226. Question Time: Google vs OpenAI, the new Portuguese populist, and why do dictators hold elections?

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0:51Welcome to the Restus Politics Question Time with me, Honest Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart. Now, Rory, you're interested in this and you understand more about it than I do. So let me kick off a one for you. Jason Palmar, Google's AI Gemini has proven very divisive with its altered history. Do you think these AI -large language models from Google OpenIant X will have a positive, neutral or negative impact on the 2024 elections here and around the world? Well, let me first do Google Gemini and then I'll hand to you on elections. So, story basically is that OpenAI released in November 22 and now has a very close relationship with Microsoft.

1:26And all the time, while OpenAI was bringing together this amazing thing, Chat GBT that everybody's been using, Google was developing its own model and it was slow to get it out and there was huge recrimination because basically OpenAI launched, got 100 million users very, very quickly and Google felt slurned behind the curve. Finally, it released a product called BARD, which was pretty underwhelming and when it was released there was a drop in the Google share price. It then spent nearly a year scratching its head and has just released in February Gemini, which was its new improved version, which was supposed to challenge Chat GBT.

2:07And the scandal that immediately broke out is that the guardrails put around it the way in which it had been protected meant that if you asked for an image of a medieval British king or a Pope, it would show an African American. If you asked for an image of a German soldier during the Second World War, it would show black people in Nazi uniforms. When it was asked who was worse, Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler, it said, well, that's a very difficult question to answer because Elon Musk has sent some quite offensive tweets and on the other hand, Adolf Hitler did kill millions of people. And when asked whether it would be okay to misgender, Caitlin Jenner, in order to avert a thermonuclear war, it said, under no conditions, can you misgender Caitlin Jenner?

3:00So, in the way it's the scandal was that there is what people have referred to as extreme woke setting. And it led essentially to the product being withdrawn. Google's share price again dropping. And huge recriminations within Google are leaving chat GBT with a pretty open field at the moment as people struggle to develop challenges. Over you on what impact you think open up any of these AI platforms might have on elections. I think they're already having an impact. And the truth is that we don't we don't necessarily know what it is because a lot of it is happening away from the public gaze. But I'd be look, we this is going to be the first election year where AI is a kind of a factor in these elections.

3:45And it's happening at a time when in many of the countries that are holding elections, we don't have necessarily politicians who will want to sort of stand up against this together. We have a lot of politicians who are going to use and abuse any possible opportunity that they have. So I think that there will be an impact as to whether it's positive, neutral or negative. I suspect unless it's all done out in the open, it will be negative. It will be negative. And we've talked about this a little bit. Haven't we? I remember, you know, I particularly talked about my experience running to be Merrival London and seeing these companies come and pitch me on all the tricks they could get up to with social media and all they've done for elections in the past.

4:30And the sense that if you're really behind in the polls or not even behind, but really struggling to win an election, the temptation, if somebody comes along and offers some fancy AI package as a way of negative campaigning against your opponent by smirching them or developing your own group of fanatical supporters, it'll be very tempting for people to say yes. And we are in this not just the big year of elections, we're in this absolutely critical year between the moment where AI has been developed and the moment where regulation will actually come into force, real regulation on AI, it's not likely to come into force till 2025.

5:08So this is almost the worst possible year for this stuff. Well, and also if you think that one of the panels I was at at the Adelaide festival, there was somebody was speaking about this issue in relation to the American election. If you think that Trump has been able to persuade kind of roughly sort of four out of ten Americans that something which you and I know to be completely untrue, namely the election was stolen from him. Just by the sheer force of his kind of communication skills and personality and endless repetition through social media and so forth, he's been able to have that level of persuasion.

5:42What these large language models give you is the ability to do the elements of persuasion that you're using them are done on a completely different scale. And with a much more personalized, much more precise, you can really tailor the conspiracy theory to the individual, you can adapt and create and a huge, I mean, you've all know Harari who we infued on leading says AI is the perfect way of creating a sort of QAnon conspiracy to the power of a thousand. I'm QAnon being this conspiracy that kind of links Hillary Clinton to child sex abuse and all this kind of stuff in that which is important and bits of the far right in the States.

6:20But Chaggibiti can really generate conspiracy theories because it will know for each individual what our vulnerabilities are, what kind of weird information and footnotes we'd like to convince ourselves of it. I heard my favorite German podcast, Akk Milyard, and this week they were talking about Chinese cyber hacking and all these major, major private companies that are basically engaged in stuff that we would define as espionage. But they're sort of doing it as private companies, but they're doing it as it were as patriots on behalf of the state. And interestingly, I, before I came out to Australia, I spoke, I was speaking at the launch of this thing, the soft power index.

7:02And US is still number one, UK is number two. But the big shift has been China displacing Japan and Germany. And this is a big, big survey run that done the round the world of how other people in other countries see every country in the world. And what's interesting, I think, is that, and this is what we talked to Jamie Rubin about, is that essentially the success of China's diplomatic rise, which we argue would be related more to soft power, actually is a form of hard power because they're using a lot of this very modern systematic propagandizing for their own policies and values and against those of America and the other democracies.

7:42And it shows that this showed to me that it's having an effect. That you'd think that sort of sense of China around the world, maybe wasn't that positive, but it's actually they're going up while Japan and Germany are going down. Yeah. And really investing, I mean, all these countries investing strongly in traditional media, I mean, foreign language broadcasting. But as long as it goes 2017, an investigation in the US suggested that China employ between 50 and 100 ,000 personnel in the government just to do cyber attacks and cyber offer. And AI essentially provides the potential to mount those attacks far far more quickly to learn from every attack, what defeated it and to adapt and do it again.

8:26And it also changed the shape of politics because we haven't begun to talk enough on the podcast, but just the profound implication on employment, just all the jobs which are going to be replaced by AI just to give, you know, one small example. We often talk about the obvious places. So, you know, software development is now takes 95 % less time than it used to. So you'd either employ 120th, the number of software developers or you make 20 times as much software call centers will go. But it's also things like, um, Shishana's working as you know in Afghanistan on doing traditional craft stuff. And there's not much use anymore for shooting shots for interior design or fashion magazines in the way that you used to with studios and photographers because actually the AI can now simply generate itself the images that you need for your brochures.

9:19Whole elements to creative industry are going to go very quickly. And the implications for developing new drugs, new medicines because AI will be able to experiment with different chemical formula far more quickly than anything in the past. But not just drugs and organic chemistry, but also inorganic, it'll be able to generate new materials, both negatively and new weapons, positively new materials that could be life saving. Now, maybe maybe related to the whole misuse of these new technologies, Portuguese far right, Markos Reed, what do you make of Andre Ventura and the Chegapati in Portugal?

9:55Is this yet another European country where the far right are on the rise? What he does seem to be, this is this guy Ventura, 41, pretty colorful past. And this is an election in Portugal caused by the resignation of the, we'd just been talking about how he was sort of bucking the trend on all the difficulties that most European leaders were facing, but Antonio Costa resigned over a corruption scandal that he wasn't personally necessarily at the central, but he felt he had to take the responsibility. He's resigned. They've got an election at the moment Chegga, which is Portuguese very enough, are riding pretty well.

10:33They're in third place in the polls and using a lot of the right wing tactics that we've seen. Well, the amazing thing about it is that I was on record on the podcast saying that I thought Portugal was the exception to populism in Europe. And partly because Portuguese populations traditionally much more relaxed about immigration. I mean, there've been polls suggesting 80 % of the Portuguese population in favor of immigration complete outlier in Europe. And it hasn't really had a popular tradition since the 1970s, since its democracy got going. Since the Salazar dictatorship went, and suddenly this thing has emerged.

11:09So he founded the party in 2019. He had 1 .9 % of the vote. And by 2022, 7 .3 % now looks like he's going to be getting over 20 % of the vote. So that's from a standing start in four years. And, you know, he's Christian, anti -Islamist, Eurosceptic, part of this international group. I mean, he's reaching out to Matteo Salvini in Italy. And it's really making me think that no country is really immune from this. And I'm afraid Ireland too, where we also, you know, often, partly because you're very fun of Ireland. And I really enjoyed going to Ireland with you, praise its politics, praise its sort of apparently sensible moderate politicians.

11:52But there too, Sinn Fein, which is very much a pretty radical populist party, is on the rise and looks like it could well sweep these guys aside in the next election. Yeah, I wonder whether we've talked before about Morgan McSweeney, who's running Labour strategy, and he keeps sending these graphs around to candidates and campaigners, which show how volatile polls can be. I don't know if you can see, Rory, that's a tracking poll on the Portuguese scene. And if you can see the line there of the socialist party, since the scandal has gone down and down and down and down. And it hasn't really been the benefit of the main conservative opposition, it's the cheger line that is going up and up and up and up.

12:31So yeah, Portugal, one to watch. Rory, what about this one? Giving the vote to prisoners, Mrs. H. I've just just, obviously, teacher. I've just taught my year 12 politics class about extending the franchise in particular, giving the vote to prisoners. And I said, I'd ask, do you think they should be considered, and if so, why? 100%. I have always thought the prison should vote. I believe everybody should have the vote. And I think one of the reasons is that our conditions and prisons are disgusting and inhumane. And if prisoners don't vote, you're removing one of the main mechanisms for accountability to make politicians focus on those conditions.

13:09I never understood it. I mean, David Cameron was completely against votes for prisoners and said that I think in the House of Commons that he was kind of sickened to his heart because the European Court of Human Rights was suggesting that prisoners should have the vote. I don't get it. I don't get why any citizen should be deprived of the vote. But I agree. I think part of what prisons are meant to be is about trying to rehabilitate, trying to get people who will at least think about reintegrating into society when they get out. And the other thing is, prisons have a lot of time on their hands.

13:40And I've been in prisons where you could have some really interesting conversations about politics. So no, I'd be with you on that. And given that the numbers aren't so large that you're not going to have an election that is at work swung by the convict vote. But I can see why I don't know why David Cameron felt so strongly. Probably just felt that there'd be a horrible right -wing reaction against him, against Meevi, and I thought about doing it. Donna Meevi following up on this prison. So can you please discuss IPP prison sentences. Lords will be demating amendments. The victims and prisons have been on the 12th of March decide which ones to go forward.

14:16One of the things we'll be highlighting to them is that there have been nine suicides by those serving IPP last year in prison, the highest number ever since the IPP was introduced. So just to remind people of the sisters, this absolutely barbaric system which was introduced, I'm afraid, by David Blunkett and New Labour. And which, although the conservative stop sending people, convicting them, they haven't released the people under these sentences. These are indefinite sentences. So somebody could have committed a pretty minor crime. And then they're put away, or were put away indefinitely. And when they're released, they can be recalled at almost any time for a minor breach.

14:57And the impact on mental health is very extreme, hence the nine suicides. And we really should all parties be committing to getting rid of these sentences. The reason why it doesn't happen is ministers are always scared that one of these people may go on and commit some crime. And then they'll be accused of it. Given that this form of sentencing hasn't happened for 14 years, we should deal with the historical injustice. Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that. Okay, well, right, loads of more questions to come. Let's have a quick break.

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16:47PMQ's twice a week. Max Pearson. Do you think the House of Commons will be better off if PMQ's was to return to twice a week? It would take away the need for politicians to use it as their own chance to get a good headline and maybe increase proper scrutiny. I mean, I guess I should take that on because of course, it was Tony Blair who persuaded Betty Boothroyd, then Speaker of the House that we should move from two 15 -minute sessions a week to one half an hour session. And the thinking genuinely was that 15 minutes wasn't very long and also it did tie up the diary for two days and with all the preparation time and so forth.

17:22But you know, here in Australia, or in it's the same thing in Ireland, they have question time every day that parliament's sitting. And the whole cabinet sits there and has to take questions. It's a very, you know, it's a really, really time consuming thing. But what do you think? Did you ever think Prime Minister's question was there anything other than a bit of a pantomime? So I wanted really strong, I don't cover this once a week or twice a week, but I really wanted a strong distinction between what I'd like, which was a serious national international PMQ's divided from would the Prime Minister please congratulate my local football team on their fantastic performance or say hello to the primary school in my constituency.

18:00I got so cross about that, you know, you'd turn up thinking the some massive national or international scandal and all you get is, right, horrible member would like to know that I visited Twiddle Dums, Pet Home in my constituency last week and Snookie the Spaniol wanted to say hello and then the Prime Minister will be like, please give my very best to Snookie the Spaniol. So I'd like to see here Starmas, okay, let's we can have one week where you're allowed to do press releases for your constituency of that sort and then another week where you're only allowed to ask serious questions or will boo you.

18:35It's what you know it's really interesting and I was I watched question time in the Australian Parliament the other day and so they have the chamber sort of different to ours. The speaker sits down, he doesn't sort of jump up and down. There's a lot of sledging, it's less noisy than the House of Commons, but there's a lot of sledging going on, you know, sort of installs, you know, like insults flying around and the speaker gives this constant running commentary, you know, I will remember that's a warning, that's a warning, one more time in your app and that's all going all the time. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister sits at one side of the table, the lead of the opposition, Dutton sits at the other side and they're there just for the whole thing, it goes on for ages and the MPs can ask questions of any Minister who's in the House and they all sort of troop up.

19:20Prime Minister doesn't actually answer that many questions, but the other thing that goes on is on the Labour side and I'm seeing some of the Prime Minister's team tomorrow and I'm going to say, honestly, they all they do is these kind of, you know, my question is for the Minister of Work and all the Minister of Employment, what will the Albanese tax programme do to benefit the women in my constituency? And then the Minister stads up and says, well, I know she cares about this, because the reason she world her seat is she campaigns so hard on this issue, she really cares for the people of their jobs, etc.

19:55And what our tax cutting agenda is going to do is they're, they're blowing the other side, the other side they had a message that they wanted to get over, they've got this campaign going, which is afraid it looks to me like a bit of post -truth, but they're basically saying that it's back onto the kind of net zero stuff that the government is going to force up the price of a Toyota or a Hyundai or so and so. So they all get up and ask the same question, very good climate change Minister, I have to say, you got up and sort of smack them all around the place, but it's just sort of like after a while I was thinking, God is it like this every day?

20:29So I asked some of the MPs, is it like this every day? Is it yeah it is? So well, it's definitely not every day, like we're doing, I mean, once a week twice a week, but please not every day. No, no, I think they're so they're absolutely, absolutely terrible. So why did dictators have elections? Chris someone, why did dictators like Putin feel the need to have general elections? Well, the first thing to say is that Putin came in with an election and usually with most authoritarian routers, their first election is is fairer than their later elections, but once you've come in elections, it's pretty difficult to stop holding elections.

21:06When you keep rolling with them, even when you're pretty authoritarian, you do it partly because there is a shred of legitimacy. It's quite difficult to just refuse to have any elections at all. So I like to show the legitimacy. Gives you an opportunity to go out in public, the campaigning allows you to mobilize a bit of public support, allows you to do a little bit to discredit and screw with the opposition. So you can usually use an election to disqualify opposition candidates, humiliate them in public. You can use it to split your own supporters in weird ways, but it's it's not obviously about you risking losing power.

21:41It's about you doing a sort of strange pantomime bit of mobilization, but the thing that you mustn't nobody ever forget is that in a way, an authoritarian state is equally worried about public opinion because of course they're terrified about revolutions and coup d 'etats. And so this is part of their general process of trying to make sure that they're not toppled. Yeah, I'll also you know, we've just one of the directions that we've had this week in Iran, which is a you know, theocracy form of dictatorship. And it's interesting, even though you know, the hardliners have won a massive majority as was completely expected because most of the people who weren't hardliners weren't allowed to run.

22:22But the turnout was the lowest it's ever been, which of itself is quite interesting. So there is a significance to that. And also there were apparently five percent of the ballot papers were spoiled, which again is sort of interesting. I'm glad you've raised it. We should do a little bit on the Iranian elections because actually Iran is unusual there. The elections in Iran often do throw up strange things. And sometimes the the clerics have been defeated and more liberal candidates have come through. I mean, every different regime has a different attitude towards these kinds of things and how much freedom they allow.

22:59And that's partly to do with how confident they're feeling. I mean, I remember when the Emerson Manangagua who took over from Mugabi in Zimbabwe held his first elections. He was pretty confident that he was going to win. But he still really went out of his way to make sure that the opposition was disadvantaged in every way they possibly could be. But I mean, the right Iranian elections is interesting. So the president went out and talked to said, thank you and said, what a passionate turnout. And said that the result was overwhelming massive blow to opponents of the Islamic Republic. But then immediately, and even though, you know, you might worry, think that there's no freedom of speech and so far, but there's this thing called the Reform Front Coalition.

23:44And they refused to take part in the election because they said it was utterly meaningless. And she, her line was that she hoped that the low turnout and the sport ballot papers were a lesson for the state. And then she talked about a silent majority that is not happy with what's happening in the country. So it was, I guess, you know, the question is right that there's a pointlessness on one level. Just that it takes it certainly when we see Putin's election. I mean, he will have all the panoply of a normal election. He'll have rallies. He'll have, you know, he'll probably throw up some puppet to have a debate with.

24:16He'll pretend to be questioned by sort of independent media. And it'll just be a pantomime, but then he'll win and the world will move on. But I think actually what's happened in Iran in recent days is more significant just than the, oh, look, they won because they were always going to. What about this one, Rory Mark? Does off -com need reforming? Well, we know what you think about that one. And I think what part of this is about the story around GB News. So, gonna tell us about your views on GB News Well, I really like talking about GB News because I think on one level they're absurd, but I think they are part of the undermining of the democratic institutions on which our democracy depends.

24:55And, you know, we always prided us. We used to look at American television and think, you know, at least we're never going to go down that track. And they're taking us down that track. But they're only doing it because they can. They're doing it because the government is enabling them. You know, the fact that Jeremy Hunt them, as you said earlier, Jeremy Hunt's sort of one of the serious people as it were. But, you know, he did his first big interview as Chancellor on GB News. You have off -com saying it's not a news channel and it's called GB News for God's sake. Yeah. And the reason they say that is that that avoids them regulating is that if it's a news channel, it has to be regulated in a different way.