430. Murdoch, Epstein, and AI Billionaires: Is Trump Losing Control?

26:40There's something in that, of course, but the risk is that But you're putting an enormous amount of trust in private companies. I mean, they're effectively saying, we're the good guys, please don't get in the way government trusts us and our own internal safety procedures to handle this stuff for us. Please don't insert government officials into the process because if you do, they won't understand what they're doing. They'll just slow us up and China will win. Why would we trust Musk and Zuckerberg and these guys? Why, what, what, what, what is they done other than make themselves lots of money?

27:14I'd be very clever. What have they done for the world? Why would we trust them? So, honestly, you're, you're completely right. And of course, they can't see that. They see themselves as good guys. Musking or see themselves as saving world, but you're completely right. Objectively, looking, why should we trust them? And as you also point out, their economic interests and this are unbelievable. I mean, how are they supposed to see this clearly? when they are literally making their companies invest tens of billions of dollars into this technology and they stand to make themselves many multiples of billions of dollars off the back of this.

27:53So it wouldn't in normal world make any sense at all to have a company say to you, government get out the way, who the hell does government think it is, government doesn't really understand what we're doing. Let's go. I think there's another question about whether they're actually right that it would have been impossible to get an agreement with China. Now I can see why they think that, right? China lied to Obama about islands and the sea, China often isn't straight with people, but I believe that if you had had a serious conversation with Xi Jinping, the number one thing he cares about is the long -term viability of the Communist Party in China.

28:29If he felt that artificial intelligence was a threat to the stability of the Chinese regime and indeed humanity is not part of a death cult. And he also believes that China may be a little bit behind the US in this. Then I imagine you could set up an independent verification process. Why? Because this stuff can't be done in your backyard. It requires tens of billions of dollars in enormous compute. There are basically only five companies in the world and the Chinese government can do it. These data centers can be seen from space they consume so much energy. So I think actually if you had moved a year ago to try to be serious about this, it is possible that you could have got these processes in place.

29:08But now, and this is the gloomy bed, we're in a world of Trump who has just got rid of what remained of Biden's AI Safety Institute. The UK is a leader in this. The UKI Safety Institute is probably the most practical, flexible, thoughtful thing. Shout out to Rishi Sunak, who actually brought that together. Shout out to Peter Karl, who continues to support Navest and that. But it's increasingly marginalised. Nobody's paying attention to this really good model that we've got on the UK and final question for you. If possessing one of these things is basically the only way you can have any strategic autonomy in the world.

29:44Should the European Union not now be putting everything with the UK and other allies, maybe South Korean Japan into developing its own large language model? Because if you don't have your own large language model, you are completely beholden to the US or China. And the only thing holding you back now as the Chinese have proved isn't actually the scientists and the research. It's basically the money. It will cost a lot, but given we're going to spend five percent on GDP on defense, why don't we put half that defense spending into these large language models and have our own independent large language model?

30:17There's a couple of things before I come onto that. And I also want to press you a bit on why you change your mind, because I I can remember when we first started doing this podcast, you were like really excited about this, really enthusiastic. But on the energy point, you said that there are these data centers that you can see from space, meta -building one that is the size of Manhattan. We've got 500 already in the UK. And the indirect carbon emissions of the big tech companies have gone up in the last three years by 150%. By 2030 it's reckon that these data centers are going to consume the same amount of electricity as the entirety of Japan today.

31:02Ireland, which has got eight of these data centers, a fifth of Ireland's electricity supply now goes on feeding them. So these are, and of course you don't hear anything from the Zuckerbergs of this world about how they're going to sort of bring solutions to that, they're expecting it really else to do that. So it won't surprise you, no, but I answered to that. The question about Europe is yes. In the series we just did on JD Vance when we were talking about that at the end of it and I was pointing to an interview that, uh, a verse of On the Line, the president of the European Commission did recently, which, and it was, it was fantastic.

31:33It was music to my ears. She said, Europe is still a peace project. Europe is not governed by tech, bros and oligarchs. Europe is a place where we don't invade our neighbors and we don't punish our neighbors. Europe is a place of rising life expectancy. I don't know as you went. And if only we could bring that sort of confidence and that sort of vim to as you say, what is going to be the biggest economic societal challenge coming down the track. And at the moment it feels like, I'm not criticizing Peter Carter, I think he's doing a great job. But at the moment it feels like the smaller and the middling countries are sort of really fighting to stay involved in a battle that is being fought between America and China, but actually is being won by the tech companies, including in America and China.

32:22So the dream, I think, would be for the European Union and Britain, which together make 15 % of global GDP, it's not that we don't have wealth, and we've just made this big commitment on defense, to build their own models, and then show that these models, from the beginning, are engineered to be safe, to be not dominating, and to make sure that the economic benefits these models are shared with society as a whole. Create that global standard and demonstrate that building models that are more honest will also be models that are more effective. In other words, challenge the idea that the only way to get a powerful modelist to get rid of regulation and to take risk instead demonstrate that actually building them from the beginning to be more rigorous and honest will actually make for a better model.

33:15So it's not that you're slowing yourself down, you're getting something better at the end of it. Why did I change my mind? It's been very painful. I mean, as you know, I'm entranced by this technology. I use this stuff a couple of hours a day. I'm very close friends with many of the people that are right at the heart of developing these models. Some of whom are understandably very angry with me in saying, I've suddenly become a lullite. You know, I'm like somebody from the early 19th century destroying industrial machinery because I'm afraid of it. And I'm having to find a way to say, listen, I completely believe in the benefits of AI.

33:51It is extraordinary. And I totally believe that the medical revolution that it will bring will transform our life expectancy. I completely believe that it will generate incredible GDP growth at a time when we need it to wipe out deficits. I totally believe in its productivity benefits. But the risks are immense. And those productivity benefits come sadly with machines replacing humans. In Adario from Anthropic, I think has talked publicly about 20 % job losses that is enormous, 20 % unemployment, happening very quickly in economies. And that's before you get on to these questions of risks and risks that we can't...

34:33and that this is where they would argue back against me. So let's say Yoshua Bengio says, there's a 1 % chance this could kill us all, there's a 10 % chance this could destroy democracy. Their response is often to say, well, what is that 1 %? How do you know it's 1%, why isn't it 0 .1%, why isn't it 0 .0%, 1%. Well, the answer is we don't know, right? But I think the other thing they'll say though, or is, yeah, but there's a 30 % chance that we'll eliminate all the sort of terrible diseases, is rampaging across the poorest parts of the world. So the truth is, as you say, we don't know. What we do know is that it is happening, it's happening at a pace and a scale that they didn't foresee.

35:18I mean, Sam Orton and we were in Davos and Sam, I went to think that he was at, and he was talking about this thing about power. He said, he's gonna consume way more power than we thought. Well, given as the climate crisis going on at the same time, I read another thing I read, so that by, I think it's in three or three years time, two years time, these data centers are going to require 1 .7 trillion gallons of water. Okay? What is that all coming from? So I think these guys are, they feel like they're the masters of universe. And I think the reason I'm more worried, and I think this may have had an effect upon you, not me, but the point I'm going to make is that must come afraid in his flirtation with politics has given all of these guys a very bad name.

36:06And they're going to have to work a lot harder to get that name back. Because otherwise, I think people who would normally be sympathetic like you are going to start to ask far deeper questions about what they're up to. Final practical thing for me, people say what should we do? I think let's look at the model of the UK AI Safety Institute and it would be good to see Kia Stammer and Peter Kyle lean into this. So the way to regulate is to define clearly to these companies what we're worried about. For example, we're worried about the creation of new poisons by our weapons. Set clear metrics for what we want them to be looking at.

36:43Set clear auditing procedures and transparency. There's actually a new law coming out in California trying to do this and get out of, I suppose, where we are at the moment, which is the sense that anyone who's scared is a luddite and anyone in favour is on the side of progress and find a common ground where we say, of course, government has a right to be worried about safety and this is a good way of regulating that allows these companies to innovate while also making it clear what it is we're worried about and how we're going to measure and control those things. Yeah, my final point will go to a break and you mentioned the use of AI in Ukraine.

37:22We'll put in the newsletter this really long account of the use of AI in Israel -Gaza. And it really makes the case that one of the reasons there was so many women and children being killed in the early days, because a lot of the killing was being done with using AI systems to identify where people on their target lists were. So they were kind of using mobile phones, tracking them, waiting till the person was, you know, in the home and then bang, there they go. So this stuff is happening now, given the pace at which it's developing, it's going to get faster and faster and faster. And I've got to say, when that guy, Jeffrey Hinton first started raising the alarm, I kind of was still in the mode of thinking, oh well, let's give it time, let's wait and see.

38:13But right now, having spent a couple of days looking into it, since you raised the alarm again, I was pretty alarmed by a lot of things I read. Coming from these people who really do understand it, I don't understand that, what it's technically they do. So on that, maybe I'll have to let's take a break. We'll come back with far better news, Rory. Younger people in the UK are going to get the vote. Manifesto promised made, manifesto promised delivered, good for the country, good for the world. See you then. See you at the end.

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39:58Welcome back to the Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart. and with me, Alistair Campbell, and we're going to get on to votes for 16 or 17 -year -olds, just the reminder to people. Gary Stevenson, we interviewed him over two parts, two episodes, the first one dropped on Monday, but members, Trepp plus members, can get access to part to any time they want, every else, it'll be out next Monday, and also I have that had a little chat, episode six of the JD Vance mini series with David Frum. A great guy, we've interviewed him before, he was effectively Vance's boss for a while, and talk to him about what he thought, what the series, more important, what he thinks of Vance and what he's going to do in the future, and that's going to be out on Friday.

40:50Very good. So if you'd like to join the RESTAS Politics Plus, we'd love to have you. You can sign up at the RESTASPolitics .com and get, for example, early access to episodes and these special member series, live events and many other benefits. Now, Alistair, we are now getting onto votes for 16 -year -olds. And this is one where I think we have had an agreeable disagreement. So let's play this out for people. So you've been an absolute unapologetic champion of votes for 16 -year -olds. I've been a little bit more skeptical. I used to go around a Cumberin schools and as you can imagine every Cumberin school everybody really wanted votes for 16, 17 year olds and I went around alienating my future voters by telling them I couldn't, I didn't really support it.

41:36I guess the in the end it's a question of balance, isn't it? How young you want to go? Yeah. I suppose the vote used to be 21 and then it came down to 18 and it's about balancing The sense that in many ways the 16 year old is an adult. 17 year olds can go off and join the army and stuff, pay taxes. In other ways, other bits of society don't fully consider the adults. So there are restrictions, for example, on access to alcohol, cigarettes. There's evidence about the prefrontal cortex, particularly of young men, Surgeon Blakemore, for example, has done research on this. How did you weigh this all up in your head and why did you decide that you wanted to get to 16 rather than 14 or 17?

42:21Well, I'm not convinced that I wouldn't actually go lower. Oh, and what? Yeah, but I think I told you last year I went back to my kids' primary school recently and this kid gave her to me and said, you talked about me on your podcast, didn't you? And I said, did I? I said, yeah, I'm the one last year. You were talking about lowering the VOTE age. And I said, why can't you lower it to two? And you said that on your podcast. So there's a primary school kid who listens to our podcast for a, no, I think there's six things about right. Why did I fall upon that? Why did I think this was a good thing to do?

42:56One, because I think you agree with me, our politics is in a real state, our political debate is in a real state. I probably have more appreciation of the value of young people than a lot of older people do. I like going to schools, I like talking to kids, I find passion in there, I find a desire to hunger to learn. Yes, you find people who are cynical and you find people who don't care and all that. But you find them in every generation. I have a feeling with our country. I'm going to get a lot of our older listeners will not like this, but I actually think we get less curious and less and more cynical the older we get.

43:35I try to buck that trend. I hope I'm not more cynical, but I just think that the other thing, Rory, we've had so much negativity around this government. This to me is a positive thing to do. I don't think the Tories are reverse it, and therefore I think it's a kind of, it's a genuine historic constitutional change. And the other, the big clincher for me was the Scotchist referendum, where I really, really feel that the 16 and 17 -year -olds added something major to the debate. And I hope that happens now. And by the way, lots of the people, when I've said, I'm in favor of this, and I've just seen interviews the other day, and people say, oh yeah, because you think all the young people are stupid enough to vote labor.

44:17I actually think this is a huge risk for labor. That's why they're to be commended even more for doing it in my view, because I think that they're not very popular with young people at the moment over Gaza, over tuition fees, over housing, lots of different issues. I think there's a real danger with the sort of polarization we've talked before about for Arge's dominance of TikTok, for example, then actually there's a danger that this disproportionately favours parties on the extreme. But that's why I would say if I was the Chief Webber of the Labor Party today and the campaign manager, every Labour MP and candidate between nine election, do a lot of your campaigning in schools, not least because it'll give you more energy for the campaigns you do elsewhere.

44:58What one question to you? Do you feel personally, for example, with grace that when she was 16, there was any real difference to the kind of political judgments she would have made compared to when she was 18. Did you feel that she developed her richer understanding of politics? What I love about votes is, and the reason I believe in democracy is I always felt in Cumbria, that people, regardless their background, had a really deep understanding of their own reality. They had a really practical understanding of their own place, their own job, and actually one of the reasons why democracy works is that when people are voting, if they can connect it to their everyday experience, there is incredible and wisdom.

45:42They come up with the right answer. The issue with the younger person maybe is that they may be living with their parents. They may not actually have a job yet. They may not be paying taxes. And therefore, when they're making decisions on, you know, government spending, planning, etc. It may not be kind of rooted in reality in the way that my kind of ideal Cambrian farmer kind of feels every minute of their day that consequences these things. The only thing I say to that is people are still in school, 17, 18, 16, 17, 18. They're spending more of their time being curious. They're spending more of their time kind of thinking through problems.

46:17Look, let's be honest, Roy, you've been an MP, you've done lots of campaigning, you meet all sorts of people. And let's just be frank about this, you regularly meet people and think, oh my god, did they really just say that to me? Oh my god, do they really think this? Oh my god, do they really think it's a fact that, etc, etc, etc. You get that of all generations. I'll tell you the other thing, I think our politics, we're going to talk in question time about the election in Japan. One of the reasons the ruling party in Japan is doing so badly is because young People are turning to the right -wing populist parties because they think that the mainstream parties are too focused on old people and not enough on young people.

46:58And I think this is a sign of saying, we're going to take your voice seriously. We're going to listen to you. I really hope this changes the way that we debate politics. I really hope that it changes the way that MPs campaign. I really hope that it changes the way that the media think about politics. Don't patronize them. They're now on a par with us. they will get the vote same as you and me. And the point about Grace, Grace I remember used to be against this. She used to say, oh, god, dad, my friends don't know anything about politics, but I don't care. This is an opportunity for us to regenerate political debate.

47:30And I would put it, as you know, alongside compulsory voting and compulsory political education in schools, but I know that that's for another day. Well, let me finish with that and take your I would be most excited if I felt that this was the beginning of real constitutional change. I think the big challenge for our generation is to rebuild trust in human institutions. Big emphasis on the human given all this constitution pattern AI. How do we trust government again? How do we trust our democracies again and believe in them? So, I would really think that this is the moment to be serious about what's going wrong.

48:12How do we get governments that deliver and are effective? So, how do we get this balance between the process and regulations we want to protect us along with governments being able to drive forward? Secondly, how do we think about all the things that are wrong with the incentives of the political parties, all the stuff that I saw in Parliament, which really disgusted me about the way that MPs thought the lack of seriousness. So that's one of the reasons I believe strongly in citizens assemblies because citizens assemblies are like jury is they're randomly selected from citizens and by definition they don't have party political interests.

48:46They're thinking about these things without thinking all the time. How do I stick it to the opposition? What does this opinion policy has to say? Local democracy. How do we really drive power down to the localities, give financial power. This isn't just about, you know, a mayor of Cumbria, but a mayor of Penrith, the sort of French model. He'll write down at the local level. And how do we tap the fact that we have people in our countries who are on the one hand have never been kind of so educated, so well -traveled, so informed about the world, but on the other hand, have never been so despairing about the future angry with their governments.

49:27And if we're going to address populism, if we're going to address these huge challenges of which I now think AI is one of the biggest challenges we're going to face globally, we've got to rebuild the quality of our system and to rebuild the trust in our institutions, we have to rebuild the way those institutions work, which I think goes a long way beyond 16 -year -olds. I totally agree. We both said this ahead of the election. I really think there's a space for a huge review of the way our politics and our constitutional works. But what I like about this and and you know there's so many people when it happens and who the hell nobody ever told me about this.

50:04This was in the Labour Party manifesto. This was something they said they were going to do. So let's not get too aerated about that. And the other two points to make just on the polling. Those who vote young tend to carry on voting. So start them young I say. And the other point to make is that the support for extending the franchise to 16 and 17 U .S. in Scotland among adults grew after that referendum and after subsequent elections. So I think they've seen that it's a positive within the body politic. Finally, the electoral system where I think you and I also agree. I'm increasing the in favour of a New Zealand -style electoral system where you balance a proportion and first possibly.

50:47We're now in a world where a party that gets just over 30 % of the vote can end up with a big majority in Parliament. No, you don't worry too much about that when it's Kierstama who's a relatively middle of the road, old -fashioned politician, whatever you think about him. But we're now getting into a world where Nigel Frasge is in many, many opinion polls, certainly well ahead of the Conservative Party and probably had a Labour, a world in which it's quite possible that he could get 32 % of vote and then you'd end up with him dominating Parliament with 70 % of people not having voted for him.

51:24So I'm increasingly convinced that as social media, as our economies, as all these things drive us to more and more extreme solutions, there's more and more of an argument for an electoral system which tries to deal with the danger of French parties exploiting a first pass the post system to take majorities. Well, you're supported in that view. Of course, by Nigel Farage, you used to be massively in favor of proposal represented representation. Now is no longer. I said last week, one tactic, I think, or one approach that we should take is actually to constantly to call out Farage on his one achievement, which is Brexit.

52:05But there was some amazing stuff this week on Farage. Honestly, I think he's, yes, he's a good communicator, but I think he's a great target for another party. And the Tories have got to start attacking him properly and so have Labour. And when he came out with stuff on crime yesterday, okay, he gets his front pages in the mail and the telegraph about he's building new prisons left right and send to 30 ,000 new police officers who are going to come on board. He's going to half crime in God knows when. It's classic, Trumpian populist bullshit, right? But the argument has got to be won over time.

52:39And I think that he's now, I get a sense that Farage is becoming a little bit more vulnerable. The media is starting finally to put a little bit more. He's still got his fanzines like the male and the telegraph, but the media is starting to put him on a little bit more pressure. But ultimately, this now is a labour doing this should be challenged to them. How do they now start to win the battle of young people on social media? That means improving your social media means doing it better, doing it more often. being inside the feeds of young people much more than the Alkas Farage is all over them.

53:11But secondly, it means having this national story about a national mission and showing that you can deliver it. And that, frankly, is as important to young people as it is to older people. Shout out from my final comment to Andrew Rainer, who's trying to bring back in local merit elections, the transferable vote system that used to exist in the London Merrill where if you don't get 50 % of the vote in the first round, versus second round, that's what allowed Macron to come through in the French presidential system. And I think it was a real tragedy that we got rid of that. And also a sense that this is something I've changed my mind on.

53:49I was passionately pro first past the post. I believed as a constituency MP that the constituency relationship was so precious. And I felt speaking to Spanish colleagues who were in a full proportional system that they had very little relationship with their constituents because they were just on a list and it made parties too powerful. So I think it's really been the New Zealand experience that you can make her balance system and get a lot of the benefits of both systems that have driven me to change hands. So Rory, in the last two weeks you changed your mind on defense spending, AI and first past the post.

54:24I think we should ask our listeners the final thing. right in and tell us what you think is the next thing where he's going to change his mind on the flip floppering chief very good okay and let's see if he's changed his mind on any of the things we talk about tomorrow we're going to talk about Israel Syria we're going to talk about young men and authoritarianism we're also going to hear that Rory has seen super bad which I haven't as we said in the main podcast we can talk about Japan so lots and lots and lots to talk about. We'll see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Bye bye.