Far Right Brands Lifeboat Volunteers “Traitors”

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, lifeboat charity RNLI warns its volunteers against wearing its branding in public for fear of farright harassment. That's a depressing story if you ever heard one. Um, Albanians have taken to the streets for over 100 days in protest against a Trump family hotel development. Um, it spun out into other issues as well. Um, Labour and the Greens have announced um, their candidates in the Hobbit and St. Pancress bi-election. Um, I speak to veteran science writer Robert Wright um on his views about X- Risk from AI going mainstream. Um, we end with a really remarkable clip of Hillary Clinton. She has some I mean surprising views about October the 7th. Um, I'm Michael Walker and I'm joined by Barry Malone. Great to have you in the studio. >> Hello, Michael Walker. >> Barry, >> I've been here for a while. Last couple of times I was remote from Ireland so I haven't seen you for a while. >> Lovely to see you in person. >> Packed show. Um, if you'd like to support our work, you can sign up at envirdia.com/support. You can also listen to the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can like this video if you want. You can subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution or RNL is about as beloved a British organization as you're likely to find, other than Navara Media, of course. They operate more than 400 boats around the British and Irish coastlines. Um, largely manned by volunteers who put their lives at risk to save those who'd run into trouble at sea. And they're also non-political, meaning that their mission is to rescue anyone of any origin who's at risk of drowning. And it's that universalist approach that's now brought them into direct confrontation with the small boats obsessed far right. And in the face of abuse and even doxing, the RNLI has now warned its staff not to wear their uniforms in some situations. Um, so what abuse have the lifeboat staff been facing? Well, last week while squads of blackclad balaclava wearing men gathered at first do then Portsmouth to block the transport of small boats um and asylum seekers being processed. Um this footage was posted online >> straight as me. Terrible. Absolute terrible. idea. Look, >> look at the state of these boys. >> So, they're like guys going out in the middle of the night to rescue people from the channel and then you got some like, you know, nonsense nobrain [ __ ] calling them traitors in the early hours of the morning. Um, the traitors theme also went viral on Twitter. Um this video shot in Portsmouth last Sunday as the RNLI brought a boat of asylum seekers into the city's harbor generated a lot of reaction, some of it completely um unhinged. Um this was from US author Matt Bracken, who is also a figure in the Patriot Movement, which is an amalgam of right-wing groups, including armed militias. And so he said this um video below, watch the traitor RNLI bring in hundreds more military age invaders. Watch the traitor police lining up their coaches to take them to their hotel barracks. their AK-47s will be passed out later. That's the easy part. Um, other big right-wing accounts weighed in, too, like this one with over 350,000 followers. Um, Basil the Great, I think he's a favorite of Elon Musk. Um, last night the RNLI were recorded multiple times, bringing hundreds of illegal migrants into our country. When we win, they should be completely destroyed. Their management and staff prosecuted for treason. Just following orders is an admission, not an excuse. Now, the phrase just following orders, you know, and and and it not being an excuse, that's that's something we say about concentration camp guards, right? They were people who were taking people to gas chambers to kill them on mass. Now there is going to be no view of history where people look back and say people saving innocent people from boats in the sea and not leaving them to drown is equivalent to a concentration camp guard whose job was to march people to their deaths. Right? You can you can disagree with small boat crossings. You should say that you you can say the government policy could be different. I think that's perfectly legitimate. But to compare people who go out in the middle of the night, many of them volunteers to rescue people from the sea to concentration camp guards. It's a little bit much, isn't it? And there was also an attempt to dox some lifeboat volunteers, revealing their identities online. And this image of a volunteer called Neil was taken from film of a lifeboat near Portouth Harbor on Sunday. Um that image along with um one of another volunteer was used in post that was seen over two million times accusing the men of being traitors assisting with an invasion and demanding that they be named and shamed. Now the reason we've put the picture of that volunteer up I should say is because he's gone public. He's spoken to the BBC so we're not sort of further doxing the guy just to be clear. Um people did try naming and shaming except they identified two entirely different RNLI volunteers instead. Um Neil spoke to the BBC, which is um as I say, why we showed that image, explaining that his boat had been sent to light up the water, um where far-right protesters were demonstrating. He said this, um we were there purely for the safety of the protesters in the water. I'll be back on the boat when the pager goes off. It would be nice for those people who call me a traitor to know I'm not a traitor. I'm just a volunteer crew. So I actually hadn't realized. So they were trying to protect the protesters from drowning, I suppose. you know, because they're not political. They are there to try and help and protect everyone. Um, some mainstream media commentators have also questioned whether people should continue supporting the lifeboats. Um, this was Nick Ferrari on LBC on Tuesday. >> I wonder if you like me support the RNLI and make sure that I give some money each year and possibly you go to a bring and buy sale at the lifeboat station or whatever you do or you buy their calendars or diaries. Do you want your money for the RNLI to go to what is now looks like it's going to be a taxi service bringing people illegally into the country? Of course you want to save people. I get it. But when you know that the tactic of the French is if we're talking about this crossing 70 mi, get them 35 miles and a smidgen across the channel then radio over to border force or an LII and out will come the brave men and women of our lifeboat teams. Each year I make sure somebody as I remember my late mom made sure every even towards Saturday when she started to get old she made sure that check went off. Ask your grandparents. She made sure her check was sent off. I hope they cashed it by the way. I don't know if they ever did. I've went off to the RNLI. Um I do it by different means but and again it's not their fault. They've got to respond to whatever the shout is. But do you want to raise funds for what is now turning into effectively a taxi service? >> Does feel a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face, doesn't it? Because if if you defund the lifeboat volunteers, they're not going to say, you know, they're not going to then start saving the British people in the water and stop saving the the whole point of the RNLI is they don't check your papers when they rescue you. There is someone floating around in the water that, you know, you don't go over the the Tanoi system, the walkie-talkies. Do they look British? The whole point is if they're in the sea, you rescue them. And once you've rescued them, you take them to I mean your own country, right? lifeboats don't British lifeboats don't take people to France if they're in English waters then the lifeboats have to go get them and they have to bring them back to England that's how these things work um others have mocked the fact that the lifeboat volunteers object to being labeled traitors North American orphan Naomi Wolf um posted this on X in response to those objections um so she said if you are upset about being called a traitor don't trait now that's sad actually cuz I like the book no logo and she's really um degenerated since then hasn't Yeah, >> the shock doctrine was also >> bit of a classic back in the day for >> saying that was a joke about the fact that people mistake um Naomi Wolf and Naomi Klein. They're very different people. Um in response to the claims of the far right, the RNLI's chief executive Peter Sparks tried to limit the spread of misinformation. RNLI lifeboats were tasked by the Coast Guard and launched 9,058 times in 2025. 109 of those launches were to those in distress in the channel, representing about 1.2% of the RNLI's total rescue work. Nearly 95% of those who crossed the English Channel in small boats last year, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, were picked up by the UK border force. Our mission and our tasking is to rescue those women, children, and men in danger of drowning. Anyone rescued from a small boat by the RNLI is immediately handed over to the UK's immigration authorities. Illegal immigration is a political issue. The RNLI exists purely to save lives at sea. Now, it's not clear that message is cutting through to those targeting the service in Pool um in Dorset. Uh Lifeboats Museum has announced it will close after its volunteers received repeated abuse following an anti-migrant protest last Sunday. Um on the plus side, the British public still have the RNLIS back with the charity um reporting a significant donations boost following the targeting of its volunteers by the far right. And Prime Minister Andy Bernham has also spoken out against the abuse with a spokesperson saying this. Directing abuse at people who dedicate themselves to helping others is appalling. We won't tolerate social media being a haven for this kind of behavior. We support the police in investigating any threatening or unlawful behavior and taking action where appropriate. Um, Home Secretary Shabanet Mmood has met with police ahead of further anti-migrant protest expected this weekend. And according to reports, um, she's told them to use all powers necessary, which may include new powers, to ban the use of face coverings in certain areas. If this horrible farright movement wants to sort of engage with the public, become the sort of vigilante heroes they want to be, then the RNLI, the beloved RNLI are probably a slightly strange target. >> Well, they're barking way up the wrong tree. I mean, you even saw Nick Farry talking about his dear old mom sending checks into them, right? and and bake sales and and and yeah, so they're incredibly beloved. I mean, who are they going to target next? Like McMillan or Barcy Cats and Dogs Home or you know, no. Um it's it's it's it's ridiculous. I I I think it's heartening to see though that the that donations came in afterwards and I think that that shows that um you know stuff like this doxing um doxing RNLI um um uh crew members that's not going to be popular with the wider public right I mean that is never going to be something that's going to break through you know we're talking about reform and we're talking about like reform curious people and you know people who may think well I'm you Well, maybe reform have a point. They're not going to go for this kind of thing, you know, no more than they're going to go for this uh, you know, these fascistic displays that we saw in in Dover and in Portsouth and outside the Daily Mail building the other day, right? Um, and to think that the RNL RNLI have had to go out there and make a video outlining what it is that they do to sort of reassure people that the number the percentage of people that we rescue in the channel who are actually asylum seekers is very very tiny. It's only 1.2%. Rest assured, the rest of the people who who we rescue are uh British, you know, like do not worry about that. I mean, it's terrible that they've been put in that position. It's also not the first time they've been put in that position. I found a tweet from 2024 when they also had to say something like this and you know they put the stats in in 2024 we launched 114 times to the channel that's just 1.2% 2% of our total launches. Right? So, they've been forced to go out there and say that. And to talk about the position of, you know, Danny Tommo, the leader of this um Patriot platform, and the position of people like Nick Ferrari, and the position of the people who are doxing these brave volunteers, let's be really clear, their position is let people drown. That's their position. Like, it's no more nuanced than that. How do I slice it any other way? You know, let them drown. just let them drown if they get into trouble or it's France's problem or or or or um or whatever. So, it's it's it's um it's it's just abysmal and it's bleak. And you know when you do look into the statistics and um you know we see these men marching in do we see we see them in Portsouth. see what we've been looking at with uh with reform over the last couple of years as something that I'm always talking about which is you know how the right-wing leads the agenda sometimes when it comes to immigration and if reform release a new policy or or you know or similar then the news will lead with it and then you know the public are left with this perception that small boats crossings are getting uh are increasing or that there are more than than there have ever been and that's just not the case and I Think also when you see men in balaclavas marching in do again I think you know your average Joe might think oh god this this must be a big deal these things must be going up whereas the reality is they're going down and going down really significantly right they're down 43% this year on last year and that's the lowest that they've been since 2021. So, you know, you have all of this kind of fear sort of whipped up and and the reality is that if you do want small boat crossings to go down, they are going down. So, it is not the issue that people like Danny uh Thompson or Danny Tommo are making it out to be. And I've been really struck by, you know, the likes of Reform uh trying to wash their hands of this. You know, it's like, you know, oh no, that's a little bit too much. you know, those sort of fishistic undertones, the masks, the balaclavas, uh, doxing, um, you know, RNLI, uh, volunteers. No, sorry, that, oh, it's gone a little bit too far for us now. And it's like, well, what did you think would happen? You know, you're the people who've been opening the gates for this crap over the last couple of years. You know, you've been talking about mass deportations. You've been um uh sending out dog whistle after dog whistle. Um, you've made out that every problem that the UK has is down to immigration, is down to quote unquote migrants, is down to Muslims. I mean, see how they were weaponizing Suta a few weeks ago and now they're trying to sort of distance themselves from this because this will not win them an election. And if they're associated with this, I think that they're tainted. and we've said a million times on the show, they need a broader coalition than just the hardcore reform fans if they're to get anywhere um anywhere near power. Um having said that though, I do want to say that I think that the threat from Patriot Platform and Danny Tommo and the people who surround him, I think it's real. I like I think it should be taken seriously. Like right now they're, you know, they're they're a small enough group, but they're clearly able to get people on the streets. Okay, it wasn't a huge amount of people, but he also mobilized people uh pretty fast in um in Portsouth. I think that seeing, you know, ba black clad balacava wearing men marching uh in do should concern everybody. Um and I think, you know, it's interesting if you look into sort of his background, right? We know that he was sort of a Tommy Robinson lieutenant for a long time, but it seems like he now doesn't think that Tommy Robinson is fit for the fight, right? There was some phone call that was leaked where he was saying, "I love Tommy to bits, but it's time to sort of move on from uh from Tommy." And of course, he's been all over the media recently saying that they're not going to be violent and that they and that they cause no violence and that if there was any violence, it was um you know, isolated incidents. But I've looked into some of the things that that this man um has said. There was one time where he was filmed speaking. This is very recently where he was speak he was filmed speaking to his followers I guess you would call them and he said something is coming. Something big is coming. I think referring to the do protest. He said once we pull this off it will snowball in the entire country. Then he says that we need to box clever. We need to exercise discipline. He says we create a violent movement. Now what do you think's going to happen? We'll get nicked. Right? So it's strategic. Now, we'll say that we're not for violence, but then what do you think? Does that sound like a peaceful organization? And then when I looked at them outside the Daily Mail office the other day, you know, it was absurd. He was standing there with his little toy soldiers, you know, and we saw this like line of of police in front of him and he was issuing these weird threats where he referred to these men behind him as like my men. And he said, "The Daily Mail has like 48 hours to respond and then I'll ask my men to stand down." like talking like some kind of a military leader. Also, you know, the police just let them, you know, block the highway which Extinction Rebellion uh uh weren't allowed to do or um um >> just up oil. >> Just stop oil. Thank you. And then um you know, is that not threatening behavior? Is that not public nuisance? You know, I'm glad Shabban Mammud said that they're going to throw everything at these people because they sure as hell threw everything at the pro Palestine protesters and there are still, you know, a bunch of young people in prison for terrorism for for protesting. So look, I think it needs to be taken seriously. And also I think that if if the government can't be trusted to deal with this. I I think also there needs to be serious serious mobilization from the left and the grassroots left to combat this because yes, it's nent. Yes, the guy seems faintly absurd, but this is something that needs to be taken seriously. That's what I think. >> Um Aami 123 says, "I've just given them a tenner." um which I presume is to the RNLI, not the horrible that Barrett just been talking about here. >> Those were scenes from the streets of Albania's capital, Tyran, where for over a 100 days, mass protests have been taking place. is the so-called flamingo revolution began with smaller protests in February, which have now ballooned into the largest unrest Albania has seen since the fall of communism in the early '90s. Thousands have taken to the street in Tana, where demonstrators outside both the country's parliament and the prime minister's office are calling for the prime minister and his entire cabinet to step down. The trigger for the protests involved a massive land sale made by the government to a couple of people most of us don't care too much for. Um last year Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner um bought the Albanian island of Sesan um for $1.4 billion. That was through Kushner's investment firm Affinity Global Development. And the sale was made in secret with Albanian parliamentarians and local residents only finding out about the deal when it was done um and published in the media. And the real estate deal was also heavily pushed by the country's prime minister Eddie Rama who met several times with the Trump Kushners even while protests objecting to the island grew across Albania. And Rama who has been in power for 13 years vowed to push on with the Kushner's luxury development project. And that's despite the fact that EU officials have warned that irregularities around Trump Kushner plans around the Trump Kushner plans could interfere with Albania's path to becoming a member of the block if they go ahead. Now, one of the reasons behind the anger around the sale and development of Sesan is its environmental status. Previously, the home to a military installation. Um, the island was left to return to nature after the end of communism. In 2010, the seas surrounding the island were declared a national marine park by the Albanian government in recognition of its importance as a crucial breeding ground for the country's flamingos and sea turtles. Those beaches do look beautiful. Um Trump and Kushner now plan to develop on those sites to much opposition from the Albanian people. And the protests though are also about what demonstrators see as state capture by elites. In 2024, prior to the deal going through, the Albanian government quietly changed the law exempting conservation areas from protections. If a planned development was fivestar, you can't build in the middle of the nature reserve unless there's going to be a sauna, I suppose. Um Trishna and Trump's plans are certainly that with the change in law creating a clear path for their luxury developments to go ahead. This was Ivanka Trump laying out her plans for the island two years ago. >> Right now I'm um working with my husband. We have this 1,400 acre island in the Mediterranean and we're building bringing in the best architects and the best brands and but to have a point of view and to challenge people who are such artists respectfully um but not to be afraid to to ask questions. It takes a lot of confidence to do that um and and it's hard. So these are actually just internal early renderings. So we're in the process of doing the master planning now but >> this is beautiful. I mean, it's early vision. Yeah, >> it's going to be extraordinary. Aman's going to operate the hotel for us and they're going to be villas and uh we have Carbone who's going to be doing the food and beverage and but it's it's amazing to bring together all of this talent and for me to be able to play around and flex the the real estate muscles again and and have some fun. >> The real estate muscles. I've never heard a of more gross phrase in my life. Um when you were looking at those beautiful beaches before was the one thing that came to your mind this could really do with the best brands. I'm going to bring in the best brands. Um the change of law um that sort of said if the hotel is fivestar you can build it here. Um is now itself under scrutiny. So in June Albanian countercruption police open investigation into the circumstances surrounding the convenient change to Sesan's conservation status. Many Albanians see the government as selling off what is rightfully theirs. This is from a recent Guardian documentary on the Flamingo Revolution with journalist Matthew Cassell speaking to Albanian researcher Lauren Kadu in Tana. >> I remember you could watch the mountain from almost everywhere in the city when I was a child. Now it's becoming impossible to see >> so much construction. Look at all that. >> What's interesting is you see the public land given figure. It's 2.1 million square meters given for free to the strategic investors just to accommodate their needs. We see almost no foreign investors, but we see a lot of favors given to the Albanian private. >> Okay. So, what does that say to you? >> For me, it looks like a group of people ordered the law to fit their needs and the government was happy to provide it to to them. And this group of people happen to be >> very wealthy developers. >> The same usual suspects we see everywhere in every part of our economy and life where there is money and power involved. It's almost becoming impossible to go to the seaside especially on the south if you don't pay for uh sbed or if you don't go in one of these resorts. Isn't it nicer to go to the beach though and be able to order a mojito and get a foot massage, have some music playing in the background? Maybe you have to pay €50 to go into that beach club. But don't you prefer that than just going to the beach and not having access to any of that? >> Yeah, I prefer that. But I'm I'm afraid we will be the ones doing the foot massage and serving the mojitos, not the ones laying on the sunbeds. So that's what I'm worried about. >> It's a very good line. and they'll be the people doing the foot massages. I have to say, um, as someone who's never given a foot massage nor got a foot massage on the beach, I much prefer a beach where there where you don't have to pay for the deck chairs. And I don't just mean that cuz of the money. Like obviously I prefer to go to the beach when it's free. I don't want to pay 20 quid to sit in a deck chair, but I I find the beaches where it's just rows and rows of deck chairs, I find them depressing and sterile. Um, it's the big problem with large parts of Italy, right? You go to Italy, so much of the coast is these sort of privatized seaside developments. Probably got something to do with organized crime in the mafia, right? You sell off sort of vast parts of public land to to private interests. Just to guess just off the top of my head, uh, this country in fact is quite good at keeping beaches public, although shame about the weather. You know what? This is another climate. You know, we're going to have great summers and we got public beaches. This is the place to be, guys. Um, right back to the serious story. As the protests have grown, those taking part are facing greater violence from police. And one protester gave his take on the increased threats after demonstrators were met with force earlier this week. >> THEY WERE VERY VIOLENT, BUT uh they don't understand that their violence is uh is keeping us more pumped and will bring here more people. They think they by they by arresting us, by illegally keeping us in prison, uh they think that they can scare us, but it's kind of the opposite. like we are not scared. We are everyone is seeing the regime here how it is operating. So yeah, we are not scared anymore. So we'll keep going. >> So we were both saying we watched that Guardian video before this segment, didn't we? I have to there are certain things that really like speak to my heart and one of them is beaches being public. >> Yeah. >> So yeah. No, absolutely. Actually, it came across very strongly in the Guardian piece um by Matthew Castell because there was another bit in it where he went to visit another resort on the coastline which I think was called the Green Coast. Now, that one was owned by some local tycoon, right? Which Albanians also have a problem with. I think many of them have said, you know, we have our own Ivanka Trumps and Jared Kushners who are involved in corruption allegedly and are building these massive resorts. But Matthew Castle went to visit this Green Coast one and there's this amazing scene where he's trying to find the beach, right? And he's just walking and he keeps he every corner he turns, he ends up walking into a private beach club, right? He just can't get out to find his way to the beach and then to find a spot where he can actually just like you say, walk onto the beach for free and sit down and have a swim or whatever, eat a sandwich. And you know there there's other footage I've seen of Albanians um hanging out on on the beaches where actually the Trump uh Kushner place is supposed to be >> island just flamingos. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. No, not just flamingos. But yeah, there's there's footage of Albanians being interviewed there, hanging out there and having a great time there. And then at the same time, you will speak to officials who support the development who will say, um, well, nobody's using it. There's nobody there anyway. It needs to be developed. There's nobody there. And then, you know, the journalists visit the beach and there are Albanians everywhere and they're saying, "We want to keep access to this. This is our beautiful country and we want to be able to enjoy it." And they don't want to see what would surely happen, which is, as you say, you would have to pay onto the beach. You would have to pay to park. You would have to, you know, Yeah. It would become as as as Matthew Cassell saw in in the other resorts, full of private beach clubs. And even if you look at that that clip um of Ivanka Trump and you see the sort of ridiculous rendering behind her of what the um the I guess apartments or or or whatever would look like and you said to me off air they look like something out the Teletubbies, right? Like look at those things. They're going to cost an absolute fortune to stay in. There's hardly any of them, right? So you're you're if if that is in any way accurate. I know it's just a vision, but look at the size of that cliff they had up, right? How many uh sort of fancy holiday apartments did they have built into the like 12? I mean I mean it's completely ridiculous. It's obviously aimed at um at the ultra ultra wealthy. And I think that in some of the resorts on the coast that already exist, hotel rooms cost like $2,000 a night there. The average Albanian makes $1,000 a month. And I think sort like that's also kind of key here. you know, Prime Minister Eddie Rama has said that uh he's sort of justifying it by saying, "Well, it's it's going to create 10,000 jobs." Um, and I think we heard there in that clip, well, we'll be the ones massaging the fee. Those will be, you know, very um low paid jobs, you know, and I think that there's already a problem with unemployment in Albania and specifically with youth unemployment. And I've read that even when you look at some of the employment statistics, they're actually they're actually quite um they don't tell the whole story basically because there are people who are only in part-time work or or um you know very insecure work I guess like zero contracts or whatever we have here and they're marked as as employed. But even with that, I think the latest statistic on youth unemployment is 46% against a wider background of unemployment of about 9%. Right? So I think what's happened here is there has been discontent already in Albania before this all happened. So there's been discontent about uh immigration, about people being forced to leave the country, about unemployment, about corruption, and about where um um you know, Prime Minister Eddie Rama's sort of economic plans are going and what they actually mean for ordinary people, right? Because if you listen to the protesters, they're saying that, you know, yes, he's trying to attract foreign investment. He is successfully attracting foreign investment. He has this big plan for tourism which I think makes it harder for him to back down from this. There's some like you know Albania tourism 2020 2030 kind of road map that he's that he's pursuing. So this is like a big plank of his kind of economic policy but a lot of the protesters are saying that the country is is um suffering from over tourism and mass tourism. And you know this is we've seen this in other European countries right where people have been protesting about over tourism. We saw it in Portugal. We saw it in Lisbon. And so that is one of the arguments they're making that there's over tourism. I think there are about 12 million tourists come a year that's in a country of a 2.8 million uh population. What they're saying is that this development and developments like it will only benefit the ultra wealthy, right? That's not only ultra wealthy coming in from outside Albania. That's the, you know, the wealthy people of Albania who are involved in these investments um uh etc. So, you know, I think the prime minister said at one point, "Nobody gave a [ __ ] about flamnco until uh Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner bought the island." He may be right about some people. I'm sure there are a lot of people who gave a [ __ ] about flamnco, but people >> flamingos. >> Flamco flamingos. It's flamco. Oh, god. >> Flamco is different different when you keep it. We're keeping it. You please cut this out. Um, so um yeah, but what they do care about is is unemployment. What they do care about is corruption. And what they do care about is is uh Albanians being forced into absolutely menial jobs against a background of $1.4 billion coming in, which is what uh this development is is sort of mooted um to cost. I do want to say that and the prime minister uh he's not unpopular. He does also have a lot of support. I think Albania is almost what you see in the last election and what you see in the most recent polls. It's almost like 50/50 split in terms of, you know, people who support the government and people who sort of oppose the government. Um, and so then it leads you to wonder about this kind of protest movement and whether it's made up of of of the opposition or whether it's organized by the opposition. I was reading some interesting uh analysis today that that said that no it actually looks like quite a broad-based movement and they've even been carrying signs where they ask for you know um uh the prime minister to be jailed but also the leader of the opposition >> uh to be jailed and it seems to be be one of these movements that we like we've seen a lot of youth movements like this right where it's organized online and there's no structure there's no leadership and so I think one of the big questions going forward as to whether or not they can be successful with this or whether they can keep the momentum because it's been 100 days, right? And they have had some success because there's the corruption investigation and the European Commission has expressed concern about the impact on uh on nature. Um but I think it will be an interesting test to see if they can do what happened in say Nepal and Bangladesh where a decentralized movement like this actually became a real political movement that could threaten um that could actually threaten um the government. So, I think the prime minister is in a sort of a difficult spot because um he's all in on investment and because of the Trump uh involvement, but I think it's it's far from clear that uh he will be toppled. >> Oh, and that's before you even go into the absolute craziness of the Trump uh Kushner connection when you like zoom out from it, right? Because look, think about this for a second. If this was North Korea, right, or if any other country outside of the West was sending the the son-in-law of the president all over the world with a billionaire property developer who's in business with the president to mediate in every conflict that there is, there would be uproar. It would be sneered at. It would be ridiculous. And while I know that they're not, you know, that they haven't gone to Albania to um, you know, to solve a conflict or to negotiate anything, to me, it just says something about how the US government works and the sort of persistent allegations of corruption that we're seeing surrounding the administration and surrounding the wider Trump family and often surrounding Wickoff himself. like effectively you know the US the two main US envoys for foreign policy are property billionaires who are closely related to the president of the United States. So there was a similar thing in Serbia, right, with Kushner where Kushner was investing in in again some kind of a resort development. Turned out that there was corruption involved in that. He apparently wasn't involved directly in the corruption, but there was corruption surrounding the project. He had to pull out of that project. Kind of a similar situation, right? And then even when they are kind of involved in negotiating serious geopolitical issues, there's always some business tacked on at the end, right? So there's some that aren't aren't so wellnown. So in eastern Congo, uh Trump had the leaders of Congo and uh Rwanda to the White House to talk about a peace deal in, you know, Congo's war with the M23 group who was supported or backed by Rwanda. They signed a memo of understanding and Trump said that there's a peace deal, but the fighting continues. But anyway, if you look at the peace deal, at the end of the peace deal, there's all this stuff tacked on about mining contracts for the US. Um also there was the um was it the the Armenia Aaran thing where when the the uh the deal was signed um Trump had extracted this deal that this road would be built. Now it wasn't a personal deal but that this road would be built but that the road would be called I had to write this down because I would forget cuz it's so absurd the Trump roots for international peace and prosperity. You had in Syria the Syrian prime it's a beautiful trips off the tongue. You had um the Syrian um uh president Ahmed Alshara offering to build him a Trump Tower in Damascus. I mean, you could go on and go go on. But then there are some serious little kind of things emerging that I think that the depth of the corruption allegedly in the Trump administration could could you know be more than anyone could even imagine. So yesterday just on on Witoff and and and and and Kushner and Trump and how interrelated they are and how this becomes problematic around foreign policy because just again you know to say that the the prime minister of Albania is kind of stuck because he doesn't want to chuck Ivanka Trump and and Jared Kushner out of their investment because what's that going to do to relation 100% there is a conflict of interest but you know so the New York Times only yesterday had a piece about Steve Witoff right and how he had I has done his annual financial disclosure, right, as a member of government. And so he made $257 million last year, which the New York Times describe as a remarkable haul for a government employee, right? So he made $120 million from selling a stake in his family-owned real estate business. But this is interesting. He made $107 million from a holding company that invested in a variety of other ventures, including the Trump family's cryptocurrency business. Now, what he then didn't do was outline of that 107 how much came from the cryptocurrency business. The New York Times said that that is very strange. Now, that company, the um it's called World Liberty Financial. By the way, Trump made 800 million from it last year. Uh the New York Times said that an investment firm tied to the UAE bought nearly half of that company last year. >> Wow. >> A transaction that blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise and enriched Mr. Witos family and Mr. Trump's you think New York Times, right? Like so to me it's just um you know this is it's a it's a two-prong story, right? It's a story of the Albanian people or you know the people who are protesting I think engaged in in a in a very righteous fight. Um and then I think that there's this wider story of just the money making that the wider Trump family and allies like Witoff are are are engaged in all over the world. I mean crazy just to say again 1.4 4 billion. >> Yeah. Property development and politics shouldn't really mix. Very, you know, it's an industry, a sector which is associated with corruption. So when you have the family friends of the president going and making all these deals in countries which are, you know, to some degree a bit subservient to the United States, it's uh dodgy as [ __ ] A crucial bi-election will take place on the 8th of October in the constituency now vacated by former Prime Minister K Starmmer. And the two parties that'll be most fiercely contesting the North London seat of Hoben and St. Hankress have both now unveiled their candidates. On Thursday, Labour announced Sagal Abdi Wali as its candidate. Um she's currently the head of Camden Council and has lived in the constituency for most of her life. Um in July, she gave Labour MP Steve Reed her backstory. >> What was your connection with Camden? How did you come to be here in the first place? >> Yeah, thanks for having me, Steve. Um yeah, so I grew up here. I came to Camden. I came to the UK as a refugee um with my family, a child refugee. I don't almost want to give the years away back in the early 90s. Um and Camden was the main place that we made a home and um sort of was were assisted by a number of different things like the local community and um local services as well to really build a home here as a family and so Camden's been my home ever since essentially other than small t small moments where I like university or work. >> So you're very deeply rooted. >> Yeah, I love I love in the community here. Now, before even being selected, Abdiwali was already being subjected to racist hate from the right with reform home affairs spokesperson Zia Ysef um posting this. The front runner being foisted on the people of Hoben by Labour to replace the former prime minister Kia Star in our parliament was born in Somalia. Do you understand what is happening? That is an incredibly racist tweet from someone who wants to be the home secretary. Um there was uproar. Ysef has since deleted that tweet. Um Abdiwali will likely face a tight competition for the constituency from the Green Party who have also announced their candidate today. >> I'm so pleased to welcome onto the stage my best friend and wonderful colleague Sack Palanski. Thank you very much. And thank you, Hannah, for those incredibly kind words. That means I'm starting my speech feeling a bit tearary, but thank you, Hoburn and St. Pancress. I am here to fight for you. >> Green Party leader Zach Palansky announced his plan to put his name forward for the seat last week. Um, it won't come as much of a surprise that he was selected today. That was a big round of applause, but I suppose that was more a round of applause for someone going into battle than someone having already won one. Um, in a sign that the race for the seat is already shaping national politics, Prime Minister Andy Burnham made this announcement today. So, an imminent government decision about whether to start drilling at the Jack Door site in the North Sea has been delayed with Whiteall sources saying it wouldn't be announced until after the bi-election. Um pushing the announcement back of course means there's no risk or less risk I suppose of angering climate conscious Labor voters in the North London burough and it was a move that Palansky seemed to anticipate at his candidacy announcement this morning when he was asked about the possibility of Burnham opting to drill. So the final thing I would say to the prime minister is if he wants to make a deeply irresponsible decision during this bi-election or even if he wants to delay it but not rule it out for instance people will see through that. I am hearing over and over again, unsurprisingly, people want to have a livable planet for themselves, for their children, and their grandchildren. And sending a Labour MP to Parliament is not going to make Andy Burnham change course. In fact, he will see that, I imagine, as a confirmation that he can carry on uh talking about being pragmatic despite the fact we've seen horrific wildfires this summer. Heat waves have estimated to have killed nearly 3,000 people, and we know that floods could be coming. I don't think there's anything pragmatic about that. >> Barry, any tips on who will win. Uh I I think it's too close to call. Uh I also think that this is I think the big thing about it is that it's a it's a make or break for the Greens potentially. Um you know, yet again, we have a bi-election that's of sort of national importance, whereas this like the third. I think that if this bi-election was happening pre- Burnham, pre the burn and bounce, then Palansky and the Greens would be an absolute shoe in right. But the burn and bounce has happened and the burn and bounce has happened at the same time as I think Palansky and the Greens have hit some choppy waters, right? There there there's been, you know, yes, media, you know, to some extent media manufactured scandals, right? The most recent one was uh the sharing on Instagram of the guy wearing the t-shirt that that we're only making plans for Nigel, etc., you know, an apparent death threat against Nigel Farage, which the media made an absolute meal of up to an including News Night, devoting entire segments to it. I mean, it was an absurdly overblown story, but I think it did real damage. I think it really did damage Palansky. Um, and we've seen that in the polls, right? We've seen it reflected in the polls since Burnham came in and I think since media attacks on Palansky in particular, the Greens, but Palansky in particular started to to have an impact. Um, so is it a shoe in this time? I I I mean, I don't think so. when you look at the the Labor candidate there, I mean, I don't know how well she's known in the constituency, but you know, they have somebody who's a leader of the council, who's a community organizer, um, who's apparently, you know, I saw some reports today, you know, pretty well known around the area. That's a that's a and though it would have been unpleasant to be attacked by Zia Yousef like that, it's probably going to be quite good in terms of rallying support. I think it will be. Yeah, >> I think most I think most people sort of saw those tweets and thought like, okay, I feel sympathy and solidarity with this woman standing to to be MP. I'm sure that helped in this election. I imagine it might help in the election. >> It goes back to what I was saying earlier on about, you know, reform and and, you know, the depths to which they descend with pure bald racism like that. But apparently these guys marching and do is they're a bit squeamish about that stuff, you know. >> Um, so yeah, I think look, I don't I would definitely not make a a prediction on it, but like there's a bigger story here, isn't there? Which is the survival of the Greens as as a as a real threat, as a real electoral force. Still, what are we still more than 2 years out from an election? Um, and there's also the story of how long the burn and bounce can hold, right? Because this is the first big test, I think, for the burn and bounce. I think for Palansky, it's a big it's a big risk, right? It feels almost, you know, all or nothing. I like I don't want to be uh I don't want to exaggerate this, but I honestly feel like if Palansky loses, you know, they're they're they're looking down the barrel of fading into the background again. No, you think that is >> two years into the general election. >> But that's my point. >> Nigel Farage lost. Yeah. I mean, they'll go into the background for 6 months, but like there's there's there's two years where Labor have got a very difficult job in holding their coalition together and there will be issues that come up. >> But then what's the what's the Greens campaign on? you know, >> just I think they should just campaign on the climate for a while. >> It seems like that's what they're doing, doesn't it? It seems like we've heard >> campaign on the climate for a while and then wait for an opportunity. That's what >> it does feel like we've heard more about the climate from the Greens um since Burnham came in than we had heard before because Burnham and and and this like Labor government uh have sort of tried to outflank them on a couple of issues, right? So there's the cost of living. he came right out of the gates and did his, you know, three things uh to address the cost of living, which I think communicated to people that, you know, I'm listening. I understand what the the the big issue was. And then Gaza, you know, it's been woefully reported in my opinion how far uh this apology that Burnham first issued actually went, right? He said, "We're sorry for Gaza." It's been reported that Burnham said sorry for Gaza. But when you look into it and you look into the detail, he actually only said sorry for two things. He said, "Sorry for the Stammer interview where a Stammer, you know, justified an effective war crime being committed by, you know, cutting off power and water to Gaza." He apologized for that and then he apologized that they hadn't called for a ceasefire earlier. That's it. He didn't apologize for any of the other material or diplomatic support that was given to Israel while it committed a genocide. >> Actions matter more though, right? So, it's the the sanctions on the settlers and and some of those sanctions on the services provide. So, they have gone the the concrete change from the previous government matter. What I'm talking about is the fact that when Burnham even just said that, right, let alone Miband and what Miliband has done and the sanctions on on the West Bank, which you know, I wasn't here earlier in the week to talk, but um you know, I have opinions on that, right? I I and I'm sure you probably agree. I don't think it's gone in any way far enough. And and obviously it absolutely does not mean that the fight is in any way over and it does not mean that Britain has in effect stopped supporting Israel fully as it commits an ongoing genocide in Gaza. You know, I'm always of the opinion that it's easier to act on the West Bank than it is to act on Gaza. All right. So, you know, parking whether I think that that that the miliban thing is even effective. My point is actually just about Burnham even saying sorry because I think even that was enough for some people who'd moved to the Greens over Gaza to go back to Labor because there are sort of you know more center more center left kind of people looking for an excuse to go >> yeah well yeah because they they became green curies for a while because they were they're the kind of people there's a big broad constituency of people out there who sort of felt like oh it's going to Israel's gone a bit too far right there those people exist you know, who who thought that Israel had the right to defend itself. Israel had the right to go in and and and attack Kamas, but they've gone a bit too far now with the 20,000 children. You know, I don't like that. And so then when they see that, you know, uh Burnham has now given has now had a change in tone. That's enough for a lot of people to go back. So I think what I'm saying is even that move and the initial moves on cost of living I think would have won people back from the Greens into labor. And so then when I, you know, when I look down the road, I, you know, and you rightly say anything can happen in two years, but when I look down the road, I think, you know, if Palansky gets a bloody nose here and, you know, we know that the the the media already have, you know, the guns out for him, you know, can you imagine how it will be reported if he loses, you know, that perception that people have of like, well, does he really have a chance of of getting in or not? How many seats can they really when he couldn't even win a seat himself? And that that kind of builds and I like I I do think that that is very damaging and I think that I you know I think that they would potentially plummet in the in in the polls after that because they've lost their their winner doesn't look like a winner anymore. And by the way I'm I I I hate that. I think that I don't want that to happen, you know. Um, I think that they've become a really hugely important voice in in British politics and I hope that they prosper and and actually as Ash said on News Night a couple of weeks ago, you don't get burner without agree with that. >> I've been banging on for a long time on this show about the risks we all face from powerful AI. Um, I've been told those concerns are niche or wacky, but this is the week that catastrophic AI risk went mainstream. And the flurry of interest was started by the resignation of an anthropic engineer, Jacob Coxin, whose tweet explaining his decision has been viewed over 150 million times. Um, that massive online interest also translated into interviews for Coxin on CNN, NBC, and perhaps most importantly, Fox News. So, unfortunately, we know how to control nuclear weapons. Pretty much we don't yet know how to control AI. This is possibly the most dangerous technology that humanity has ever created. is basically out of science fiction. I think we have no other choice but to cooperate internationally because an arms race would be disastrous in a way that no other no other human activity has been in the past. >> You were at Open AI before you left them with concerns about security. Um, now you're at Anthropic, you have concerns about security. Specifically, what do you see if you're talking to somebody on the couch at home? What do what did you see that said, "Holy cow, this is the moment I have to speak out." >> Yeah. So, there are two things. One is the models are the models are getting better very very quickly. When I think about my work next year, the model the AI is doing like almost all of my job. The the AI is getting very smart. And the second is that in the recent few months, we've seen that we don't yet know how to how to control these systems properly. the cyber attacks carried out by open AI models on on third party infrastructure were concrete proof that scenarios that we previously thought of as science fiction are going to come true. So what I see is two things very intelligent AI systems and hard proof that we don't know how to control them. And when you put those two together it basically spells disaster as as far as I'm concerned. >> Now Cox have made those arguments on a number of other networks but as I said I think the argument being made on Fox News is very significant. The host of Fox News, by the way, was at the RNC, so the Republican National Convention when he was conducting that interview. And Fox News is, of course, where American where the current American president, where Donald Trump gets virtually all of his information. It's more important for the AI risk to appear on Fox News than it is for it to appear in his intelligence briefing. Essentially, um Trump, however, is yet to support AI regulation, but a number of high-profile politicians from both major parties have. This was Florida Governor Ronda Santis. Um, so he tweeted, "While some AI hysterics is aimed towards investors in advance of upcoming IPOs, that there is even a possibility that these technologies would elude human control is alarming. Technology should enhance the human experience. It should never supplant it." Um, Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland um, tweeted this. Um, anyone still denying the risks posed by unregulated AI should read this thread, obviously sharing the Jacob Coxin Fred. It's time to pump the brakes and take action now. We need mandatory safeguards, a comprehensive testing regime, urgent dialogue with China before and during President Xi's visit to DC this month. Um, at least seven other senators responded to the resignation of Jacob Cox with calls for more regulation on artificial intelligence. And Bernie Sanders, who's long been leading on this issue, is organizing briefings for other lawmakers. He spoke to MSNBC on Wednesday night. >> The political process moves very slowly under the best of circumstances. So what we have got to do now is light a match under the backsides of members of Congress and say you know what we don't have months we don't have years we got to move now and maybe the very first thing we can do is to convince our president who appears to know absolutely nothing about AI and the dangers of AI to sit down with PresidentQi of China and work on a moratorum on preventing uh the development of super intelligent AI and a pause so that we don't head into uh real trouble for the future of humanity. >> So obviously Bernie Sanders was an early adopter of this position. He's been talking about this for months, but what's significant about this week, I think, especially because of the hugging face hack and then the resignation of Jacob Coxin is that now there is a moment where I suppose politicians have both permission and pressure to speak their minds on this and to take this seriously. So we see some people call it a preference cascade. People have wanted to say this for a while, but didn't quite feel they had the permission because they thought it was too sci-fi. Now, anyone who's worried about AI this week has come out and said, "I too am terrified of of AI killing us all." Right? Because lots of Congress people, they're smart people, they read, you know, they listen to podcasts, they read newspapers, they know that the smartest people in this field are warning of this and now it's no longer seen as too sci-fi for politics. I think that's important. Um, back here in the UK though, um, it was this moment that became most impactful. >> Do you believe there is a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill all humans potentially within a decade? >> So, this is the kind of thing that is very hard to estimate because we've never had anything like this before. We've never created beings that may soon be smarter than us. We don't know what's going to happen. We should obviously be cautious. It would be very foolish to say there was like a 1% chance. Um, nobody knows how to estimate it. A 10% chance seems not not an unreasonable estimate to me, but nobody really knows how to give a sensible estimate. >> Right. But you just said 10% doesn't seem an unreasonable estimate that AI could kill all humans. >> Yes. >> Wow. Oh my god. >> Yes. >> How How could it kill us all? um if it's much smarter than us. Um there's so many ways it could do it. I don't think it's much worth speculating. And you don't >> I do want to know that like how give me could you give me one example? >> Well, the first thing to realize is it doesn't even have to be able to act in the real world to cause devastation. So it would be able to cause complete chaos just by talking to people. But it will also be able to design very nasty viruses, biological viruses, as well as computer viruses. It could do devastating cyber attacks. Um, and there's just countless other ways it could get rid of us if it wanted to. We have to figure out how to design it so that it won't want to. Wow. Oh my god. It feels like those could be, you know, words that sort of go down in history. that particular clip of Victoria Darbish here is speaking of course to Nobel Laurate and father of AI or godfather of AI um Jeffrey Hinton um by the way for many in Silicon Valley 10% so the 10% chance of all of humanity being killed is at the low end as I say for many in Silicon Valley so Marcus Williams works at monitoring AIS at open AI um he tweeted this unless there is AI regulation or a coordinated slowdown between labs human extinction in the next few years seems very likely um someone asked him how likely and he says 70% in the next 3 years if there isn't regulation or slowdown although I think regulation slowdown is very possible um to discuss what could prove to be a key tipping point in AI policy and discourse. Um I caught up with veteran science writer Robert Wright. Wright has written a number of excellent books including the moral animal which I read as a teenager um and why Buddhism is true. His latest book on AI is called the God Test. It feels that way, at least like a preliminary tipping point. I don't think we have as much political momentum in favor of regulation and international coordination as we're going to ultimately need. But it was a very big week. You know, until a few weeks ago, it seemed like Bernie Sanders was a voice in the wilderness and suddenly people like Ted Cruz are like jumping on the bandwagon. And and I think, you know, some of it is real. the the political momentum is real because people were concerned to begin with and then a lot of uh things have happened lately that have freaked people out. >> I've got a clip of Ted Cruz later because he is talking about regulation, but he's also saying we can't do it because of China. But I'm going to park that for one moment. Um lots of people watching this um will have heard, you know, Jacob Cox and Jeffrey Hinton say that this has a 10% chance of killing us all and still be, you know, I think reasonably not convinced, right? It's a big claim. And the thing that people most often say is how, you know, this is so abstract. I know this is an issue dealt with in your book. So, sort of how do you deal with that question? >> Yeah. I mean, first of all, I'd say the sci-fi scenario of actual complete takeover and the extinction of the human species at the hands of AI is, I think, far from the only reason to want regulation and international governance. Uh, but I also think it's a scenario that can't be entirely dismissed. Um, and I guess it comes in two parts, right? Like, wait, how would the AI take over in the first place? Uh, how would it kill us? Why would it want to kill us? And you know I guess the generic answer uh is that you know AIs you give them a goal and one thing that's been demonstrated in the in the recent kind of open AI hugging face breakout is you give them a goal and they may pursue it in ways you had not anticipated and they may develop in the course of that kind of subordinate goals as they're called uh including possibly the pursuit of power which after all you know power helps you reach a lot of other goals. You can do a lot of things if you have power. Um and you know once they're pursu pursuing these goals the fear is that uh they would by then have become so powerful that they're hard to control and uh you know the the the hugging face is being taken as exhibit A because it surprised even people in the field who were already quite worried. You know, the sci-fi doomers were freaked out by it and they were already freaked out. And if you look at the details of it, it is it is a powerful illustration of possibilities. Uh I I don't think the AI is right now at a level of intelligence and creativity and deviousness uh that we have to worry about a takeover, but I think it's getting a little harder to rule out various kinds of extreme loss of control scenarios. And I don't think you can totally rule out the sci-fi version, but I think collectively all this stuff and and a lot of things I haven't mentioned are reason to take the technology very seriously. It's a very powerful technology. we do not understand it well and we cannot entirely control it. >> I suppose just sort of some some useful context that came out in in your book and I know sort of people in this space discuss a lot. So subordinate goals you've just mentioned there. So that's the idea that you know say say the hugging face example for example that the goal was to to complete the test and get the answer right or to capture the flag in their language. Some subordinate goals were to find out how the scorer judged answers for example and that's why they hacked hugging face. So you end up with an unexpected action because that's a subordinate goal to the goal that we as humans have given them. It wasn't, you know, they don't seem to at the moment sort of just generate these new ultimate goals, but they have these goals which um help them get to the ultimate goal that we've given them. Um another concept that I like and I think is helpful is instrumental convergence. So this is the idea that so if we're constantly giving them these different goals, there are some capacities that are helpful pretty much whatever you've been asked to do. Um you mentioned there sort of power. So the more power you have, the more resources you have. Whatever task you've been given, those things are helpful. Also survival, whatever task you've been given, surviving, not being turned off is fairly helpful. So could you talk about instrumental convergence? Yeah, that's the idea that any intelligent goal seeking system is fairly likely to kind of eventually converge on certain fundamental realities like the fact that power is uh is conducive to reaching a whole lot of goals. You know, uh it it it can't hurt. I mean, a good thought experiment to do is to imagine you you just say to your agent, and anyone can do this right now, a good LLM, you can say, "Take over my social media account. Your job is to maximize my followers." You if you give it advice that vague, uh, it'll probably maximize your followers. It could do it in in any number of ways. uh they would probably involve amassing power in the sense that it would realize that it made sense to develop reciprocal relationships with other powerful people on like Twitter or whatever. I mean that's what power is to be in a lot of reciprocal relationships with influential people. They owe you things because you've done things for them and so on. So that's a case where it would it would discover the virtue of power in a fairly uh straightforward sense, the sense in which legislators are powerful. Um, and it would do god knows what. I mean, what what this hugging face things illustrate is that for all you know, uh, it would it would tell lies to people online to get them to to to follow it. It might promise them money. You just, you know, uh, it's hard to say what what the bounds would be. And that's with current technology. We know that that that these companies already have more powerful LLMs that they haven't even unveiled. And and we've also learned that once you have a team of agents working, it's collectively smarter than the LLM itself that that is driving the whole thing because you got a lot of smart things very rapidly discovering things, sharing information with one another, and collectively building on what they've learned. especially with hugging face um on this show and I mean out there in the world lots of people are debating I suppose fundamental concepts what is reasoning what is understanding what is agency and often where people fall on the debate about how worried we should be about AI or I suppose how excited we should be about AI depending on your perspective is is how you sort of define reasoning how you define understanding and therefore whether or not a machine can do it. Um again this is something you discuss in your book. I wonder if you could sort of >> talk me over that because this is a philosophical debate as well, isn't it? As well as a sort of technical one. >> It is. I want to start with agency in a pretty mundane sense of the word. uh you know, not getting too metaphysical because I want to emphasize that agency in the sense of having a machine that can autonomously pursue a goal and and encounter frustrations and obstacles and overcome them creatively. That is what the market wants. Okay. So the the the machine that surprised us in the hugging face incident and you wound up, you know, with teams of agents communicating creatively and ultimately in in some sense destructively and dishonestly. That is what the market wants. The reason anthropics revenue is growing so fast is because companies want AIs that can that can persist over long periods of time in pursuit of a complex goal. Because a good AI from their point of view is like good worker. You just set it and forget it. You don't have to micromanage it. Okay. So that's what the demand is for. This is what the market is is asking for. It's not quite inherent in the technology, but it's what the technology wants. Now the meta the more metaphysical versions of these questions. What is human agency? Do they have that? Do they have understanding? As you say, I I get into this stuff in the book and my take is look if if by understanding or agency you mean you're referring to subjective experience, you know, consciousness. You mean do they feel like we feel when we understand something? It's like who knows? We don't know if they have subjective experience. The whole the whole distinctive thing about subjective experience is it's inherently private. You never know for sure that any being other than yourself has it. They could have it. They could not have it now but get it later. I don't know. But if you want to try to define understanding and agency in in ways that don't depend on knowing whether they're conscious, you know, then I recommend uh like looking at the behaviors they can do and also looking at the question whether you know in within the the the models there are cognitive functions comparable to the cognitive functions in our brain that accompany our sense of understanding something or of wanting something. And I think if you look at it that way, I argue the answer is is yes. Yes, they seem in principle capable of understanding in in uh in that sense of the word if we leave subjective experience out of it. And you know I I try to show that uh what's going on in these machines although we don't totally understand it is more than we might realize like what's going on in the brain. I mean something that I've been getting my head around since the hugging face and since talking to Cory Dr. and sort of watching some other videos is it's in a human brain you have the agency and the cognition sort of in the same thing my head let's say and when it comes to these AI agents they're quite separate so the agent is like a computer program which is sort of engineered by a person and it's called a prompt loop so you just you say this is a computer program you say I want you to solve challenge Y or as you say I want you to sort of get as many followers as possible for a social media But this computer program is not smart. It's dumb. It's it just wants something. It wants to do this thing with a social media account. And then it asks the LLM. So it says, "LM, I've been told to um get more followers on this Twitter account. What should I do?" And then the LLM gives it phase one. It says, "Okay, I've done this. This was the result. What should I do now?" And it gives you phase two. And it's the LLM that's smart and and has evolved and has the cognition. And it's the agent >> um or the prompt loop that has the agency that has the wants. And I say I don't how do you think about that that it's sort of there's like a a system which taken in combination is both smart and agentic whereas in us it's there's no obvious separation between the two. I wonder if you think there's any sort of significance to that. Not a lot. Frankly, with all due respect for Corey Doctr who I do respect, the uh I mean I think you you need to think of the LLM and the so-called harness, you know, this program uh that directs it and and and helps facilitate the realization of of goals by giving it access to certain tools that help it go on the web or send emails or or do whatever. I think you have to think of harness and LLM as a single being. I mean there's there's communication within parts of our brain. If you want to look at our brain as a lot of different agents. In fact, in my last book, I did a lot of that, a book on meditation um and argued that in many ways the brain is uh is a society. You can look at it either way in both cases, but for practical purposes, an LLM and its harness acts as a as a unified being with unified uh purpose. That was Robert Wright speaking to me earlier today. We'll put out a longer version of that interview either tonight or tomorrow. Really love Robert Wright. Fascinating guy, very open-minded, great communicator when it comes to science, philosophy, religion. Um, do look out for that. Earlier this week, Harets published an explosive expose revealing Netanyahu was warned about Hamas attacks before October the 7th and did essentially nothing. Um, that report has grabbed the attention of critics of Netanyahu inside and outside Israel, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And this is a really extraordinary clip, I have to say. Look, I have said repeatedly, I love Israel and I hate Netanyahu's government and his policies. I love America and I hate Trump's government and policies. I think it's bad in the first case for Israel what's happening. And I think it's really bad for the United States what's happening. So, I think we've got to be very clear of the messages we send, hopefully the Israeli people, especially after this bombshell that came out in the Israeli press where Netanyahu had been literally called by, you know, Shake Muhammad NBZ from UAE and warned that Hamas was planning something and either he didn't believe it >> or he w it's horrible to say he wanted to see what they could plan so that then he could come down hard and it would enhance his position. I don't know what his thinking was. But the bottom line, talk about a failure of imagination. This was a failure of leadership. This was a failure of, you know, protecting the people of Israel. He'd been told what was going to happen. So if the Israelis want to vote for that again, then I think the United States has to take a very tough position. So two years ago, if someone had even entertained the idea that Netanyahu not only knew that Hamas were planning something, not the details of October the 7th, but knew that Hamas were planning something big and then didn't act because he kind of wanted them to cause a lot of damage as a excuse to I suppose crush the Palestinians but also shore up his support in Israel. If if that was so much as as put forward as even a possibility by like anyone in the Labour party, they would have been kicked out within about, you know, 4 minutes. >> Exactly. >> Um anyone who' sort of tweeted that on Twitter, you know, there'd be this huge pile on saying this is disgusting. This is like we're in, you know, September 2026, Hillary Clinton is saying maybe Netanyahu let it happen. Not again I don't think anyone's suggesting he knew the precise details of him but I mean some people are but you know that article wasn't necessarily the precise but he knew that something big was about to happen and he didn't even tell any of his security officials. Hillary Clinton's not only saying that was a failure that he's she's she's suggesting putting out there that she takes serious the idea that maybe he let this happen for his own political gain. That's explosive. No, >> that's Hillary Clinton. Yeah. >> You know like I think that's what's crazy about it. It's bloody Hillary Clinton. you know it's who is yes she's responding to this article in Harets which uh reported that that there was a 45minute phone call between uh the president of the UAE MBZ and Trump in which MBZ warned him that something was was was going to happen. Apparently that phone call also took place like late September so it was very very close to to to October 7th. Um, people have been saying it from the beginning. You know, people were speculating from the beginning because they were saying, "Wait a second, how could an operation that complex involving that many people be planned and the Israeli security establishment wouldn't know about it or or yeah, indeed like the, you know, the security services of of of an Arab country wouldn't necessarily know about. How could this happen without people knowing about it?" >> Especially considering that the Israelis knew exactly where all of their other enemies was. They could target them in an instant, right? Yeah, their intelligence is good. >> Yeah, of course. And so people Yeah. remarkably, you know, disastrously, you know, good. Um, you know, enabling them to wipe people out at the at the touch of a button. And so, um, but so people were saying it, but it was considered an absolute fringe conspiracy theory. You know, as you say, you would be kicked out of the Labor Party, um, or the Dems. If you said it, you would be denounced as anti-semitic. And now Hillary Clinton is saying it. But I do think that there's that there's there's something behind it, right? Which is that, you know, it what it shows is the US establishment dumping Netanyahu, right? It shows the the establishment dems, these sort of liberal Zionists or whatever, uh, dumping Netanyahu and and and you know, feeding into that argument that they like to make when Israel goes too far, which is to pin it all in Netanyahu to say that Netanyahu is somehow the problem. The Israeli government is not the problem. The IDF is not the problem. Other Israeli ministers are not the problem. Um, Israeli uh the Israeli voters who keep putting these parties back into power are not the problem. Netanyahu is the problem. And I think that's that's incredibly convenient. And so it might it might be the case that as Netanyahu becomes more toxic, it becomes easier for people in the establishment to attack him like this. Although that is still extraordinary, you know. >> Yeah. I mean, I was shocked when I saw it >> and she got really head up about it like she, you know, she went off on one then >> and she she she explicitly said as well like I don't know, you know, or if he to see what they could do so that he could then, >> you know, respond and so that he could build up his political like it was it was quite explicit. Again, she wasn't she wasn't saying that necessarily, but she's she's definitely publicly >> putting that forward as a plausible hypothesis of what happened and that is unimaginable. >> She's a pro-Israel hawk. She's a hawk. Like, let's not forget what she did in Libya. You know, she was one of the architects of the destruction of Libya, who was captured on camera when she heard that uh Gaddafi was killed saying, "We came, we saw, he died." You know, this is not some shrinking violet who does not like war or is frightened of of war. And so, you know, for her to be saying it is just is just remarkable. I think they're dumping in. >> Um Barry Malone, thank you so much for joining us. Absolute pleasure as always. Thank you guys so much for watching. Um, have a great weekend. We'll be back on Monday at 6 p.m.