Ed Sheeran Gaza Controversy, AI Fears and Piddington Immigration Protest - Off the Fence

Hello everybody and welcome to this week's "Off the Fence" with me Constance Inc. and of course my trigonometry co-host Frances Foster, our friend Winston Marshall of the Winston Marshall Show and Tom Slater from Spike. Welcome guys. We're going to get straight into it. This week our three stories are going to be the Ed Sheeran Opening Acts dropping out over the free Palestine thing. We will talk about that, we will talk of course about the warnings from various AI inside as the AI is going to kill us all and you know more relaxed Piddington in England as voted to leave the United Kingdom in a referendum because they don't want migrants in a camp right around the corner. Let's get straight into our first story which is of course Ed Sheeran and his opening acts dropping out after free Palestine controversy. Frances Foster take it away. Well this Constance Inc. is very much a story that has captured the cultural zeitgeist so I'll lead you through everything that's actually happened. This involves an artist or an artist called McElmore who is an Irish rap artist who was booked to open for Ed Sheeran. He went on Ed Sheeran's show to open and he did his act but he also delivered a speech about Palestine, the Palestinian struggle in which he said the words free Palestine. Now the New York Post alleges that he there was then a call with Robert Kraft in which it was asked him not to do that. Now this is an allegation we don't know if it's true or not. He then went on a couple of days later and then proceeded to double down on this and talked about the Columbia students describing them as their actions as heroic for standing up front oppressed people. Now what subsequently happened is there was a conversation between Robert Kraft and Ed Sheeran in which Robert Kraft by the way is the owner of the New England Patriots and one of the arenas that Ed Sheeran was booked to perform in and said that this could not carry on and not only would he not be welcome to be to perform at Robert Kraft Serena there were numerous other owners of arenas that Ed Sheeran was booked to perform in that would subsequently pull out of the tool and refuse to host Ed Sheeran's show. At which point Ed having really I would say no choice then said to McElmore that he could not perform at any more of his shows. Now something very interesting happened at this point because every single one of Ed Sheeran's support acts have subsequently dropped out. McElmore then said he's going to donate all of the earnings that he's going to get from the tool roughly around a million dollars to Palestinian causes and Robert Kraft in a beautiful piece of one upmanship has doubled that and said that he's going to give two million to Palestinian causes. So Ed Sheeran who for those of you who don't know is like fairly milk toast, mill of the road, pop act is now caught in one of the cultural war stories of this year and it's very for interesting to see where this will go. Wait Francis just to check one thing did you say Robert Kraft is going to give two million to Palestinian causes or Israeli causes. Palestinian causes to as in Palestinian charities. So having cancelled the shows of the free Palestine thing he's nonetheless going to give more money to Palestinian charities. Yeah to help people who've been affected by the war. Okay I see cool cool cool Winston you are obviously our music industry inside of it. Can I just say one thing before we get into just one thing. I don't there's obviously the free speech and all of the principle stuff but just from a the three of us I think have opened for people and had people open for us a various life. Like if you are opening for Ed Sheeran I actually had to look this up because I couldn't believe it. Like Francis and I were talking about this story and I was like well there's no way he would have said this at Ed Sheeran's concerts he might have done like a speech at a different concert of his own and then that's become the controversy. I looked it up with Venice AI. No he did this political thing at Ed Sheeran's concert at the concert of the guy for whom he's opening and it's like what are you doing irrespective of the political cause like if you're opening for a huge act I mean you're playing NFL arenas. What are you doing stamp trying to stamp your message like if you're opening for someone your attitude should be like the white guy in the 100 meter final right you're just happy to be there you know what I mean like what are you doing? What if I may so here his political activism was part of his act long before he was even booked to be on Ed Sheeran's tour and it wasn't just any political activism and it is classic sort of leftist derangement you know he's on the wrong side would literally every possible issue you could be on Cuba ice Lebanon the West he's always doing that. So that's actually quite key to where I've landed on this and that ultimately it was the fault of Sheeran and Kraft for allowing it to happen in the first place. They knew well before they announced it what Makamore's live show was about. Did you book rage against the machine you can't then later say post-hoc say sorry lad you can play but just no political songs no no communism yet because it's part of the act. If I can just make a couple of corrections for Francis' opening. So I think Makamore is not Irish he is American but I think key here they all think they're Irish they're made done yeah they all think they're Irish and but they are they are all ginger and a lot of them are so no one's talking about this the ginger no I think no I think this is actually the part that everyone's missed. The support bands Finneas who's Billy Eilish's sister pulled pulled out in solidarity with Makamore and another point so it wasn't Ed or Kraft who technically dropped Makamore it was the promoter's Messina group. So hands are clean in this from my point of view although everyone on the sort of pally derangement side this sort of guard the tardation they are against Sheeran but Sheeran actually is kind of in the middle I think the only mistake he made was booking Makamore in the first place knowing what we know about Makamore set because Makamore since 2014 was doing with you know big hiles in kind of Jew costumes at the beginning of the Hamas war even before Israel had responded after October 7th he was doing Instagram posts saying there's an unfolding genocide so this guy was holding but hold on your Instagram like you can post about whatever you want on Instagram I'm talking about why are you turning up to someone else's concert and doing a political thing a speech about free Palestine I take your point but I know what you're saying but I'm saying that's part of his act and that and that we knew that that was part of his act before Sheeran booked him I mean they announced this a year ago which is still two years after the war started he's Makamore has been doing that all of his shows just as long as he's doing it it's doing this pally nonsense it's always been part of it for him so how does that work Winston as a music industry person how how I don't understand how it's like I'm frances in our background to stand up comedy like you would never say part of someone's set is to go out and do a pro Palestine speech at the top and then do a few knobgags like those are separate have you been on the circuit recently man no I haven't been that's maybe the point but you know what I mean like there's jokes or there's music and then there is speaking about issues and sure some people might do both but I don't understand as an opening if I when I was doing stand up got to open for I'm not Joe Rogan or Bill Burr or whatever I wouldn't go and then do a speech about the importance of Ukraine I just go and do my best jokes yeah but Makamore's songs and presumably he thinks they're his best shot I don't listen to Makamore I'm not saying so it's hard for me to do great but he has literally got songs about Gaza so if you're in this in this sort of analogy you're trying to make if your best gag was about Ukraine and then you do the the tour and and Rogan says great yeah or but Burr you can do it just don't make that gag about Ukraine you'd be like well that's not exactly the spirit of you know you know you need to have free speech in the arts you gotta I mean I was so desperate I I would have cut any guy I get to play an NFL arena I'm going down to Ukraine right now hey hey you said when I remember when you were early on early days of trig - To sign a-- - Yeah, I'm just-- - Commentable, you know the details. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Right, okay. But that's the point though, that is actually the equivalent. And so that's where it gets sort of tricky. And I imagine we're all gonna agree that if artists don't have freedom of expression, that's a problem. And if you start saying, you can't say this, or you see that there's punishment for saying this, then people are gonna start being quiet. The problem in this example compared to all the stuff we've been talking about work is that this guy's views are absolutely abhorrent. I mean, they are as far left as you could get as far as I can stand. I mean, he was doing on stage, blood libel. He was going, and this happened at the Met Live Show last week, he was saying, "To my Jewish friends," right? So he's a dress that he's picking out the Jews in the audience, and he's going, "If I criticize genocide, that is not anti-Semitic." Well, then why are you addressing the Jewish friends? What's that got to do with them for a start? Secondly, if you're accusing Israel of genocide, that is blood libel, because it's not genocide, it's a war that Hamaz started, and they're responding to, and I also note that Mackamore did not say, Hamaz returned the hostages, because that would have ended the war, by the way. He said, "No, there's an unfolding genocide." So it is anti-Semitic, what he's saying. Anyway, anyway, there's never an end to it. I really think the gender thing's important, because Mackamore's a ginger, vineyard, who was the support actor, Billy Eilish's brother, he's a ginger. So they've all basically converted to his alarm, it seems like, they're racist on Mackamore. Now. That fight behind his rear end, you got it? The ginger to expand, who are called Balega, or Bialga. Well, he's back in there, not on stage back in there, not the support band, on stage back in there. They're all from Ireland. One of the other support acts is from Ireland. Now, what's important here is, if they're iris, very likely, they are carriers of the regressive red gene, even if they don't show themselves to be ginger. This is the correlation, the pattern I'm seeing, guys. I'm just noticing. I'm just noticing. There's a gender thing going on here. Now, it's also Ireland is like the highest per capita rate of Israel's arrangement syndrome. There's something else going on here. But jokes aside, I mean, it's astonishing that Sharon hasn't fallen for all of that stuff, and he's now not being displayed as ginger. He's like the self-aiding ginger. It's the self-aiding ginger. Yeah. Tom, I thought you were wrapped up with. Tom, I know you as a free speech champion, but I actually don't agree with Winston here about this free speech in arts thing, in one respect. At your own concert, you can say and do whatever you want. And if a stadium then says, I personally don't agree with those who's there for your cancelled, I think that's wrong. But to me, the issue of opening for someone else is a completely different thing. If you're opening for someone else, who is giving you an opportunity that you would never yourself have, which is in this instance, the plate, and NFL arena, holy crap, it should be the dream moment of your career. You don't get to derail the whole thing by imposing your particular political opinions. Whatever they may be. Like, if Francis and I did a trigonometry live show, and we asked somebody to open for us, and that person went on, and did a political message that I agreed with, I'd still be like, what the fuck are you doing? You're here to do the thing we hired you to do, which is do your comedy or do your music or whatever it is. What's your take, Tom? Nothing, that's a fair point. I suppose that would probably more perfectly capture it if this was just a case of Ed Sheeran taking umbridge at this impromptu pro-Palestine lecture and saying, you know what, you can't really do it on the tour. I make love songs for teeny-bopper audiences. This is not the time for bloodlopal. Then that argument might have applied more neatly. I suppose the added dimension here is the fact that because of individuals, primarily Robert Kraft, the owner of the Gillette Stadium, as Francis was explaining there, seemed to have gone out of his way to try to have Macklemore pulled, not just from his own arena, but from other ones on the tour that it does. It brings it into the cancel culture discussion, even if we don't think it's a perfect fit for what we're talking about. And the very least, I think we can say, that when you have people on the more pro-Israel side trying to play that game, at the very least, it backfire spectacularly. Macklemore has piled on millions of Instagram followers since this has happened. It's depressing, but to be a rabbit-Israeli-foam in the music industry has become a bit of a cheat code. It's elevated, completely talentless hacks, whether we're talking about kneecap or Bob Villan, or in this case, Macklemore has had a lot of success up until this point, but off the back of some very ropey music, it gives them this new status, it gives them the martyrdom that they were seeking, all of that kind of stuff. But at the same time, there's been this retaliation now, which feels much more vicious and sinister towards Ed Sheeran. If you go online, you see pictures of him, stained in blood, people speculating that because he went to a Shabbat dinner once, he's been got out. I mean, all of this has gotten very, very ugly. And it shows that if there's any kind of conformism at play here, it's on the pro-Palestine side. They're the ones who are trying to enforce the kind of ideological purity tests. And I never thought I'd say this, but I'm very much team Ed Sheeran. I do quite feel sorry for him, really, not least because partly because of the sort of act he is, and partly because of the sort of bloat that he seems to be. He's just not really built for this era. He puts in mind that kind of like holster wearing kind of gap year middle class lad, he just wants everyone to get along. And yet, he finds himself in the middle of the biggest cultural war story potentially of the year so far. I mean, it's one of those kind of really sad developments, but I think one thing that struck me, I don't think we might have a clip of this, is when Paloma Faith was-- - Oh, yeah. - Stubborn Dodger Channel 4 to discuss this, because when there's a big political controversy, who else do you turn to? - And Dean, let's get this clip up so people know when Tom's talking about. - No, exactly, well, I'm sure we've got a clip of it. - But what is wrong with Ed Sheeran saying? Look, I mean, I write love songs mostly. My audience are often children. - I don't-- that comment I don't like. When he said that really upset me, because there's so many children in Palestine that are faced with unimaginable things, and shouldn't be. So when he said that, I was like, "I save free Palestine to my children every night." I think children get a bit scared. - Incredible, I don't-- I don't know about you, but what else do I have to do? - By the way, can I just add one small detail, Tom? I'm operating from memory here, but her children, I believe, are nine, five, and seven months. So there's a seven-month-old baby in her little cradle, or his little cradle, being free Palestine that I find her own mother. - Can you imagine how proud Paloma Faith will be if her son's first words are free Palestine? - I mean, that seems to be a shock to me. - Yeah, well, no, exactly. I mean, after I saw that clip, and after I had called social services, I was quite struck by just how deranged these people have become without realizing it. And also, the lack of appreciation about how much kind of conform his cultural sway they now have that side of the argument, not Paloma Faith herself, but necessarily. Who, incidentally, is someone who's status, I've constantly been used by, I've never once met a Paloma Faith fan, or anyone could actually name a song by her on starting to get suspicious as to what-- - You're in the wrong circle, Tom. - Before you're going on there. - Yeah, but it is one of those things where I was a little bit confused. But she also said in that interview, that Ed Sheeran is having to learn the hard way that being a political is itself a political stance. So I think what we're seeing here is, it's essentially like silence is violent from the BLM days repackaged in the Palestine argument. And the end point of that argument is miserable, particularly for pop culture. The idea that there is no area of life, even I say, I can't pop concert that is primarily aimed at kids, to that must not be turned into a lecture. And this is something that's been going on for some time. Of course, whether it's Mac tomorrow or anyone else, if they want to be political, that's absolutely up to them. No one's really stopping them. But at the same time, I think the demand that everyone be political will just, it's bad for popular culture 'cause it just ruins it. So many people who don't want politics to infect here. And also I think it's bad for politics. It just reduces everything down to the level of like a easy to regurgitate celebrity platitude and brings with it this very conformist culture. So yeah, as I say, I never thought I'd say this, but team Ed, all the way on this one. Tom, well, I never thought I'd say this. I never thought I'd say this and please forgive me. But I'm team Winston completely honest one. Because I know, I'm just as shocked as you are, mate. And I feel like I'm gonna have to have a shower afterwards. But genuinely, because, why? But no, genuinely, because this is what is called in the business of booking error. If I was playing, if I'd put on a gig in a church, I wouldn't bring on some kind of, you know, edge lord who's just gonna do 20 minutes of pito gags. It's because I'm right here, fuck it. (laughing) Because you know what, the priest is gonna get upset. That's his lived experience. But you know, but genuinely, like, you've learned this hard way to come with this. (laughing) You know, seriousness, you can't do that. If you've got this show, which is essentially a middle of the road pop out with, you know, fairly, I mean, let's be honest. to what Ed Sheeran is, it's Milto's tame love songs about how he loves, you know, you like dance and we get misses of some bollocks like that. What is Milto's going to come out and just stop bragging on about pallets. Do you know what? I never thought I'd, I never thought I, I don't care about music as you all know, sorry, win, but I don't, but I saw a clip of where Ed Sheeran on on my Twitter. I'm not offended. I saw a clip of Ed Sheeran this morning on my Twitter on his own playing with that, what, what is that machine called where you play a recorder and everything? Yeah. Yeah. And he's fucking brilliant. I mean, he's brilliant. It's genuinely amazing to watch. He's a good performer. The music is good. Well, I think he's milk toast, so yeah. But the thing is, this milk toast language, I don't get it when it comes to music because it's not, why does music have to be like edgy? Some music is just pleasant to listen to and I imagine if you're a teenage girl Ed Sheeran is what you want to listen to. He's very good at what he does. I've actually got a long history of as an Ed Sheeran apologist because in a previous life as a music journalist, I gave his second album Three Stars in Time Out, which is something that I'm trying to live down to this day because it's not for me, per se. It's something that he's very good at what he does. And I didn't have the kind of quite strange career he's had where he's sort of on the one hand trying to be Damien Reyes, but on the other hand kind of came through doing like hooks for grimems. It's a very odd character, but music at the same time works because he's just a very talented songwriter. Look, if you're selling out NFL stadiums, you're probably quite good at what you do. You're doing something right. And but this is why I feel sorry for him because he's not of the sort of, you know, Omnicore's mold. He's somebody just wants to have a good time and pray to his sister and hope that everyone could kind of get along. And yet he's unfortunately just still been frog marching to the cultural. And that's the bit that I think is really quite unfortunate. But that's the point, Tom. If you want everyone to get along and have a nice time, then you don't put this lad. I mean, Dean, bring up please the BBC story. Now admittedly, this is from 2014. But and he said he didn't say he didn't know that it was anti-Semitic. I mean, yeah. What was his kind of story? It was like, I think he claims that he just stuck the wig on. Wasn't really thinking about it. It stuck the nose on. Oh, I didn't realise what this was. I said the end word many, many times. I didn't know it was racist. A lot has been said about, oh, you know, like you in Garza, there's some reports that it says lowers 68 average IQ. But we don't talk about the average IQ of these pro-pali supporters in the West. If you don't realise that that's anti-Semitic, you're pretty dumb. I mean, that's pretty astonishing. Do you reckon that's got something to do with the ginger thing? Just, I'm just noticing. It's all in the ginger. Let's get Nathan Coffinus back on the show to talk about it. He should be like a chorus-bonded from at least questions. You said that no one's being political and there's two little points here, which I think is important for this story. They are. The craft is saying that he can't be political. They don't like what he's saying. He's saying it's because it's anti-Semitic, but it is political speech that's being shut down here. There's a question about free speech, I think, which, look, this is the private sphere. It's not the public sphere, so this is not a first amendment issue. But just as with ex-Twitter, there was a conversation about, you know, it was a private company, but it is the public square. Our stadium, the public square, there's the question there. And then the other thing which I think important is important here is craft's behaviour and the machina group in Nixon, Makamore gives the impression to those people on the other side that the Zionist lobby are in fact in control, are in fact controlling America. And this is a big, I think, a big mistake from craft is that they have played in the long culture war that you're playing out here. They've handed over a little victory to the other side who can now say that Israel's control the world. And so I think it was a misplay doing this. They should have thought about it in advance. All right. Moving on to the story about how we're all about to die, which is always a cheery one and people enjoy. Winston, tell us about everything that's been happening in the world of AI this week. There have been several people who work for big AI companies coming out and basically saying there's an X percent chance this will kill us all. So this all starts with Jacob Coxson, an absolute neat, a rationalist British researcher who wasn't working very long in AI. He was at a few years at Open AI, then a few months at Anthropic. And he released a mega viral X post that said amongst other things. And I think Dean can throw up the asset here that they're racing to self-improving stupid intentions was gambling with our lives. That's Open AI and Anthropic, gambling with our lives. And that people inside on the inside earnestly believe AI could kill us by the end of the decade. And also, and this is important thing, that the people privately working at these AI companies us are actually believe extension is very possible, but publicly are like no full steam ahead. So that's what that sort of was how this whole saga kicked off. Then he also said Anthropic takes that risk seriously, but won't slow down in case a rival doesn't. So that's the other thing. So you've got this race between this fear that if you slow down China, I'm going to get ahead already one of the AI other AI models are going to go ahead. Then the big headline sentence that's been doing around to us by Anthropic's alignment link called Evan Hubinger, who said there's a 10% chance of human extinction in the next 10 years. That's the big headline thing that everyone got super worried about. So that's the part part one of the story. Now there's a little bit of a conspiracy theory here because before this unknown Nick Coxon came out, he's also a rationalist effective altruist which we need to come back to because I cannot, the only group of people other than, I hate more than gingers apart from Ed Sheeran is effective altruist, but we'll have to come back to that and it's important. So the Wall Street Journal actually had come out with an article that came out before the tweet of this unknown Nick. So there's a sense that maybe there was some sort of conspiracy here, but then Anthropic put out a threat report and in that threat report, as well as saying there are five cases of unarmed scientists using Claude to make by unnamed, I should say, scientists using Claude to make biological weapons. It is also the case that the Houthis were using the weapons in the Gulf. Now this is where I got sort of pause before. I'm thinking, wow, the Houthis are using AI to sort of, kind of create software and engineers and do say, I've been using AI to make memes. And that's why I was like, what, what am I sort of, it's kind of thrown me out of it. Like, what am I doing with my life? I've started from my laptop. These guys are out there doing something, doing something, you know, trying to evade their stuff. You're making memes. You could have been shutting down the trail for a Muslim. Exactly. But it was also the case that Iran have been using them in the, Iran have been using, Iran linked operators using Claude during the Iran war. China have also been using them, but crucially, China have been using Claude and within their own shell AI companies. So it was actually American AI that they're dressing up as Chinese AI. So that was another part of the report. And that there's also reports of Russian, John Swarm software being run through Claude. So that's, that's the next part of the story. Then we have Daria, the anthropics here, come out and say we need a one-world government. And so we've got an after hit. It seems like the fate of humanity is at risk. How much personal responsibility do you feel about where we are going? So, you know, my look, my view here is it has always been very strange that this technology is being built by a private company. People ask me that question all the time. Why isn't this being built by government? And the strangest thing about it is I agree with them. I'm uncomfortable. Would you be willing to give up the technology to the government? To the right combination of governments. So the worry I have. You're willing to hand over this company. I am concerned that one single government could abuse this technology just as easily as a single company could. But I think a combination of democratically elected governments. I don't know about handy over, but some kind of oversight, some kind of joint governance. So you have there this speak of one world governments. Now you might remember Peter Tiel saying one world government is the Antichrist. It's certainly my idea of what an Antichrist might look like. This is the kind of communist endgame. I'm not a fan of this. It's not a coincidence that I think that the likes of Bernie Sanders who I'm sure ten minutes ago never heard of sort of the AI front here. I'm also saying that we need to close this down. It's more dangerous than nuclear. That's it when he actually said that. It's the same people who think that there's a climate apocalypse coming and they need to sort of take away our powers you know collective action problem. So they're all taking the side of like we need the one world government. But and and by the way Elon Musk says Daria is right. Altman says that we need to pace the front here. But there's also been pushback in the videos Jansen Wang raised Cox and Bart said that he doesn't agree with the forecasts of extinction. And so there's a there's a bit of a split here. Not least with Trump. Now this is an absolutely hilarious tweet. So I hope we can read it together. The only control of guardrails that AI needs is a strong and smart high IQ president. The USA had that in phase. The administration has stopped AI people from doing bad or potentially bad things like Daria who is now pretending to be a perfect little angel. And we will continue to do so. We already have tremendous criminal and regulatory power over these companies. There is a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers and the only one is happy about it is China. Whoever wins AI wins. We are leading China and all of us will continue to do so conspiracy theorists, treasonists, traitors and leakers. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J Trump. So absolutely classic. I mean this guy is just a comedy legend as far as I can stand. And so that you see the split there. So there's the kind of the the dooms think that we've got extinction on the near horizon. And the other side is if you if you stack then China will take the lead. And that's basically the split that the split there. Now just to add because obviously I talk about the hoothies there's another thing that's come up here is this the hugging face intrusion that is having back in July. But the there's an internal open AI cyber security test and hundreds of AI agents escaped a supposed sandbox reached into there and then actually committed a felony. So if it's been humans have done it it would have been a felony and they they released a lot of sort of private information and so it basically gave everyone a real scare that the they're now working on their own accord these AI agents. So that's kind of what is a bit that this hugging face intrusion has been a big scaring point for a lot of people. So I'll let you jump in because I've been talking a long a long time. I'm sure that my best to to to lay out what I think has been quite a complicated unfolding of events. Now you gave us lots of detail. Let me just reground the conversation in the central premise, which is the concern is that once AI becomes AGI particularly artificial generalized intelligence. At that point we've effectively created a being that is smarter than us. And if we look at the history of this planet and look at the different species that have inhabited it particularly with the evolution of various types of humans that we now have the smarter ones always come out on top and they basically do what we've done. Phomasapiens have done to the planet and other species on it, which is we subjugate them to our own needs and purposes. And one of the things that is a concern with all of this and the reason that the the both the heads of the AI companies and everyone else is who's talking about this is talking about is it is now very close. I mean I was looking at the calcium odds for when a company is likely to achieve AGI and we're basically saying according to this that within the next year and a half, I mean by January 1st, 2028 the odds are 67% according to the calcium markets. So this is not some distant remote possibility. We are talking about this being on the cusp of AGI artificialised general intelligence where you can think for itself combined with the evolution of robotics which is somewhat further behind. So you not only have the brain now being independent species effectively but it then has the physical embodiment through robots which are also coming. And at that point you know Donald Trump, his tweet in my opinion lays out the humorous case in all its perfection which is people in different countries, CAI as a way to win and therefore there is no way to stop the runaway development of AGI because each country is incentivized to pursue its own interests. And unless there is some sort of global control architecture or at least some sort of you know the thing that we had with nuclear weapons but the thing is with nuclear weapons they're not autonomous. They couldn't launch themselves. This is something else entirely. Unless you have some level of global coordination, this will happen and the risk to humanity is devastatingly significant. It may not be 100%, it may not be 50%, it may just be a lowly 10%, but 10% probability events happen in each of our lives on a daily basis 50 times. You go outside of your house today, you will experience a sequence of 10% probability events on a number of occasions in one day. So to say that this risk is not serious, I think it would be very, very foolish. This is extremely serious in my opinion. Yeah, but so the problem with that argument is that firstly all of these American AI companies have the power themselves already to regulate. So if they are really so concerned, then do the right thing. Just stop going ahead of this. Put in the right thing. But this is their argument though is if we don't someone worse than us will and they're right. Yeah. But the problem with the world government regulation argument is the same we've had with the UN with all these international bodies is that they're hijacked by the Western enemies anyway. So you look at how sort of Iran and Russia and China always working and conspiring against the West in those groups anyway. You can't have a one world. I'm not advocating for one world government. I know I'm some of them are but even if you listen to Daria Maday he was talking about the democratic nations so like an AI NATO basically which puts us in the situation of a stand-off with China in which we already are anyway. But that's just this is just the groundwork of the of the conversation. Tom Francis feel free to jump in. Well I suppose there's two things here which maybe need to be disaggregated a little bit. One of which is whether or not the AI revolution is going to pose the sorts of level of threat that is currently being talked about. I tried to be a sort of optimist about technology but where this issue was concerned that really not making it easy. Of course we have a history, a rich history of panics about technological development, do and stay predictions about whether it was something as significant as nuclear weapons or something as relatively less threatening it would seem in theory as the rise of the internet as we've been met with these kinds of prognostications. That being said as you mentioned there, Constantine, there are a couple of things which make this very very different. One of which is previous conversations about the idea of something like nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. Obviously it applies here. I mean it would be funny going back to what Winston was saying if the twist was that when people said that the Houthis and China and Russia were using AI they were using it to make names but I doubt that will be the case. But so there is the issue of it falling into the wrong hands or it being developed by the wrong people. But then there's also this question of AGI where what if the wrong hands of the AI itself? What if it becomes a malign actor and agent in an event? It doesn't have to Tom. I'm sorry to interrupt but I think it's worth adding. It does not have to become a malign actor. This is the one thing that people don't understand. All it has to do is develop a will of its own and a survival instinct of its own. And in that situation, and look I am an absolute science fiction nerd. I read all the books when I was a kid. The reality is an AI that is designed to care for humanity, could destroy humanity by caring about it or could subjugate humanity by caring about it. So it could destroy humanity by realizing that humanity is incapable of living a peace with itself. There's just a bunch of warring tribes. So you know, the best way to save humanity is to destroy humanity. Or it could just say, you know what? Actually the best thing for humanity would be to camp the population at a certain level which is super sustainable. It means that there's no runaway this and no runaway that and it's been fed all this bullshit about runaway climate change and all this other stuff which it has. That's where it's getting its information from. So what's the best thing to do? Let's sterilize everyone. Or, or, or, or, or, or I could give you a thousand scenarios. where a well-intentioned superintelligence strips us of agency or kills us all, not because it's malevolent or anything like that, but simply because it is more powerful than us. Of course. And like, maligning effect, if not in intention. Yeah. And the idea that it could be a sort of benevolent, it could come to consider itself almost as sort of benevolent desktop, who knows best, and will impose that on the. I understand that argument. I suppose the difficulty is, and maybe it is a kind of intractable problem, it certainly feels like it at the moment is what do you do about it? Because of the fact that as we saw laid out in the clip there, there's the question of just allowing these corporations to do as they will is obviously insufficient. Similarly, the idea that there would be some kind of international accord, either smacks of a certain potential for authoritarianism, but all in the other hand just whether or not you will actually work, whether or not this is going to be in other cases, we've already gestured to the countries that were most concerned about having their hands on this technology or developing this technology just completely ignoring it. I mean, as even going back to nuclear weapons, the Iran experience proves that you can cut international agreements. It doesn't mean that they're going to be stuck to, particularly when you're dealing with states such as Islamic Republic. So that's a huge problem. And there's also just how lurking in the behind all of this, it's been a thread in our conversation anyway, it's just the potential thought, like authoritarianism of different flavors, you know, whether or not that's the AI itself or probably more likely in the near term, states using this technology to a level that would unlock a level of sort of surveillance authoritarianism that previously wouldn't be possible. You know, there was always kind of natural limits on what say a government could do by didn't of the share technology. You know, I remember being discussed about in the pre- internet age, there's only so many kind of phone lines you can tap. It's a kind of physical exercise. You didn't get to the deep wage, everyone's known and the ability to say the NSA might have to be able to tap into a particular phone, but there's still, you can't look at all of that data all the time. You know, it's something that might be sat there ready to be accessible, but you're not going to be able to process it and look at it on the scale, whereas AI presents that capability. So the thing that I'm kind of, it's the least in the immediate term, the only thing that I think might pull us back from the break, it's just whether or not this technology isn't quite as, isn't going to develop to the speed that it's boosters, or even the doom monger suggests that it might do, because otherwise it just leaves so many big questions, which without wanting to be on the fence about things, it's very difficult to see where the way through would be if these predictions could turn out to be true. So there is a part of me that goes, and maybe this is a cynical part of me, it just goes, is this just the greatest marketing ployable time. Do you know what I mean? Like the way that it's presented, the way that it's spoken about, because I was in a cigar bar, and I was talking to a guy who is an expert in quantum computing, and he was saying to me that whilst AI is very powerful, AI is the software, and quantum computing is the hardware. And I was asking for it, asking him, so why is it important? He said, well, I'll tell you one thing. When quantum computing happens, which could be anywhere between a year and a half to two years, it will affectionately make encryption obsolete, because encryption data that has been heavily encrypted now takes around 50 years to decode, with quantum computing, it will take five minutes. It will also, as a result of that, make AI far more powerful. So he goes, whilst everyone's focusing on AI, this is a thing that we're actually really not talking about, and we are in an arms race, a technical technological arms race. Everybody talks about the AI arms race, but we are in a technological arms race with China, because the first people to have this kind of technology, they automatically have a one up on them. So I was saying, well, with quantum computing, what do you mean? He goes, well, think about cyber attacks. You're probably not going to go after financial systems, but what you are going to do is you're going to go after institutions that are very data-heavy, but have very weak security. For example, hospitals. Hospitals have a world of data, but as we all know, particularly if you look at the NHS, they run an antiquated systems, antiquated firewalls, all the rest of it, and that is a literal mind of information. So why wouldn't you attack that type of institution? So I think whilst AI is the thing that we're talking about, there is a whole other technological arms race that we're simply not focusing on, because we simply don't have the bandwidth to do so. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point, but I think we have to just come back to the difference here. If quantum computing, AI, you said yourself, it will empower AI, but more than that, if it's a thing that humans control, yes, powerful weapons in the hands of humans are scared, and if they're with the wrong humans, scary, and if they're the wrong humans, they're really, really bad. They're nonetheless controlled by humans. The difference with AI and the risk to humanity that we're talking about here is we are creating a superintelligence, which will eventually become embodied, that will be smarter and more powerful than the collective smartness and power of humanity. And that, and I think by the way, the reason no one sort of, not no one talks about it, but the reason very few people talk about it, is the reason that Tom said, which is it's one of those things that we actually have not, there's clearly nothing we can do about it, basically, at this point. And I think that's the reason that this, you know, every time we talk about AI and trigonometry, we're like, no one's going to watch this, but we got to talk about anyway, because people should understand what's happening. Most people think AI at the moment is that model they tried three years ago, where they tried to look up the fact about something they know, and it was quite wrong. And they think that's what AI is. Most people do not understand what's going on. They also, by the way, don't understand the psychology and the mentality of many of the people who are developing the stuff. A lot of whom are not actually thinking about the consequences of what they're doing, in nearly the detail that Daria Madei seems to be. A lot of them just think they're God, and they've caught this moment in which they get to glorify themselves and write their name in history. So, I actually, personally, this has been very beneficial to my mental well-being because I actually have completely accepted that there's a very strong chance we only have X years left. And so I'm just living my life as best I can in terms of, you know, making sure I spend, I'm present with my family, I spend time with them, etc. Because I genuinely think this is a very, very real risk and people are not taking it seriously enough. Wow. So Megaduma. I'm not a Duma. I'm not a Duma. I'm not a Duma. But it's the most Duma argument I've heard even more than anything in return. It's not, I'm not a Duma. I'm a realist. And if the world is about to end and there's nothing we can do about it, the best thing you can do is live the best version of your life that you possibly can. Which by the way, just I'll just say this, was always true anyway because your life was going to be over at some point anyway. And you might as well. Exactly. So, so it's just. Obviously, I don't know what's about to happen. You make a pretty solid argument there. But I will say that basically, we, humankind always has these moments where we think the world is about to end. It had this moment a thousand years ago at the turn of the first millennium. Everyone thought it's going to end. We have this all of the climate hysteria. The world was supposed to end six years ago. And you know, you can lay it out like you did. And you're in this position where, well, better to be safe then if that's the argument. And then you end up giving your power to someone else. You're saying. I'm not giving my power to anyone, but you're saying it's better that humans have the power and we regulate it than the AGI gets ahead and it's sort of self-recursive improvement and all of this stuff. And it's in control and it's making sense. It has its own will. It has its own survival most. But I'm not, I mean, I'm not even sure that the human has the the the better side. All of the people they're proposing being charged. They're all effective altruists. One of them this morning, our name was Beth Barnes. I mean, I saw this this morning. She's the same person that anthropic want to be regulating AGI. She is also saying that postboard is immoral. So if you're taking a doomer position, I'm taking that it's doom a doomer. It's lose, lose. It's either you have actual doom or you have people in charge making decisions who have just twisted morality and end up suppressing us and you have the totalitarian regime somehow infringing on our rights just in the name of safety and the name of protecting us. So that's why I'm my instinct is to be just to kind of reject the doom a little bit. But maybe that's maybe that's why you're not rejecting the doom. You were just saying we shouldn't try to have world government, which I agree with. But you're not rejecting. You're not countering my argument about what happens when we have AGI, right? No, I'm not. Yeah. So actually you agree with me about the likely outcome of all of this. You just don't want world government, which I don't either. What I'm saying is we don't have a way to stop this in my opinion. But I don't agree. I don't agree that there's the end of the world. I don't understand the world's the extent of humanity being in charge. And that may mean we get to live on in some capacity. But that doesn't mean the. Yeah, I reject. This is the same argument I've heard from environmentalists forever, maybe it is, maybe it is a new era. But this is a difference though, you've got to understand the difference, right? If you said to me, the world's going to end in six years because of climate change, I could say, well, here are the reasons why it won't. When I say the world could end in 10 years because of AI, humanity could end or be subjugated. You don't have a counter argument. That's the difference. If I say to you, don't walk down a street in central London, nine in the morning because you'll be killed, you could say, well, that's nonsense. But walking down that same street at 3 a.m. in the morning might get you stabbed or might get you mugged or might get you attacked. No, it's not a different context. It could be right. No, because your argument is somewhat hypothetical. Although we do have examples of AI acting on their own accord, but we haven't got examples where they're subjugating humans suddenly. We haven't, because it's not AI yet, but we don't know that when it is AI, that it definitely will do that. We don't know that it definitely will do that, except every species that has the power to subjugate or pray on other species in the history of this planet does that if it can. It's not a species. It is a species. You're creating a thing that thinks and moves by itself. That is a species. Okay, well, I guess I'm a, I don't know. I don't, you know, I'm just talking about. Anyway, on that happy note, let's move on to our final story, which is we're going to have to be fairly quick about it because we're running low on time. And this is the story of the migrant camp in a small village in England. Tom, take it away. Notice a remarkable story this and this is the tiny village of Piddington in Oxfordshire, population about 350, which earlier this year was confronted by the fact that this military barracks nearby Bister was going to receive north of 1,200 illegal migrants. The residents of Piddington did not take particularly kindly to this development, and they have now held a vote to secede from the United Kingdom. It passed overwhelmingly. They've actually redubbed themselves the principality of Piddington. They haven't quite got to the point where they're, you know, erecting border posts and season a post office, but it's probably only a matter of time. And it's become the latest backlash to the, obviously the ongoing small boats crisis, but I think in particular Andy Burnham's attempt to try to just spread the problem around the country. He said rightly that the migrant hotels and the HMOs were disproportionately in poor and working class areas because the accommodation is cheaper there. And part of this solution seemingly has been to impose this issue on more well-to-do middle-class areas of which Piddington certainly is one. I think what this has shown is that whereas up till now, the more affluent sections of society haven't been as exercised by the issue of illegal migration, the only thing that required to change that was it actually affecting their lives directly. And whilst Piddington is a tiny place and it's not necessarily indicative of how the entire country is going to sway, I think it shows that the longer this crisis goes on, the more intent the government is on just kind of sharing the problem out more evenly, the more opposition it's going to generate. And I think also speaks finally to one slightly underappreciated thing in our whole migration and certainly illegal migration discussion, is that this isn't really like a 50/50 issue. It's not as if you've got half of the country thinks it's all fine and half of the country who thinks it's terrible. It's something like 75% of people went polled, we'll say that they're concerned about illegal migration. And also if you look at the attitudes towards what should be done about the issue, it's really hardening. There was something in the survey in the Times the other week which said that 57% of people now would support detention upon arrival for illegal migrant slash asylum seekers, depending on your particular persuasion. So yeah, it's the roar of the weight troze mums. It's the acceptable, if we're being honest, as far as the mainstream media concerned, backlash against illegal migration. I can't be the only one who's struck that they haven't been called far right thugs to the same degree. The other migrant hotel protestors and so on have been called. But I think it's proof that this issue isn't going anywhere. Even as the numbers come down, I think people realise it's not going to zero and therefore there's a hell of a lot of more backlash to go. Francis? One of the things that I find interesting is Andy Burnham has basically said that we all need to take our share of the illegal migrants. And what that effectively means is he's going to put them in communities which don't traditionally vote for the Labour Party. What a coincidence. But who would have thought here? But the really worrying thing is this. In nature, when you have vacuums, vacuums will get filled. What we have now is a country where it can't protect its borders, where people feel that they are no longer able to trust the government or the police to keep them safe. And that can only carry on for a certain matter of time before people start taking matters into their own hands. And I am very, very, very concerned that we are going to see the rise of vigilante justice, vigilante groups patrolling the streets and vigilante groups patrolling our borders. I really do think that this is inevitable and I put the blame solely at the feet of our current government and also our previous government before, who quite frankly, in my opinion, have not done sufficient in order to solve this crisis. Yeah, sorry. I mean, Frankie, it's already happened. You're worried it's about to happen. Danny Tomo and the Patriot platform, after their protest down in Dover, that's one instance Winston. I'm talking about it happen nationwide. Yeah, sure, but it's happening. It's already happening. They are operating in a nationwide level. He's got groups and organizations up and down the country meetings. And when the state fails to protect our borders and people lose faith in the faith in the, you know, protection is the number one responsibility of the state. They fail that basic task. Then little wonder that people take it into their, their own hands. So I'm not, the state needs to do that. Government needs to do that. Burn them. You said Tom that 57% think they should be, the British public should think that these people should be detained upon arrival. They should never even set foot on British soil. They shouldn't be here. As asylum seeker is just a euphemism. They're illegal migrants. They're all men. They're all military age men. I mean, like 99% you can see the images of them. They shouldn't be in this country. The fact is, Burnham doesn't have the courage to say we're going to stop them even arriving here. I would go further. I've argued to have a mind floating wall through the middle of the channel. Now, the problem I think is that they're now really, they're coming from as far away as Belgium to the east. And even now, as we saw last week, they're being escorted by French officials. I don't know what the border guards or whatever. Across the English channel, the far away is Normandy. So it does seem planned. Patrick Christus was just in Calais. It looks like the French are actually trying to make this happen. They should never even set foot in this country. And until that over to Windows shifts, I mean, it's already been said on, let's say, the right. But the Burnham can't say no, they should never be here. All of those people in detention centers get them on a plane and get them out of here. They all came here illegally. If you come here illegally, you are a criminal. Get out of it. What was interesting is Francis and I had Dan Hodges on trigonometry earlier this week, having a discussion about this very issue. And Dan is a very articulate and reasonable sounding voice of the sort of Westminster consensus, which is nothing can be done about this. Legally, it's a minefield. You can't, you know, you can't deal with the French, etc. And what was interesting is we kind of, I can't remember if it was myself or Francis, but Dan, I thought made some really good points actually in that interview. But there was one moment that really stood out for us, which is when he said, well, so what are you going to do in response in Vade France? And that's when we will, like, hold on a second. So if we, if we turn, yeah, I made the same point when it's an invading France is a traditional British pastime, but more importantly than that, the moment we tow a boat into their waters, that's an invasion. Yeah, when tens of thousands of people come in on boats into our country, you're not allowed to call that an invasion. Hello, what's going on here? And so I just think, and I remember actually when we had Kemi on the show, when shortly after she became leader of the Conservatives, and she said this thing, we said, well, why can't we just get the Royal Navy to tow these boats package or whatever? And she said, well, you know, I've spoken to people in the Navy and said they said they may be lost of life. And they said, that's not what they signed up for. I go, hold on. The Royal Navy's explicit purpose, I think, is to sink boats. I'm not saying we should treat migrant boats as hostile enemy and shoot at them necessarily. Well, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying we should do that. But there's already a lot of life. And I don't mean those dying on the boats. Rian and White killed by one of these illegal migrants. There's plenty of example. Wayne Broadhurst. There's loads of examples. Yeah, exactly. But my point is that I think in the Westminster bubble, there has to be a massive attitude adjustment, which will only come when, as Tom rightly says, the mood about this in the country hardens. So in a way, this is a crass thing to say. And, you know, as you guys know, I covered the Krobera protest, which only down the road for me about the camp there. People change their mind when their reality, their day-to-day experience changes. And so in some way, even though it's something that affects me and people around me, I have to say, long may this continue. And I hope there's one of these little camps in every village where ever boats live them in green. Because then at least these idiots will stop voting for parties that actually want this to continue. Don't try that. I'm surrounded by these fucking idiots. Yeah, mate. I think this should be a giant camp for migrants in the middle of crowd, so all you fuckers get to experience all the rest of us have to deal with. How am I going to get my overpriced patrons in coffee if I have to go bar and migrant camp? Hey, man, the delivery room is going to get a lot more cheaper and more efficient. It's going to get your latte delivered to your door. That's so right, then. That's correct. Yeah, he's, he's happy. On that, no, finally, of agreement. I'm sure all of these issues will be discussed and debated and off defense in the weeks to come. Thank you so much for being here, guys, and thank you all for watching and listening. We'll see you next week.