Piers Morgan Uncensored - ‘ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!” Prof Jiang on Biggest Threat To Humanity | Dog Beats Blues With Support Duck

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

From the Doomsday Clock inching closer to midnight to fears over nuclear war, chemical weapons, artificial intelligence and escalating conflicts across Europe and the Middle East, the possibility of global catastrophe has returned to the centre of public debate. After decades of relative peace and rising prosperity, the world is facing its highest number of armed conflicts since the end of the Second World War. Nuclear powers are testing old boundaries, new technologies are creating unprecedented risks, and even the people developing AI are warning about its potential dangers. So how close is the world to disaster - and what could actually trigger it? Piers Morgan is joined by game theorist known as 'Professor Jiang', Jiang Xueqin, author of the new book ‘Biological War: A Scenario’, Annie Jacobsen, and historian & professor of strategic studies, Phillips O’Brien, to discuss. After all the talk of apocalypse and global catastrophe, Piers then interviews viral sensation Tori Cannarelli, the owner of Barley, a golden retriever struggling with depression, and Louis - a duck who has become his constant companion and helped him back to his old self. (00:00) Introduction (02:08) Doomsday panel begins (04:12) Annie Jacobsen on biological warfare  (13:20) Prof Jiang on fearing ‘zombie apocalypse’ (19:00) Phillips O’Brien on China vs the West (34:38) The Doomsday Clock, AI and climate change (39:44) Dog and duck Barley and Louie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Plague as a weapon in the lungs that is airborne that can be transmitted between people. There is no homeland defense against a biological attack. Civilization falls apart in essentially six days. I'm very concerned about the zombie apocalypse. I go to Skid Row in the evening, and it is really the zombie of populace. The outbreak in the United States of America first occurs in Skid Row. I'm most worried about nuclear weapons. The number of other states become nuclear power.

In the future, AI will control a swarm of drones. It's not AI, this is real. I've never seen anything quite like this. They genuinely look like inseparable best friends. Not since the iciest peak of the Cold War has Armageddon been such a major subject of discussion, imagination, and debate. The Doomsday Clock is closer to its symbolic midnight strike. than it's ever been before.

Millions will line up the next Avengers movie titled Doomsday, just as they did for the biopic on Oppenheimer's fears that he might cause it. All of this renewed fascination is not without basis. Putin's Russia walked away from a key nuclear safety treaty, conflicts royal Europe and the Middle East, where the US president glibly threatens to end civilization and launch the biggest attack since Hiroshima.

The US Vice President talks about nuclear suicide vests in US supermarkets. Chemical weapons are advancing at the fastest rate in human history, and the people who make AI keep trying to tell us that AI is extremely dangerous. After a comfortable generation of steady growth in prosperity and relative peace, suddenly populations everywhere are fed up and hooked on content about what is now the highest number of military conflicts since the end of the Second World War. Well, my guest and I each have fascinating insights and predictions, about this cheerful subject of global catastrophe and what could cause it.

Annie Jacobson is an esteemed journalist, an author of the new book, Biological War, A Scenario. Billis O'Brien is Professor of Strategic Studies at University of St Andrews. His latest book is called War and Power, Who Wins Wars and Why? He's also the author of one of the most popular international substacks, Phillips' newsletter. And Zhang Sway Shin is the... the game theorist turned online YouTube superstar, Professor Zhang. Well, I couldn't think of three better people to discuss Armageddon and whether any of us will still be here this time next year to do another panel, the new three.

So let's go through this. I mean, Annie Jacobson, great to have you back on Uncensored. Biological War, a scenario. So there are many ways the world could end, I guess. the nuclear one, obviously, we can come to. Many people think the pandemic was a precursor to a nefarious power, getting its hands on some deadly biological warfare, a tool. Others think it's AI.

So there are lots of ways the world might end, many ways the world may survive and thrive. But let's talk about biological war, given that's the subject of your new book. I mean, to me, the pandemic, taught many lessons. But one of the key ones was we got lucky that actually it could have been a lot worse. I was told by one of the professors in Oxford who did the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout that if it had been, say, a new version of the black death, then with a 30% 40% casualty rate, death rate, including children, obviously it would have been immeasurably worse. So we kind of got lucky even if it didn't feel like it. But obviously this was, we don't quite know the genesis of

of COVID-19 is the subject of fevered speculation. But let's assume for a moment bad people get their hands on a bad biological warfare of some kind. What would that look like? How likely is this to be happening in our lifetime? Well, the introduction that you just relayed is essentially precisely the scenario I lay out in biological war, a scenario,

including the use of plague as a weapon. You mentioned there was a 30% death rate on bubonic plague, which is true. That black death, the plague of the 14th century, killed a third to a half of Europe. But plague also has a really dark sort of uncle, and that's called pneumonic plague. That is plague in the lungs that is airborne that can be transmitted between people. And that is the scenario I write about, and it's not science fiction. this is science fact. I tie everything in my book to historical incidents or war game planning. And we know that during the very end of the Cold War, after signing the Biological Weapons Treaty,

which made having an arsenal of biological weapons illegal, this was in 1972, the Soviets began developing a super plague weapon, genetically modified to be more transmissible, to be more virulent, hard to be more virulent than 100% death rate of pneumonic plague, but they did that by tweaking the ability of antibiotics to kill plague. And that's exactly the scenario I lay out in my book. And you see in no uncertain terms precisely how civilization falls apart in essentially six days. Right. And, you know, how easy is this scenario in terms of, you know, could you see somebody trying to do this

in a way that could get out of control and kill everybody? Well, maybe never mind my opinion, the journalist. Rather, let's look at the opinion of the subject matter experts who work on these issues at the Defense Department, presidential advisors, pandemic planners, all of whom I interviewed for the book. And what I learned, whereas nuclear weapons are at the far end of the threat spectrum, spectrum. This is an unclassified defense department document. Everyone knows nuclear weapons are the most

destructive. Biological weapons present the greatest overall threat in defense department planning, precisely because of what you mentioned, that there is an extremely low bar for entry. Unlike nuclear weapons that are controlled by a nation's command and control system, you have to have an ICBM, a submarine, a B2 bomber. Essentially, with the with a biological weapon in today's world of AI-enabled computer systems. And bio, you can have a nefarious actor making a biological weapon in essentially their basement. Fascinating and terrifying. Professor O'Brien, welcome to Unsensored. First, your reaction to what you've just heard.

Well, I mean, I think we have to take certain things very seriously. The one that I'm most worried about actually is nuclear weapons, because the way the world has worked in the last four years is we basically incentivized countries to develop their own nuclear weapons, that there had been up until, say, the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an assumption that nuclear threats would not be used to expand. And what we have actually seen in the last few years is that there has been regular attempts by Russia to use nuclear threats to expand the country into another one. And that means that the old system is dying.

The old system that nuclear powers used to say is you don't need nuclear weapons because we'll never use them to expand and attack you. We'll only use nuclear weapons to defend themselves. And that's gone. That world is gone because these threats are now being used to justify expansion. And moreover, the other thing that's broken down is the United States has sort of lost its mind. And the United States was a country that provided a great deal of stability. And I think only now do we understand how much stability the United States provided over the

last 80 years. That's no longer the case. The United States is not a reliable partner. Europe, for instance, is not a continent that is really being protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella anymore. And so what we will probably see in the coming years, five or ten years, is a number of other states become nuclear powers. And that also, by the way, is what we're going to see in Iraq, because the Trump.

the Trump administration is basically giving up on Iran. And so we're more likely to see that the Iranians are going to press ahead with their nuclear weapons. So we'll go from a small number of states having nuclear weapons, and it still is a relatively small number when you look at it, to two or three times that number of states having nuclear weapons probably in the next five to ten years. Most people think they can type quickly. I thought I did too, honed by many years of editing a newspaper.

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description, you get one free month of Whisperflow Pro with totally unlimited words and usage. Use promo code Piers, P-I-E-R-S, in your settings on desktop. And thanks to Whisper Flow for sponsoring today's show. Right, and the problem is that you can see, like, Ukraine, if they hadn't been compelled in the mid-90s to give up the nuclear capability that was on their land, albeit it was Russian, but if hadn't been compelled to give it up, then it's highly unlikely, I think, that Russia would have invaded several years ago. Similarly, you know, if Iran had a nuclear weapon, I'm sure this is their calculus now,

it's highly unlikely the Americans and Israel would have attacked them five months ago. So, you know, people have worked out. They've gamed the system and realized the best security blanket you can possibly have is your own nuclear weapon. But I would say also, Professor O'Brien, it's interesting to me that Ukraine, who've been far more indomitable, perhaps, in this war than many thought they would be,

they are now striking with some impunity into the heart of Russia, you know, using drones to get into Moscow and so on. And yet at the moment, there's been no sense that Russia will deploy any kind of nuclear weapon. Now, is it wishful thinking to think that this is kind of called Putin's bluff,

that he would never do that because of the immediate sense that he'd be vaporized, which is what prevents the big powers using them on each other. Or is it just, on my part, wishful thinking that he still might contemplate it, perhaps thinking, even if I do, no one's going to want to launch a nuclear war? Well, that's, I think, a very astute point.

What was interesting is the United States believed in 2022, 22, 23, that Russia might go nuclear and really adjusted as policy did not help Ukraine that much in the way that it could have, because it was afraid of triggering a Russian nuclear response. The Ukrainians never believed the Russians would go nuclear. So the Ukrainians have always been like, no, this is ridiculous. They can't afford to go nuclear for a number of reasons. And I don't know how technical you want me to get. But basically the risks of going nuclear don't justify any strategic advantage.

And so the Ukrainians have pressed ahead and done what they wanted. But everybody else was saying, no, no, no, you must react to the threat of Russia nuclear ones. But what we've seen is the new world shows if you have those weapons, you get advantages. And that's the part that will be unable to walk back. Russia has had massive advantages over the last four to five years because it's had nuclear weapons. And that, from a European point of view, this is going to open up an astonishing discussion. the US goes home? Is there going to be a European nuclear deterrent?

Is Poland going to have its own nuclear weapons? Are Scandinavian countries going to have their own nuclear weapons? Who is going to actually protect Europe from Russia? Yeah, Professor Zhang, welcome back to Uncensored. Always a very popular guest with our viewers. What do you think about these two things? The threat of a biological war of some kind, of the kind that Annie Jacobson laid out,

or the threat of, as you see, a proliferation, of nuclear weapons that presumably the possibility of a nuclear war also proliferates? I think both possibilities are low. Right now, I'm very concerned about the Zomia populace. So for the past 20 years in China, I have been criticizing China as the most corrupt, the most unequal, the most materialistic study on the planet. I've been in LA for the past three years. days and I need to go back to China and a national apology to the Chinese people. Being in LA for the past three days, it really is like setting foot on a Hollywood thriller that is a sci-fi dystopia. I was in the Pacific Palisades last night for a dinner party and the houses there are like

fortresses, these huge mansions that are guarded by private security and which are just beautiful. I was in a $20 million mansion, and then I looked up the hill. There's a $20 million mansion. None of these people, Steven Spielberg, Adam Sandler, our neighbors, none of these people know each other. They're all in their own, like, self-contained universes. At the dinner party, I'm sitting next to Max Blumentfall, and he says to me, hey, maybe we should go visit Skid Row.

And I think that's the best suggestion that everyone has ever asked me. So we get in a car, we go to Skid Row in the evening, and it is really the zombie apocalypse. You've got like blocks and blocks of homeless people. There's this black woman who's naked rolling around the streets. A lot of them were on drugs. And it just seems to me absurd

that in the wealthiest country in the history of humanity, you could have this desperate form of poverty. The same time, what's happening is that rather than focus on internal issues, on internal corruption and equality, the Americans choose to fight these silly, pointless wars overseas. So I'm much more worried about internal tension, internal decay, than I am about nuclear warfare

or biological warfare. I'm saying at a hotel in Santa Monica, it's a luxurious hotel. I'm literally living with real-life Ken and Barbie dolls, just beautiful people. In the evening, I go out, and it's all just homeless people. And outside my hotel room, there's just man who is homeless, who is mentally ill, and he's just shouting and cursing the entire night. Thankfully, the hotel gave us earbuds.

But this is the world we're living in where society's suffering from internal decay. And rather than confront the issue, we just put on our earbuds and put our hand in the sand and live in our fortresses. But the reality is that this eternal decay will just spread and spread, And that's a real threat to humanity today. What is the difference then between, because I'm in LA as well, I wouldn't see it as quite as stark as you do, but I get your point. But what is the difference between, say, what you're seeing here and China at the moment?

Well, I would say just extreme individualism of the Western world. Whereas in China, we focus on family, we focus on community, so we don't really have much of a homeless problem, because we think that if our brother is suffering issue, We welcome the brother into our household and accommodate him until he gets well. But here in the United States, everyone just left a friend for himself.

So if you make one mistake, you know, maybe you're doing well, but, you know, you get sick and the health care bill overwhelms you. You go bankrupt. You're on the streets. It is trotches to think that in the welfare society in the world, millions of people are just being left behind. half the country can't even afford like a $20.50 emergency.

I'd love to comment on that, if I may. As an American on the panel, what do you feel about this? I mean, look, if anyone's looking for a debate, they are not going to get it for me because I completely agree with what Professor Jang just said. And I live in Los Angeles. And I want to walk my book over to your hotel because, in essence, you just took a major thread of my book and relayed it. because I address the outbreak in Los Angeles, the outbreak in the United States of America

first occurs in Skid Row, precisely for the reasons that you pointed out that I wanted to point out, which is what underpins my narrative on top of being sort of a national security cautionary tale is the fact that America today is like schizophrenic about its own reality of what is happening within its own borders.

One of the shocking things, that was said to me by a Defense Department official who used to war game these scenarios at the Office of Net Assessment under the very famous Andy Marshall. He said, there is no homeland defense against a biological attack or incident, which is an accident, only something you can do

to mitigate extermination. And when you think of that coupled with the scenario, the reality that Professor Zhang just painted about my own city, then you're going to be you realize America has a really big problem that is only going to explode elsewhere, precisely what your other guest said, like drawing back from its partnerships around the world. I believe this all has to do with the fact that there is this complete disconnect between reality and fantasy here in the United States.

It needs to be addressed or we're circling the drain. If I might say something? Professor, yes, you can. I was going to bring you in at you. I was just going to ask you, Professor Bryant, before you were. respond. Well, respond first of all, then I'll put my point to you here. Sure. I mean, not for Mr. Jang, I mean, I find that was a very romantic picture of China. China is an oppressive dictatorship. And to somehow present China as that rose-colored society,

vis-a-vis a very messy Western. And the United States is a messy Western society, I think completely distorts the reality of between the two. I mean, China, we don't know what's actually going on in a lot of China because it is quite a dictatorial controlled society. So I would think that we need to step back and have a little perspective on that. I think the real problem in the West is the growth of authoritarian figures. It's because it's becoming more like China politically with sort of real strong men trying to put in price their individual visions. And we don't have checks and balances like we used to. We don't have the more liberal system that we used to have. So in many ways, we're becoming more like China. And that's not a

good thing. Yeah, I mean, the question I was going to put to you was somebody who obviously knows his history, you know, history is littered with seemingly unbeatable empires, Rome being a classic example, which everybody assumed would just go on bestriding the globe like this colossus, but they all end, right? And the big question, I think, for the United States is, yes, it's the greatest superpower we've seen in history, arguably, but I saw the latest debt numbers today, for example. And example, over $40 trillion in debt, United States. These are baffling numbers to anybody who understands basic economy. How sustainable is the American business model, do you think? I mean, could America be the modern-day Rome? And just effectively, one day we wake up and it's no longer the superpower we

thought it was. America would dream to be in Rome's financial situation. That's actually a much greater fear to me than this idea that the society will break down. Because the American debt, as indeed the debt in many countries around the world, including in China when you look at the real estate debt, is basically unpayable now. We can't pay back the massive amounts of money that are owed. For the United States, the debt problem is structurally, it's just going to get larger. So there's no way to reduce the debt unless you completely remake government. And it's hard to see how that will happen. And you've got this structural debt that's going to grow every year, and interest rates are going up. So now they've crept up for a number of years. They're getting

up to 20-year highs what the United States is going to pay. So soon, actually right now, but increasingly, a massive part of the debt will simply be to pay the old debt. And that is going to set off a chain reaction that I am very worried about. Professor Zhang, I mean, obviously China still owns a large chunk of American debt, which most people don't focus on, I don't think, nearly enough. But in answer to Professor O'Brien's critique that, you know, China's not the, I wouldn't say you described it as utopia because you don't, but he was pretty critical of the very oppressive dictatorship that China really is. Would you concur with that description? Yeah, I mean, I think China is very much an authoritarian nation. And I did preface my discussion

of Los Angeles by saying that for the past 20 years, I've been very critical of the corruption, inequality, and the materialism, the author of terrorism in China. I am the world's foremost critic of the Chinese school system. I've been doing so for the past 20 years, being interviewed by major publications like New York Times and Washington Washington Journal and going to education conferences,

pointing out the deficiencies in China's schooling system. So I'm very much aware of the deficiencies in China's society. But then I go to a place like the United States, and I go to Skid Row, and never before have I seen such an upcalyptic image where, you know, you have thousands of citizens of the world's most prosperous society, and they are just being left to their own devices. The state has abandoned them.

And as Annie Jacobson has pointed out, this will be point zero, ground zero, for any epidemic, because these places are rife with contagious diseases. And so contagious diseases, biological warfare, happens not when society develops a bioterical super weapon. It happens when society neglects basic sanitation. That's what's happening in American society today. Just because I point out basic problems in American society does not mean I am a communist.

And also when you say that the real problem is authoritative figures, Let's remember back in 2016 how Donald Trump came of power in the first place. It was because in 2008, Barack Obama was born in power with the slogan of hope and change. At this point, the Wall Street bankers had criminally bankrupted the American financial system, and millions of homeowners were about to lose their houses, and Barack Obama was brought in because people believe that this would be a revolution. Instead, Barack Obama appointed government sex executives, people such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and Bob Rubin,

and they bailed out their friends on Wall Street, surprise, surprise. And millions of homeowners were bankrupted. So everything that's happening today is because of Barack Obama's policies, not because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump was brought into power as a response to those frustration with the meritocracy, with the elite, with the callousness of the American elite. Annie Jacobson, there are lots of different, you know, first of all, respond to that if you want, then I'll ask you a question. Well, I just think it's important to lay down a few facts here because I think the problem for me as a narrative storyteller is that if you can't deal with the problems that are happening, if your own house is not in order, the United States of America, how can you project authority overseas?

It's essentially sort of hollow. It's hypocritical. facts and figures on the homeless issue in Los Angeles and why it's so dangerous to something like a biological incident. That would be a lab leak or an attack. There are 4,000 people that Professor Jang described running around down there on Skid Row. All of them are either mentally ill, physically ill, or a combination of both. I interviewed epidemiologists who work there have told me that the homeless population in America is an extraordinary national security problem. Here's what. There are 800,000 homeless people in the United States. For reasons of economics, for reasons of, you know, sanity of like treat your neighbor well, all those reasons are extremely important and of their own. But from a biological sort of warfare standpoint, what's interesting is that the government, and this is a metaphor, so stay with me here.

The government has spent billions and billions and billions of dollars since 9-11, building up BSL-3 and 4 labs, building up what is called a syndrome. syndromic surveillance system. We have 7,000 ERs across America that feed data in real time to the CDC so that we can get on top of an outbreak if it happens. But guess who is left out of that entirely the 800,000 person homeless population? The most vulnerable way in. And the point that I'm making here is that enemies and adversaries know this. They actually spend a lot of time looking at America's weaknesses, why isn't America the average person willing to see their own problems right in front of them? Yeah, I think that's a very good point. Professor O'Brien,

you look across the globe at the moment. There are lots of potential flashpoints that could trigger, you know, a third world war of some kind. In fact, President Zelensky in Ukraine started using that phrase as if it's already kind of happening. You know, I read today that thousands more North Korean troops, for example, are going to be pouring in to Ukraine to fight with the Russians. You see with the situation in Iran that China and Russia and other actors are exploiting what the Iranians are doing with a strait of Hormuz. You still have the ongoing issues with Israel and Gaza and Lebanon.

You've got the Houthis and Yemen and Saudi. You've got the potential for China. China and Taiwan, of course, lurking in the background. Any one of these, it seems to me, could, if we're unlucky, through either deliberate malpractice or through an accident, could trigger something really alarming. You know, my son's an actor. He recently played the young man who triggered the start of First World War in a play in London,

guerrilla, right? And it just happened by chance, right? the arts duke happened to go to this particular sandwich store and he killed him and it spiraled into World War I these things can happen on a tiny trigger and it got me thinking about where we are with all these things when you look at all the current areas of conflict what do you what are you most worried about well i mean one one quick thing we have had a pandemic in the last few years and it didn't come out our Los Angeles and so we have to be somewhat careful about picking out the homeless population of Los Angeles and say, aha,

pandemic will arrive there. We have had a global pandemic. It didn't come from there. And indeed, something like Ebola did not come from there. So I would just like- The pandemic, and it doesn't start in Los Angeles at all. It comes from Russia, just FYI. I'm just talking about where it seeds into the population

and also COVID had a one-per- Russia through Los Angeles. It's already seeded. So I mean, but I'm just pointing out the reality. That's all. population of Los Angeles. That just seems to me picking a strange population and saying, because something's developed in Russia,

because there's homeless people in Los Angeles, it'll become a pandemic. I mean, if it's already reached Los Angeles, it's reached populations in London and New York and everywhere else. You should read my book before you decide what it says. But anyways, I'm happy to say. But pointing out of the population.

In terms of the war, absolutely. I think we have to look at the population, the chance of war is going up. And it's primarily because, because the United States is in relative decline. We lived in an American-dominated world from 1945. That the United States was the world superpower. It was 25, 30% of the world economy.

It was by far the most militarily powerful state in the world. It is no longer dominant economically in the way that it was. China has risen. Other states have risen. So the United States economic edge is not what it was. It's weakened its own military a lot. particularly in the last few months, but then also in the last 20 years. It's weakened itself diplomatically because it's offended a lot of its allies and insulted

a lot of its allies. And what that means is the American-led-led-block, which really controlled much of the world for the past 80 years, is no longer there. And with that American-led block weakened, then the chance of wars breaking out across the globe are much, much higher. is there is no stability. The American system is over. Where the next war will come about?

Who knows? But all we know is it's unable. There's not going to be some sort of trying to be controlling system to keep that war from happening. And that means war is going to be a much greater part of our lives, I would say. Professor Zhang, I mean, you know, it is very likely that modern warfare going forward is going to be pretty much entirely automated, I would have thought. in 20 years time, the idea would use human forces seems very anachronistic,

given what we're already seeing now in terms of the way the Iranians have been conducting themselves in terms of the way Ukraine, have deployed drones and so on. You know, do you see a world where within 20 years we cease to see human troops on the ground, for example? Yeah, it is possible. You're absolutely right. So companies like Palantir are developing a communist drone weapon systems. So you can imagine the war in Ukraine, where in the future, AI will control a swarm of drones

and they will be able to overwhelm enemy forces. And I think this technology already exists and they're already testing out in the battlefield of Ukraine. And this could become the face of future warfare. And I think that the real threat to humanity is not the threat from without, but the threat from within. Basically, a breakdown of social contract. So as war spreads throughout the world,

then there will be famine issues throughout the world as well. And you can imagine tens of millions of migrants trying to flee into Russian societies. So for example, a couple weeks ago, there was this 50,000 military age invasion of Siuta, which is the Spanish enclave on the African continent. So basically the Moroccan just let in 50,000 young men into Siota and it was, it seemed coordinated and it seemed a modern, it seemed a new way of warfare, like hybrid warfare. I think

we'll see much more of this in the future. Let me respond to Professor Brian's point about Los Angeles. The issue isn't homelessness. The issue is the breakdown of the social contract. So I was walking around yesterday, and I'm in Santa Monica. I'm not sure where any Jacobson is. I would love to meet you if you're in Santa Monica. But I was walking around. It's like the most beautiful place you can ever be, and just this gorgeous neighborhoods.

And then, like, as I'm walking on the pavement, there's this pile of dog shit, and I was surprised by it. I walked around it. It took me a couple of minutes before I realized that it did not come from a dog, okay? So imagine society where people feel they can just sit on the pavement and take a dump and not care. And then people around them don't even care as well. We're seeing a breakdown of a social contract.

And when that happens, then whenever a crisis happens, then it's very easy for people to become tribalistic and to start to kill each other. So I think civil strife is a very, it will be a very dark. an issue on the next five years. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Annie. You know, I've lived and worked on and off in L.A. for 20 years. And I often tell people who, you know, tell me where should they go in L.A.? I said, well, look, before dusk, I would go to the beaches, right? Santa Monica, Venice Beach, a fantastic fun during the day.

I wouldn't go there once it gets dark, right? In other words, there is a literally a dark side to L.A., as there is to many Americans. cities. You know, the two things we haven't really touched on here. We've got to draw things to a slight close, but the Doomsday Clock is at seven minutes to midnight, the closest it's ever been. We haven't really mentioned much on AI and the impending threat of it getting out of our control and then beginning to self-design, something that Professor Stephen Hawking told me before he died would be the end of the world if that happened. I think we're getting very close to that moment. And secondly, climate change. You know, this is the hottest I've known L.A.

in the 20 years I've been here. Local Angelinos say the same. In England, we're about to have our fifth heat wave this summer. I can tell you that is completely unprecedented. And the temperatures got over 100 degrees several times. So climate change is real. I know that, simply from the places that I occupy during a year. So we haven't mentioned that either. You know, many people think that may be the biggest threat of all. So Annie, let's take this doomsday clock to midnight. What do you believe actually is the greatest threat to mankind? Well, right now, we are absolutely living in a moment where global catastrophic risks is extraordinarily real, whether it's bio, nuclear, AI-enabled, bio or AI-enabled self-design. These are very serious

risks. They're actually called in Defense Department planning near extinction level events, near E-L-E's. This is not, you know, fantasy. This is not science fiction. It is here, it is now. My first six books are history. My present book and the one before on nuclear are scenarios about what might happen. They are meant to be cautionary tales. The point is not panic as much as it is pressure. We have to start applying pressure, guardrails, oversight, accountabilities to all of these existential risks and pay attention to what is absolutely in front of us, or we will have your Stephen Hawking prediction peers. I really fear for that. Yeah, Professor O'Brien, I mean, you know, we talk about mad, mutually assured destruction as being the reason there may not be a nuclear war,

and it has a lot of validity to that in terms of a concept. But if it's climate change or if it's AI, then that concept doesn't exist, right? I mean, if the robots get control and decide to kill us all, that's it. If climate change is as bad and is as aggressive as many scientists think it is, and whether patterns seem to suggest it's getting worse, then, you know, you could see that becoming the big threat. But what do you think quickly is the biggest threat of all?

Well, I mean, I think you hit the two. Two, one on climate change. The frightening thing is we've, I think, decided simply to live with it. And we've given up attempts to stop it at this point. And it seems to be accelerating. And the issue that that faces is that, therefore, the present geographical distribution of population on the earth will become impossible to sustain

because certain parts that had large populations, have large populations now won't be able to produce food, they'll become very difficult to sustain human life, and that you will have massive pressure for population movement that could cause chaos. I was saying in terms of global warming and planet heating up, which we are experiencing, that's a real trip wire if you start making large parts of the world uninhabitable because they simply get too hot. In terms of AI, the issue we face is five years ago, everyone was saying, the Pentagon was saying there will always be a human in the loop when it comes time to making a decision. No one's saying that quite as loudly anymore.

And that is because they see certain military advantages for automating a system. And if the system can make its own mind up, it can act quicker. And if that military advantage is considered so important that you need more automated systems to make more automated decisions, not being slowed down by a human being, then we are on, I think, a very difficult and slippery slope that will be hard to stop because everyone will want to automate everything. And you end up with, as Professor Zhang said,

an automated army. Professor Zhang, very quickly, we've run out of time. What do you think is the biggest threat to mankind right now? I think we're living in the age of the Silicon Age collapse, which is very similar to the Bronze Age collapse. If you look at the Air 1,000 BCE, when all sterilization collapse. What we know is that it was not one crisis.

It was a perfect storm of crises. So all these things we mentioned, including biological warfare, homelessness, armed warfare, AI, climate change. It's all happening at once, and our society is on the brink. This is not World War III. This is the collapse of civilization.

Fascinating. Well, what a great debate. Thank you all very much indeed. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Well, after a big debate about the apocalypse, I wanted to go into my summer break on a happier note. I couldn't find much to smile about while scouring the news headlines this week until I came across the story of Barney and Louis,

a stricken golden retriever suffering with dog depression and the best friend who's nursing him back to health and also happens to be a duck. Well, millions around the world have watched videos of Barney and Louie this week. And alongside their owner, Tori Canarelli, they join me now. Well, welcome to all three of you. Hi, thank you for having us. We're happy that you're sharing this story. Sorry, you have them. Well, you know what?

It just has given everybody something to really feel good about and smile about, amid all the terrible news and awful headlines. You know, you are right now, you are stroking the most famous dog in America with the most famous duck in America in the background. For those, Tori, who haven't really followed this. Just explain very quickly what happened here.

So Barley is our seven-year-old golden retriever. We've had her since she was a puppy. We were in charge of babysitting this guy two years ago. Mother's Day weekend, he was only supposed to stay for a short time. Barley was suffering from seizures at the time. So she was ended up diagnosed with epilepsy, and they got her on the right medication and the right dosage, but it definitely took her personality away

and her goldenness and her happiness and her smiles and her tail wagging. And when Louie came into the picture, we started seeing that again. And even though he wasn't supposed to stay along, he really brought her back to life. And we joke that it was her emotional support duck. So how could we take him away from her?

And they really just develop this bond. I mean, they walk around the backyard all the time. They wrestle. He's like Valcrol usually right next to Barley. And they've really just got this wonderful bond. So it's really been helping her with all of her situation. I mean, it is amazing watching them interact. I've never seen anything quite like this.

I think that's why everyone's been so enthralled by them. But they genuinely look like inseparable best friends. Yes, they are. We get a lot of this is AI. It's not AI. This is real. They're both alive. I can cut hold of them right now.

We wonder if Louie even knows he's a duck. I mean, he goes to the backyard when the gate opens and greets people, just like a dog. He drinks out of her water bowl. He just, he's, he's very funny. I mean, I honestly don't know if he would know what to do with another duck. We have wild ducks come every year, swim in the pool. We open the gate this year. We're like, look at your family members.

Nothing. They like looking at them like they were crazy. So they're an amazing duo and we love having them. It's fantastic. The original post by CBS News has had 33 million views now across the world. Everyone's been watching this, talking about it, talking about you guys. And it's inspired a lot of very amusing reaction, some of which we've collated here. Elon Musk said we need a version of X that shows only these type of stories like Louis and Barney and Bali.

if a dog and ducks is somebody else on X can be BFS, then we should be able to come together as a country. Do you think that Bali and Louis could become the unifying force that American needs? I would love that. I would love them to show people that friendship comes in all ways, sheep's and forms, and there's, you know, they're just a great example of how love should be

and friendship should be, and this is unconditional love, and they're just amazing, the two of them. Many people are saying it's got to be a movie, maybe a Pixar movie. If that was the case, who do you think would be the best? Who would be the best voices for Bali and Louis? We asked AI, and they suggested Drew Barronmore for Bali

and Seth Rogan for Louis. What are your thoughts? Oh, I love that. I do like that. I feel like Louis needs to be, he almost needs an accent, I feel like. He might need someone, an actor with a little accent or something, maybe a little Spanish accent or, but no, I haven't thought about that. I don't know.

What about a British accent? Oh, definitely. That would actually, that might work, Louis. Maybe a little British accent. You know, some people have been obviously, you know, what are CBS News doing, you know, giving air time to such a trivial story, to which I say, we, as a journalist for 40 years, we need stories like this to lift everybody's spirits. Absolutely. It's really a heartwarming story, and it really makes you smile. And that's what majority of our DMs or comments are just telling us how they were having a bad day. And we help make them smile or turn their day around or their, Their pet has also been struggling with epilepsy, so it gives them hope and comfort. And it's just really, really nice to see the positive comments and, you know, making people happy and making people smile all around the world.

I mean, UK, we've gotten comments from Germany and Australia, and we just love it. We like making people happy. That was the whole point. We were sharing it to work friends and my 93-year-old grandma on Instagram. We started it two years ago, and that was the whole point, just to make everybody smile. share their silliness and now we get to share with a lot more people so it's really fun well it's fantastic and i i love the story um but there's one slight negative tory and i want to clear this up with you because we've been told that whilst barley is allowed inside your house

louis is that true and now they're global superstars are you going to get let louis in the house So my 11-year-old son thinks it's so fun to actually open the back door and let me find Louie in the kitchen. So Louis sometimes is in my house. We also have a pool house that has a big accordion door that the both of them are in and out. So technically, yes, he's in the house sometimes. But you're not going to have Louie anywhere near the house. You won't let Louie anywhere near the kitchen and oven near Thanksgiving, I hope. No, never.

Sorry, I adjust, of course. It's a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing it with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate you sharing their story. Do you mind if I pray? True.

Before. Oh, God, help us have it. I want to tell the Iranian regime. I'm going to be your worst nightmare ever. I'm not afraid of you. You can kill Epstein. You can bomb my house. Who are we talking about here?

Iran or Israel? I'm going to be murdered 300 terrorists last week, and I think those are your people. No president should declare an intention that an entire civilization will die. They would happily kill every American. What's your strategy for victory? They would happily kill you as well. You're the bad guys. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, that's my point. Stop reading Hollywood scripts and realize which planet you're on. You should go over there, Sean. Go ahead and go serve. Get your head out of your ass, Harry. Sean, cry more. Harry, shut up. Hold on, shut up.

Hey, Biggin, shut up. You shut up. Shut up. Shut your mouth. What are you? Well, I'm sure glad I'm not part of that panel. This Bible actually, but I think it was this one you took into court. What were the relevant passages for you?

All right. Thank you for asking. How many civilians have been killed in Gaza? If you just do literally, like my kindergartner math. Do you have a number or not? 50,000 minus... the number of combatants that the idea have set. I've asked you multiple times you don't know.

Therefore, your assessment is bullshit. Excuse me. He was a convicted pedophile. I'm not an expert on the rules of America. All due respect to Mr. Bray, it's the same rule pretty much everywhere. If you sexually abuse a minor, you're a penophile. You are effing crazy. Everyone hates you now.

This is a conversation among many conversations between friends. I don't call my friends effing crazy. You don't. Everybody hates you. No. No. The terminology isn't the most romantic, is it? I mean, having sex with a woman and then producing and publishing her vaginal microbiome report, just seems a little ungentlemanly, Brian. It says here. Pope Leo's boss got executed and came back from the dead three days later. He's not afraid of a truth social post. I don't think that's Christianity. I can't actually find the verse that I had that day. Here, as usual, you're just 100% wrong.

You're well known for being a moron, so you don't have to explain weight. One of us is definitely well known for being a moron who's conspiracy theories. What we've got in the United Kingdom is lots of different cultures, not homegrown. Ben, am I right in thinking that all your family then were all homegrown? My father's Pakistani. My father is English. So none of your family are unright. Here's mortgage is stop peddling lies, propaganda and libel.

Why the fuck do you keep coming on my show? the biggest animal in world's fort. Listen, if he wants the box, we can box. Maybe we'd be the shit out of you. Maybe bring Tansombe back up. Maybe you could try. I'm going to say. I'd love Peirz to celebrate your Arsenal win.

Yeah, I do. Any time you want to take me up the arsenal, I'm ready. It's really getting tiresome, Pierce. If you're not going to talk about Iran, I'm just going to live off. I don't give a monkeys what you want to do. If you want to log off, log off. All right, we'll log off. Fine.

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