you could tax the AI companies
instead of printing money.
>> No taxation takes money out of the
economy. Okay. It doesn't it doesn't pay
for services. It takes money out. That's
excessive money creation. If the
government had simply spent and didn't
tax, then the money supply would be
growing at 20 and 30% peranom and you
would have hyperinflation without a
doubt. Okay, that level of money
creation. So the taxation is there to
take excessive money creation out of
>> Could you not tax, say, let's take one
of the big AI companies, let's call them
company A, tax company A 50% of their I
don't know their profits. Give it out as
a UBI or something. I don't know.
>> You need a system like that because if
AI works then all the manual labor, all
the clerical boring clerical jobs will
disappear. Okay? And if they disappear
and people don't have incomes, then we
end up in the hunger games.
>> And that's the fear that I have. If we
if we just go for a totally private
sector approach to AI, then we end up as
either the hunger games or the
government provides an income for people
to enable them to have a basic standard
of living. And if they want to go above
that, they've got to become
entrepreneurs.
>> How are you feeling about AI Constantin?
>> Well, it's a mix of things. This is
where I, if you remember, last time we
spoke, I we talked about the fact that I
think my anti-communist credentials are
pretty well established. But I did, but
but I did say that I thought that if we
get to the position where AI is doing
all the work,
>> communism is an inevitability, i.e. from
each according to his ability, which
will be zero, to each according to his
needs, which will be whatever our needs
are. Right? So once we get if and when
we get to if and when we get to that
point
>> that seems kind of inevitable the
mechanism by which we achieve that
whether it is taxation or whatever. Yeah
I struggle to understand the economic
concept that Steve has been presenting
but you know I I we probably don't have
time to get into that. Nonetheless, a
form of redistribution will be
inevitable because as we spoke about
last time, if six people in the world
own all the revenue generating assets in
the world, they're either going to have
to share it or they're going to find
their heads on spikes.
>> That's [clears throat] a fact. Unless
they can have really powerful robots to
stop the rest of us from climbing over
their big walls, even then the heads are
going to be on spikes. So, I I I would
not recommend that that approach to the
the big tech AI oligarchs, but I think
we're talking about
I was going to use the term long-term.
No one knows what short, medium, and
long-term is in AI because nobody knows
how quickly we're likely to get to that
point where we're talking about which is
kind of artificial generalized
intelligence, i.e. a machine that can
think like humans and probably faster
and better
>> and robotics
>> and and and then of course it will
create robots that can do physical
things faster and better than humans.
>> But we are not there at the moment. I
think it's fair to say.
>> Do you not think this is like the most
important or consequential issue of our
time because it does permeate even
subjects like immigration and we talked
about socialism and capitalism. All of
these things change in such a scenario.
>> Yes, they do. Yes, they do. And we talk
about economic stagnation. I mean, it's
a relevant conversation. Private debt,
irrelevant conversation in that
scenario, but I suspect we're not going
to get there
>> overnight. It will take some time. In
the interim, what I say to the guys that
work for me is you will not be replaced
by AI. You will be replaced by someone
who uses AI better than you do
>> in the interim.
>> In the interim. So, if you are a young
person making your way in the world,
these are tools
and you want to be using these tools as
efficiently as possible. if you want to
succeed in the current environment and I
think that situation will carry on for
some time. I think that to me the
biggest risk is actually not the
economics of it. I think economics will
probably be painful but actually
ultimately potentially beneficial once
we put the if we put the right heads on
spikes, you know, in the extreme
scenario. I'm being hyperbolic and
metaphoric here of course or maybe not.
We'll find out. Um, but I think the the
biggest threat to humanity if you talk
about AI is actually the fact that
you're creating something that's smarter
than you. You are creating a superior
species. And if you're creating a
superior species, you will become an
inferior species. And if you become an
inferior species, you only need to look
around in the world at the world in
which we live to understand what that
means for you. Best case scenario, you
become a pet. Worst case scenario, you
become a cow. I I've really tried uh you
know I've had so many conversations on
the show about artificial intelligence
and I've really tried to like reason my
way to a different conclusion. It's not
possible and I can't.
>> That's why I keep having these bloody
conversations cuz I'm hoping that
someone will say something. They weren't
they weren't
>> about this idea that a more intelligent
species es especially in a world where
it has legs and can move through
physical space which is what Optimus is
accelerating towards won't
be
superior to me as it relates to like the
I don't know the pyramid of uh
>> the hierarchy
>> yeah the hierarchy of
>> hierarchy of power it will have more
power than you and therefore it will
make decisions and not you and therefore
it will make decisions that are in its
own interest and not yours that's a fact
But okay, so one argument might be we'll
control it and design it in such a way
where it can't get there.
>> Really, can squirrels control human
beings?
>> But maybe maybe we can we we program it
so it never gets to the point where it
wants to turn on us.
>> Counter argument is cats, right? Cats
absolutely control human beings.
[laughter]
>> The argument I've heard actually from um
one of the great godfathers of AI is we
should be thinking about mothers and
their babies. And the argument was that
we're programmed to care for them even
though they're less intelligent.
>> But this is the difference though is
there's a genetic incentive. My child is
actually much the economists will
understand what I'm talking about. My
child has a much more a much higher
future value to me than me. It's why I
will jump in front of a bullet to stop
my children from being killed because
their genetic material will remain in
the world much longer.
>> No, it's because you have empathy.
>> No, it's not. It's not at all. It's
because I mean Richard Dawkins wrote
about in the selfish gene
>> and that's a very bad book.
>> Uh he he wrote some very other bad books
and I like Richard but that one is not
one of them. The the desire to uh
replicate your genes into the future in
my opinion. Steve clearly has his own is
what drives parent behavior ultimately.
>> Could you program the same maternal
instinct into a large language model?
[snorts]
I don't think you can because as we
discussed it will be a superior
intelligence and it can always
rationalize its way out of that because
it's not a biological function. Right?
Projecting my genes into the future is
not going to be its agenda. It's going
to have its own because it's a different
species.
>> This was the argument that uh one of the
godfathers of AI made made actually
after coming on my show. So he came on
my show um Jeffrey Hinton.
>> Yeah, I've seen that episode I think.
Yeah, it was a very good episode. and he
came on and he made the warnings that
make a lot of sense to most of us. But
then subsequently by a year later his he
came back to the world with a hypothesis
that the only way to do it was to
replicate a mother and their child's
relationship this sort of deep maternal
instinct where the AI is born believing
that we are to be protected
>> protected.
>> Well, you know, in the same
>> Oh, that's interesting, isn't it?
>> It's really about looked after.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's really about love to to
like Yeah. to have that maternal
instinct not to want to destroy us. Mhm.
>> And that's why I said empathy beforehand
>> and not to perhaps not to let us destroy
ourselves, right?
>> Potentially.
>> So, so let's make sure that we don't go
to war and let's make sure that we don't
do this and let's I mean climate is such
a big concern. Let's make sure that we
reduce the world's GDP or energy
consumption or protection. It sounds
good, but it's it's a it's a it's
ultimately about control over your
actions, which will will take away human
free will.
>> I still skeptical about actually being
intelligence.
It's indistinguishable though. This is
the thing like
>> Well, yeah. I mean, the one time that I
when I saw it where I thought, okay,
this is potentially going to create a
different form of intelligence to us is
when they attempted to shut an AI down
and it replicated itself somewhere else
on the internet to be able to avoid
being,
>> you know, I think the way
>> or blackmail the guy shutting down this
current version of it by leaking the
fact that he's having an affair with on
with his secretary, all of this stuff.
>> So, that's that's the beginning.
>> That's the worries me. So, you know,
it's a bit late. If we're trying to do
it now, we're shutting the door after
the horse is bolted in that.
>> You talking about climate change or AI
now?
>> I'm talking about both. [laughter]
Humans are good at doing both. Operating
systems, computers were the same. That's
why we have all these bloody security
hassles with computers in the very first
instance. So, we tend we we we unleash
these things and find out the
consequences afterwards.
>> Yeah, I think that's
>> and the incentive structure, this sort
of global economic race for the most
advanced frontier intelligence, it's
kind of, you know, this is what I don't
know who's going to stop. It's kind of
what we were saying about climate
change.
>> No one's going to stop.
>> I I think what might cost stop it is the
sheer cost of it and whether we actually
have the physical resources to be able
to implement that sort of future we're
talking about because if you look at the
current profitability of these
companies, they're losing money hand
over fist. I think that's one argument,
but the the other would be that it's
such an important military asset
>> that you if you don't have the missiles
that are smarter, you know, all the
satellites, whatever that are smarter or
the torpedoes, whatever, then you are
there's a national security risk.
>> Yeah. And also, how long was Facebook
and Amazon not profitable?
>> I think Amazon was not, you know,
there's, you know, there's one survivor
out of each of those companies and
they're doing very well. Thanks very
much.
>> But that's my point.
>> Yeah. But with the AI, but the AI who's
going to survive and looking at the
odds, I think it's going to be a Chinese
company that survives, not the American,
given the sheer cost of those data sets.
>> I think we've established you're a fan
of China and this
>> Yes, I am [laughter] unashamed.
>> No, I'm not making I'm not even making
fun of you. I'm just saying with you all
roads.
>> I mean, looking at the the Kimmy system
that just came out recently, the fact
that it's an the ironic thing is the
communists are talking about open source
and the Americans are talking about
closed and secretive. M
>> it's rather ridiculous in some ways.
Okay. But it doesn't really detract from
the broader point I think we're we're
discussing which is some AI company you
talk about profitability one of them at
least will emerge that is profitable
that has the potential to create AGI
>> and at that point no one can predict but
logically it is very difficult to see
>> how an intelligence that is superior to
us at the very least will not take away
our free will for our own good
>> or at least there won't be one accident
that is catastrophic
>> that could theor theoretically also
involve things like nuclear weapons.
>> Yeah. And this is where I think the
spiritual dimension of this conversation
inevitably comes in which is ultimately
none of us can control the things that
we can't control. And so the question is
how do you live your life now knowing
all these things and this is why it's
always interesting to me looking at
people who make certain predictions
about the future and then how they
actually live their lives. You know
people who catastrophize about the
climate but buy a big house on the
seafront etc. you go, you're clearly
there's one thing you're saying and then
there's another thing you're doing and
that's telling me something about what
you actually truly believe deep down.
And it's the same with AI. If AI is
going to kill us all, the best and most
important thing to do is to enjoy your
life now, to enjoy time with your
family, your kids, to do things that are
meaningful, to do things that you think
are important. That's really that any I
mean, are you going to stop AI? Stephen,
are you you're powerful and successful
and influential? You're not going to
stop it. I don't think Steve is. I don't
think I am. What we can do in the
meantime uh is live in a way that uh is
beneficial to us, our families, the
people around us, our community, our
country. Uh that's all that's left.
>> I would think that we can have an impact
though. I think even you watching Eric
Schmidt be booed at that university
commencement speech he did by 7,000
students
>> was a consequence of what a lot of us
do, I mean all of us do, where we put
information out into the world and we
have the public conversation. And once
upon a time, maybe we wouldn't have been
able to do that because there's there
was gatekeepers in media.
>> But now the public is I think and then
you think about the 2028 election cycle.
What are the issues that are really
going to be on the ballot? I think AI is
going to be a massive one.
>> I think you're optimistic about that. I
think most people don't get this
conversation.
>> You don't think it's going to be a big
issue?
>> Not as big as you think it is. I think
the reason I say this is we all think
and talk about this a lot. One of the
reasons is we've all I imagine been to
San Francisco and seen and talked to
people etc. The overwhelming majority of
people don't have that experience and
most people's biggest exposure to AI is
they tried an early model two years ago
it was totally inaccurate and they went
oh this is a bit and moved on with
their lives. It's kind of where most
people are at this point. But you think
in the next two years there'll be
unemployment levels especially at the
entry level stage of employment and then
you're going to see on the other side
the anthropic hits a 10 trillion
valuation.
>> Yeah.
>> And that
>> people won't make that connection.
They'll say I'm I'm unemployed because
Trump is bad or they'll say I'm
unemployed because Burnham is bad.
That's how people think. Uh
unfortunately and by the way in terms of
you know impact etc. I've talked to a
few people who are not not the very
people at the top but from what I hear
they're kind of similar. There's a
messianic cult in in in in Silicon
Valley. Yeah.
>> Of people who believe that they're on
the frontiers of being God.
>> And most of them are young men
>> who are very very seduced by the idea of
being God as young men have always been.
And when I see them, I I see them as
it's not that they're addicts. Exactly.
But there is there's a gold rush
happening, except it's not gold. It's
it's power. It's destiny. It's the
ultimate technological breakthrough. It
It's your name in history. These are
things that are way more powerful than
gold. And what I see happening in
Silicon Valley is a bunch of young men
who are uh absolutely determined to get
there as quickly as possible and there
is no way in hell they're going to stop.
>> I know. I think you're right. I mean
that's also what I've heard in sort of
some private conversations where you
know some of my friends who know these
people have told me these kinds of
things
>> and they have very good arguments by the
way and we should give credit to those
arguments. They will say and I can I can
present to you that argument. Look, I
with my frontier model am going to solve
cancer. I with my frontier model am
going to solve inequality. I with my
frontier model will make sure that human
beings never fight another war again. I
with my frontier model will make sure
that no child ever dies in infancy ever
again.
>> How can you be against this?
>> How can you say we must go slower? How
can you say we must be careful? Why
should I be careful when I'm saving
lives, billions of lives? Humanity, I am
saving humanity from nuclear disaster. I
am saving humanity from climate change
which will destroy this planet. If we
just go harder at this problem, 5 years
from now, we can set up life on a
different planet and not worry about
climate change.
>> But also, China are coming.
>> China.
>> China are coming.
>> Oh, China. Well, all the better. The
competition will make us all get there
faster. Isn't that wonderful, Stephen?
>> So, if you truly believe that this is
both an existential threat,
>> Yeah.
>> and you believe that right now on the
course of travel run, it's inevitable.
>> Yeah.
>> Shouldn't you be doing something about
it as well?
>> I can't do anything about it.
>> You can't do anything about it. No.
>> Who can do something about it?
>> No one.
>> Not Trump.
>> No. What's Trump going to do?
>> So, no one can do anything about it.
>> No. It's going to happen one way or
another and we don't know what that's
going to be like, but there is no
solution to that issue. So, that's why I
talked about the spiritual. Nobody knows
how AI is going to work out. But I think
it's worth operating as if it will. And
what that means is, this is why I said
the spiritual. you come back to what
does it mean to live a meaningful life
for as long as you do and by the way
that's true even without AI you're going
to die and you're going to die very very
soon all of us and so the question is
how do you spend the days between today
and that day in a way that when you look
back you feel like you did the right
thing and I don't remotely do that every
day you know I lose my temper I make
mistakes I say things I shouldn't I all
all that but ultim imately the only
choice any human being on the planet now
has is how do you live the time that you
have between today and the day you die
and that may be cuz AI you know puts you
in a choke hold robotic choke hold three
years from now or it could be 40 years
from now or it could be 200 years from
now because I have to solve all your
health problems but ultimately the
answer the question and the answer don't
change what do you do with your life
that you think is meaningful and
important
>> earlier on you had more optimism for
humanity as it related to the climate
change conversation you you weren't
willing to concede that there's nothing
we can do
>> because there's a solution.
>> When Steve said we're five seconds from
the brick wall, you said, "No, listen."
>> Well, I don't think that's true. Number
one, but I also think that there is an
actual solution that's available that's
clear. Now, I'm not saying the
technology currently exists that allows
us to build, you know, some kind of
power station that's clean. We don't
have that yet. But I believe we can we
can discover that. And if you look at
human history, I think it's undeniable.
AI is completely unprecedented. and a
category different to what we're talking
about. So the I issue is a different
issue. It's not the same. And I am not
pessimistic. I am just accepting of the
truth of this issue which is nobody can
stop it. Nobody can control it. And
ultimately the only thing you control is
what do you do when you leave the
studio.
>> Okay. Well then we sh we shall conclude
there.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you for being here. Thank you for
watching all these wonderful books,
Steve.
>> Got all of them here. I think there's
another one on the way, isn't there?
[laughter]
>> And then I've got Constantine's book
here.
>> You've got a nice red one. I like it.
>> To the what? This one.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm surprised it's not about China,
mate. Sorry I keep making all these
jokes. [laughter]
>> But I appreciate your perspective. It's
been really eye opening and I think
especially on the subject of climate
change, that was a really productive um
>> Well, I mean, the current book I'm
working on, which I hope to finish by
the end of this month, is called How
Economists Will Destroy Capitalism.
Okay. And what it makes the argument for
is that economists have completely and
utterly misunderstood what climate
change actually means. And therefore
they've given us predictions about the
damage that will do to our economy which
are trivial and therefore we're doing
trivial things to address it.
>> Fantastic. I hope people read it. And I
would just say I I think it's very
important people in public eye when they
say something that's not accurate hold
their hand up. So in the climate
conversation I obviously
took a zero away from the figure. It's
my mistake. I'm I'm glad for the
correction. I'll definitely be more
careful when I talk about it. I think
you know the way the rest of the
conversation went I think we all
understood the points we were trying to
make but I'm grateful for for that and I
appreciate the opportunity to correct
the record as well. So thanks for doing
that.
>> Well people should go listen to your
show as well trigonometry. I'll link
that below. Fantastic show.
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