369. Question Time: China’s DeepSeek, Ambassador Mandelson, and misogyny in politics

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2:00Welcome to the rest of politics question time with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alistair Campbell and Rory, there's a question here from Tom who wants one of your famous explainers. Rory, I don't know why they think you do explainers. I think I'm very explicatory. They obviously think you're better at these sorts of things. Rory, please could you explain on deep seek? Have you tried it? Why did it wipe billions from Western take firms? Why did NVIDIA in particular take such a massive hit? What's your thoughts on the dangers of a Chinese created large language model? The refuses to answer if you tried to talk to about Tiananmen Square or Taiwan.

2:34Thank you says Tom loved the show. Go on then. Explain away. Deep seek was released as an app on your phone. Could download it a few days ago and it is something very, very similar to chat GBT and the way that it works. You type in a normal query and it produces a very sophisticated response very, very quickly. Why is this important? It's important because there were two fundamental ideas around AI. If you and I have been speaking about this six months ago, one of them is that America would always have the lead and connected to that was that these AI models needed to require an incredible amount of investment in chips, water and electricity because you needed to run these huge expensive churning models.

3:23Those two ideas were connected because the idea was that it was only things like Microsoft and Google who would actually have the money and the compute power and the sheer muscle to be able to run these enormous large language models. The cliche as recently as a few months ago was China will always be one or two years behind. We're not going to be surprised if China catches up on chat GBT three two years after we release it but we'll always have chat GBT four out by then. Suddenly China releases this model deep seek which turns out to be quicker and smarter in many, many ways than chat GBT and be ahead of the American models.

4:06Then in addition, they announced that they had managed to produce this thing with very many fewer chips with less use of electricity, less use of water and less money spent on training the model. That affects a lot of things. Trump was about to invest $550 billion in electricity partly because these large language was a problem actually for climate too. These large language models consume so much energy. Now if you were to talk to our friend Reid Hoffman who we interviewed on leading, he would say, but remember he's on the board of Microsoft but he would say, well, you know, okay, I thought we were going to be a few months ahead of China and maybe we're not as far ahead of China's I thought but basically there's a lot of evidence suggesting that all they've really done is intellectual theft.

4:54They've basically stolen chat GBT, repackaged it and released it and anyway the model they released, yeah, okay, maybe it's quicker and smarter and faster but we could have done it. We just chose not to because we were actually investing in trying to get to the next snazier model rather than producing a lighter model. I think that maybe possibly the truth is somewhere in between. It may be that China has not loved something quite as spectacular as people suggested and an end video stocks, they're the manufacturer of the chips that you need for AI, plunged 540 billion and then recovered a little bit, probably overvalued anyway.

5:34So may not have achieved anything quite as dramatic as people thought but it's still unbelievably interesting because it suggests that the US cannot rely on this massive lead and it also suggests that one of the things that's stopping AI being rolled out, one of the reasons for example that we're not replacing all cool centers with GBT 4 at the moment is less about hallucinations, more about cost. In fact, it costs more to run these models than a human, they employing a human in a cool center in Kenya. But if China has worked out how to do it cheaply, then I'll make a big difference. There was something, what's the right word, really, finding the right word for this, the feeling I had on seeing these tech billionaires complaining that their tech and their data was being misused for profit by somebody else.

6:30I sort of thought there was a bit of well the bite to get as bit from time to time, but it just shows you the centrality of these tech companies to the markets. We literally were talking about for 24 hours or so market turmoil in different parts of the world, but particularly the US, because these share values were plummeting because suddenly people think my God, the Chinese can do this better, which of course from China's perspective is a great hit. Of course, there is that political point. And again, how much will people care about this? You and I probably would care quite a lot. Would you want to respect and value and trust something, whereas if you did say why is Chananman square famous, they will give you all sorts of parades that went on and happy events and so forth, and they won't mention what most you and I and most of our listeners would know it for.

7:25But then again, you look at some of the American, let's look at Twitter right now. Twitter is a sea of misinformation and misleading bullshit put out by Musk. So I thought it was a very, very interesting, I mean, Trump called it a wake -up call to the American tech industry in a way it was. Well, it's also fascinating because I put a little tweet saying this was a real game changer, immediately got attacked by an enormous number of Trump supporters saying you don't know what you're talking about, you're a complete ignoramus. And then as soon as Trump came out and said it was a wake -up call, they all suddenly went silent on.

7:58Suddenly your IQ went from being low to being high again. Yeah, I suddenly became much smarter again. The other question I guess, which the US tech companies have betting begun, is the idea that people won't want to share their data with China. And I wonder whether that's true because if you think about what you'd be using it for, there's so many things deep -seek can do so powerfully, so quickly and so cheaply straight away. Are you, are you using it? Yeah, I'm using it all the time. And I'm actually often moving stuff between chat GBT and deep -seek and comparing them. And I'll take an initial chat GBT answer and then I'll feed it into deep -seek saying improve it.

8:35I do they're brewed? Yeah, yeah, they often actually make it much, much sharper and they bring in data that wasn't in there before. So for example, if you were to ask chat GBT put the pros and cons around Heathrow Airport and then you were to take a chance from pasted into deep -seek. Deep -seek would suddenly have all the facts and figures inserted that chat GBT didn't have. When you said earlier today, I need to get back to the hotel for half and I had to do a bit of research. Did you just sort of ask chat GBT and deep -seek, or do you actually read anything? Are these famous books that you keep refer to?

9:06Do you actually read them? I do a combination of an enormous number of things. So as you saw, I've been reading books about Donald Trump's first term. I've also been on the internet trying to get my head around Merts' Five Point Plan. I've been calling my friend Geld Knows. Then I was calling my unfortunate friend Felix who does not want to be associated with my views on tariffs. And then I've been trying to organize those thoughts using large language models. So you're quite right. Part of my preparation is indeed these things. And I think we'll find that we will increasingly be using these as, I think it's like having an incredibly smart 18, 19 -year -old with infinite patience alongside you who you can use as a research assistant.

9:48I do sometimes put in to chat GBT. What do you think Alistair Campbell and Maurizio will discuss on their podcast this week? And I do it after we've recorded. And they quite often get between 50 and 90 percent, I would say. Final creepy thing. And then I'll stop talking right. Final creepy thing. And this was chat GBT. And it wasn't Gemini. And it wasn't deep sea. I took four photographs of my living room in London. And I asked it, who lives here? And it produced three names of which number one was Maurizio. Number two. Number two was Simon Schaar and number three for some reason was Helena Bonham Carter.

10:26But it was it was a kind of, but I saw it, I would be interesting to work out how it put that together. It found a magazine piece somewhere with some pictures. No, I don't think so. I think what it did is it, I mean, it did give an explanation of how to come up with it. It said that it had noticed that the frame around the mirror looked Jordanian, the carpet was Afghan, but it had a jali pattern. But there were also bits of old Porsche upper class English furniture and paintings. And so it concluded this was somebody interesting. History and travel who lived in a land on house. And it could tell from the proportions of the window.

11:04It was pretty impressive. And the fact that it chose me first, I thought was weird. Yeah. Now a question if in Ross, Brannigan in Zurich, what do you make of Lord Mandelossus? And you found adoration for Trump. He was quick to disavow his previous criticisms, which comes across as disingenuous as the best, pathetic, at worse, another example of our tyrannical leadership is normalized when so many other countries see to brown nose, those who otherwise wouldn't see the light of day. What do you make of it? So Peter Madison's our new ambassador to Washington, but he's also somebody that you have known very, very well for many years.

11:41Give us a little portrait of this man who's now been made the best, what should tell us a bit about his life, tell us a bit about his character, and then we'll get on to the number of what he's done. Oh, well, when I first met Peter Madison, he was applying for a job to be communications director of the Labour Party back under Neil Kinnex leadership. And he got that job prior to that. He'd worked as a TV producer under John Burt. And he then went through various stages of staffed him at the Labour Party before eventually becoming an MP, cabinet minister in and out of the cabinet a couple of times, blamed me a bit for him, for the out bits.

12:28Can we pause on that? Why did he blame you? What were the out bits and why might you have got blamed and was this fair? I don't think it was fair. I think he blames me because he couldn't bring himself to think that maybe Tony had made that decision. And also there was in relation to one of his departures from government, it is true that I basically said I've got to have an answer because I was sort of getting her anger by the media. I was about to go and do a briefing. And I think my body language was just not very good. I went downstairs to the lobby room and I said, look, Peter's seeing the prime minister now.

13:05Let's just sort of see how it pans out. I wasn't on form. So I think he felt I was sort of hanging out to dry. So to remind people that the reason that he resigned, the reason Tony Blair decided to let him go and the reason you thought that you need an answer is that one of them was a controversy about, am I right about getting visas for a man who'd been a wealthy Labour donor and another one had been about somebody paying for his mortgage or I got these things confused. The first one was about the mortgage, Geoffrey Robertson, fellow Labour MP who helped him with his mortgage. And then the second one was about the Hindugers getting a British passport.

13:44I don't know, there were wealthy donors but they were very, very wealthy business people. And in both of them, essentially it was the process that became very, very difficult. That being said, Peter is a phenomenal political talent. He's clever. He's done other jobs. He's been a European commissioner. He came back to be essentially deputy to Gordon Brown who's given the title first secretary of state. And he's also, you know, he's always, yes, courted controversy but is a very, very, very smart political thinker and political operator. And in relation to the question from Ross in Zurich, if I mean, I was thinking the other day, if either you and I were already been nominated for this position, there is far more to recant than what Peter Mandelson has said about Donald Trump.

14:35They dug up an interview he did with an Italian journalist, I think it was where he said that I think he said he was racist and he was a bully and very, very mild by comparison with the sort of stuff that you and I have been saying. So he then did an interview with Fox News, would you believe, to say that those comments were wrong and ill judged. Now, Ross says that's disingenuous, the best pathetic at worst. I think it is just sort of saying, well, I'm going to be the ambassador. My job is to try to have good relations with the United States. The United States at the moment is totally dominated by Donald Trump and the people around him.

15:12My job is going to be to get in with them. So I totally understand why he did it. I understand why people like Ross think it's appalling, but it is I'm afraid kind of the sort of thing that diplomats have to do. So let's step aside from ambassadors at the moment and think about world leaders dealing with Trump. So when we saw Kevin McCarthy, the former leader of the House of Representatives, in Switzerland last week, he said that what you have to do is just understand that all Trump's bluster is just that of a businessmen trying to get a deal. And the way to deal with it is to make concessions to him and go and be nice to him work on your golf.

15:51So I guess the question to you strategically, honest, there would be what is it that a leader is supposed to do? And my instinct is that they need to line up that actually this idea that Kevin McCarthy and Trump have that you can divide them, pick them off one by one by inviting them for game to golf. And that's what he's trying to do with Britain and the EU. I think Europe's very unfair and Britain's slightly unfair, but you know, maybe I'll be nicer with Britain than I am with the EU. Actually, we need to form up in solidarity against him. And to some extent, you need to stand up to a bully.

16:26Who actually said, but I think it was Mark Carney who used that very phrase. The only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them. We also told Tommy Vietra about this on this week's leading. And he was very much, I think, in that camp that said, he doesn't respect, he doesn't respect weakness, he respects strength. So that means playing to your strengths. So I would argue just to go back to Peter Mandelson briefly, I would say that from Peter knew he would take a hit with people like Ross and Zurich by doing what did he do that. But in a way, he's playing to his strengths because Peter is seen as somebody who's quite Machiavellian.

17:01He's very good at getting in with people. He's very good at forming relationships. And so he would argue he's clearing the ground so he can actually do the job. We'll see if that works. Jay, all it will take is one sort of thing that Trump spots in a newspaper on Fox News that upsets him and he'll do the same, he tries to do the same as he did with Kim Derrick. I don't agree with you, though. I think that actually a bit more unity between leaders. So for example, I was disappointed at the response from a lot of governments about Trump coming out of the Paris climate accord. You know, I think that was an opportunity to say we will have very constructive relationships with with the United States.

17:43But it's important people recognize that that was an internationally reached agreement, which was having an affair. It was taking the world in a right direction. And it's not a direction that I share. I just think I would have wanted to hear a lot more of that kind of thing. And I think he does respect strength more. Now, if you're if you're the fact is America is a much more powerful country than virtually every other country in the world with possibly exception of China. So therefore you have to think about it very, very carefully before picking a fight. But I think what he's shown what he's being shown by Canada and Mexico at the moment is that when he does pick a fight, there's no point just rolling over you've got to pick a fight back, which is why it would be sad.

18:21For example, if he managed to sort of charm Britain, you know, he might well think, oh, well, I picked fight Canada and Mexico and got to pick a fight with the EU. So what I'll do is I'll cozy up to Britain in a sort of divide and rule strategy. So I don't have a unified G7 or West against me. We're recording this on the day that Keir Starmer has the meeting with European leaders. That might be part of his thinking as to why he said what he said. One thing Tommy Vietroni having common is we cannot stand doorstep interviews in front of a plane engines. Kamala Harris used to do it all the time with the engines going and he's sort of shouting in the winds blowing around the air.

18:59But he said that, you know, Europe's really bad. Maybe Britain won't be so so bad. It's totally a divide and rule. And I think Britain's got to be very, very careful that we don't say, okay, well, that's so good to get that. Let's go and try and get a trade deal. Let's hope it lasts, it lasts longer than the one he signed with Mexico and Canada. And meantime, you know, Britain has got to be rebuilding its relations with the European Union. And that's why we need to rejoin the customs union. Anyway, on that great note, time for a break, and we'll be back soon with a question about Australia.

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21:14Richard Robson, as you will be aware, Australia will soon be going to the polls where deeply concerned about the media's right -wing promotion and the billionaires here that have been celebrating with Trump, giving large donations to right -wing parties. It seems that the cost of living crisis here is really affecting people's opinions on the success of Albanese policies over the last three years. What would be your advice to Albo and the parties to left in fighting back and stopping the LMP gaining power again? We're terrified of Australia turning into America. Thank you. Go on then. What's your advice?

21:47I don't know what my advice is, but I think there is definitely a big American impact on the selection. It's showing itself in Peter Dutton, the liberal leader, the liberals remind people their Tory parties, it were, in very, very, he really has started to strike a very, very popular note. I think from Albanese's point of view, he's come out very, very strong against Musk, which I think is a good thing. He's kind of no messing around with that. I think he's identifying that this sort of far -right kind of global engagement thing is happening. The right -wing newspapers are gunning for Albanese because they always do.

22:28So I think he's got to stand up and be strong. This goes back to our previous conversation. He has got to give a sense of Australia's future and it's got to be rooted in decisions that he's taking. Some of them are already taking, some of them are going to take it if he gets another term. That speak to the things that people really care about, but fight back against this stuff in a way that I think the progressives thus far have been a bit scared of fighting it. Well, it's amazing that Albanese is facing such a big problem because of course, I felt very much, on my visit to Australia, how lucky Australia is compared to Europe.

23:03I mean, many of the things that we would have thought would drive populism in Europe aren't happening in Australia. For example, there's not a massive debt crisis. The budget has got a budget surplus. Australia has also got this amazing ability to balance being really rich in natural resources and really good at services. It's got immigration control going all the way back to stop the boats, but it's also got a very interesting, diverse, talented population coming in. It's got compulsory voting. It's got a single transferable vote. It's got all the structural economic and social mechanisms in place which you would have thought would make it easier to fight populism in Australia than almost any other advanced mature democracy.

23:43So why is it with all that? Albanese is still struggling. He's not struggling in a way that, you know, shaltz is struggling. Last poll I saw on preferred Prime Minister, Dunzon 40, Albanese on 34. Among women, Albanese on 36, Dunzon 31, this sort of populist right wing thing is very much a kind of macho male dominated thing. So that's not terrible. One thing on the last more general poll, the coalition, which is what they call the Liberals 51 % among men, Labour on 44, 4 % undecided women, Labour on 49, Dunzon's party on 46. So it's close. And so therefore nobody should think this is kind of slam dunk the right wing populists are going to win.

24:33I think Albanese understands that the blue collar worker is absolutely key to winning, but also they are the ones that are being targeted in the main by this kind of right wing populist stuff. And so I think you'll see stuff that he will very, very directly be pitching towards them. But no, it's not. It's far from over. Far from over. I mean, should the Labour Party, the self -invested interests from our point of view, making more use of Peter Malorskas, incredible premier of South Australia, who's leading the charge on campaign finance reform, which I guess is partly in this person's question, getting the billionaires out of politics, making sure the masks this world can't buy Australian politics, social media reform, etc.

25:15I mean, there's a real start, right? Or am I putting too much emphasis on one person? No, I think when you get to the federal elections, then the focus very much is on the leader. And that's Albanese. But essentially, you've got to use your big campaigners. And they've actually got a lot of good campaigners, the Australian Labour Party. And they do love a campaign. I'll tell you one thing, which I really think both in Australian New Zealand, somebody should come along and change there. This three -year election cycle is just absolutely nuts. It doesn't feel that long ago that we were talking about when he won.