The Luke and Pete Show - This Isn't a Prank

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

The lesson to take from today's episode is that algorithms will be the death of us all. And what's more, no-one even seems to care. Luke and Pete discuss that, as well as the radicalisation of people they have worked with that used to be normal, before getting stuck into an amazing email about a prank that wasn't actually a prank. You can also get involved by emailing us: [e-mail]! You can also get in touch on X, Threads or Instagram if character-restricted messaging takes your fancy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai, a city that everyone talks about and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 14 flights per week between Canada and Dubai.

Book on emirates.ca. Footy fans. Premier League and Champions League are underway and FanDuel has fresh ways to bet your favorite clubs, like the new two-up money line. Cash out your bet as a winner if your team goes up two goals at any time during the match. Download FanDil today and hit the pitch. Please play responsibly 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem. Call 16-5-3-1-2600. Visit Connics, Ontario. Mr. Lukie Moore. Everything's good in the hood. I don't know why I launched into that. There's a lot of like, on YouTube on my algorithms, I don't know why, but there's just a lot of people complaining about YouTube algorithms.

There's a lot of people talking about Donald Trump. But there's also a lot of sort of good news stories from the slightly sort of militaristic sort of YouTube. YouTube accounts, talking about, you know, Russia is about to fall. The economy's in the toilet. They finally turn the corner there. Ukraine is on the march. And I'll be watching a lot of these sort of videos and stuff. And it very much seems like that's not happening because they've been saying these things

for the last two years. And I just think that I am in a position where the algorithm is serving me things I want to hear and not actually serving me in the truth, Lilley. and I feel like I'm being looked after and cossettant. Algorithms will be the death of all of us. Yeah. Simple as that.

And I think it's also such a pointless extinction. Like we are basically going to suffer the most pointless extinction in ever. Because if you look at all the other extinctions, I can't remember how many they've been, but they've been like, I don't know, say four or five or something. I can't actually remember. that, you know, archaeologists and historians and fucking paleontologists, whoever the fuck they are,

I've said that, you know, there are a certain amount of these extinction level events, mass extinction events, and we're currently living through a human-made one through so many different species being died out. But all those apart from that one, I've been through natural causes, right? I don't know, a big fucking asteroid or a change in the climate or the ice age or whatever. for the fuck. This one is going to happen because we are going to self immolate because we've handed over all of our decision making to a fucking idiot computer program and that no one fully understands, right? So the AI thing about is AI going to take over the world. And I've said this before, you know, a lot of people don't find it realistic that AI will kill us because

they think, oh, I can't imagine waking up one morning and it being like the Will Smith movie I robot, therefore it's going to be fine. And it's like, that's not how this works, right? How this works is artificial intelligence already dictating what you think can do by the device you've got in your hand or your laptop or whatever. And I wouldn't be surprised, Pete, if it is serving you up shit you want to hear because it's so sophisticated. I mean, last time I was with you in person, you showed me your Instagram algorithm, and it was about 25 videos of women with massive tits.

Yeah. So we know what side of the fence you're on? Well, I'm looking over the fence down a lady's top, it seems. As I said, it's like that, I've not asked for that, but I might have clicked on a few. Not my fault, is it? I'm only a man standing in front of a four, full of busters. Listen, on that end of the scale,

a woman has put her tips on the internet. She's chosen to do it, and you've chosen to have a look, right? No harm done, right? On the other end of the scale, making people hate immigrants or poor people or people with different colour skin is not going to end well. And we're already in the thick of that. But people have no idea what they're looking at or listening to and whether it's real or not.

No one knows whether science that's being told to them is true or false. And that means eventually things are going to get very, very dark indeed. Maybe we need to recognize and remind that some immigrants have boobies. maybe I need to go on an information blast on the internet and go guys, some of these immigrants are very sexy and so that's how that needs to go. Are you the best person to be doing that

looking as you do? With your lung problem? With my lung problem. Man, heavily breathing, reminding everyone about sexuality. Now, yeah, it's a weird way. Apparently, the AI bubble is set to burst because nobody's...

I think this kind of new iterative of the image generator Saura too came out this week and it's mainly been you know relatively charming videos of of Michael Jackson stealing KFC in KFC. I enjoyed the Michael Jackson ones. The wrestling ones, you know, you Stephen Hawkins of this world, upsetting in various degrees. But in many ways this new kind of iteration of the image generation, people have been going, yeah, it's still absolute shit.

it's still taking so much energy to do like really quite basic stuff and it can't sort of remember what you asked it last time out and I think this this kind of like the very visceral visual representation of this particular

new AI has really sort of made the entire kind of Silicon Valley going I think the ball might be about a burst in a really sort of messy way because everyone's a really spent a lot of money and it's just great to say you know my take on that's part of it is that everyone those types of people are so desperate for it to be to work they've decided that they that

they they don't want to think about how good it actually is yeah everyone thinks everything's a gold rush all the time and they want easy money quick money quickly but the algorithms are different aren't they the algorithms have proven to be very sophisticated very successful at channeling people funneling them down to more extreme viewpoints um being you know if i've seen um i've seen studies where people have set up five or ten different devices with a complete neutral political profile and decide to go down different kind of routes and every single time they're they're basically funneled down outrage anger and it eventually always leads to not just like right-wing talking points but like actually quite serious right-wing talking points and ultimately like

every conspiracy theory just ends up with uh jew jewish people jewish people i was the There's also, one of the things I would say about the undermining of any kind of confidence and the information one is receiving, there's another great example of that over the last week or two with this guy, Nathan Gill, have you heard of him? Maybe, potentially. Nathan Gill is essentially, he's the former leader of the Reform Party in Wales. Right. And he, I think he was like kind of quietly sidelined and moved out of the way.

and now just does stuff in the background for reform because he essentially admitted to being on the payroll of Vladimir Putin like taking broad... Oh, yes, that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's also heavily linked with the leader of the Ukrainian opposition who was essentially like a Russian puppet.

A stooge, yeah. And loads of funding comes from here, loads of close links with Nigel Farage. I'm not kind of hand-casting aspersions about it because he sounds objectively fucking terrible. But the point I'm making... is that no one seems to care yeah right no one cares right and and and like 10 years ago whatever it was whenever it was right Oleg Voloshin the Ukrainian guy who was on like loads of

different lists being against like UK and US interest because essentially a pawn of the FSB right yeah now no one cares yeah that's the thing the reason no one cares is not because my argument is the reason that no one cares is not because they don't actually care it's just because no one that really knows what to think anymore? Mm. But do you not think that kind of the disappointing thing for me is that, you know, fascists and despots and, you know, tin pot dictators have existed since, you know, democracy or, you know, perceived democracy has been around?

And do you not, the disappointing thing for me is that this is such a pastiche of a pastiche and quite thick people are kind of operating these political groups. And you do sort of go, even for like a dyed in the wall, you know, right-wing maniac man on the street, I do think they deserve a better class of fascists. Do you know what I mean? I do think they deserve, they deserve like a proper politician who needs to be deft, who needs to understand.

instead of just pointing at boats and going, Borts, and while pocketing vast amounts of money from Russia. And the amount of money that Russia is paying is so cheap. It's such an affordable way to manipulate elections in other countries. It's astonishing. We're through the looking glass now. Like, you know, it's very difficult to know which direction is going to go in. I saw Jeremy Clark some tearing strips off Farage the other day.

Like, I've seen Marjorie Taylor Green, like, roll out some quite kind of liberal anti-authoritarian talking points. It's like the prop, it's probably the mad ones, obviously, you know, M-G, M-TG, M-T-G, M-T-G, is very much the is very much the, it's very much the, it's like these kind of writing many actors discovering like, you know, health care, the importance of healthcare and the importance of like, you know, reopening the government and the importance. And the Democrats are kind of like, They're a little bit like, oh, yeah, yeah, come over, come over. He's going, yeah, they're still mental, like, be aware, because they are still conspiracy maniacs.

So with the American side of things, obviously there's a certain element of it where they go to town halls, have strips torn off them, get really frightened and then shit, think what am I going to fucking do? Yeah. But with Marjorie Taylor Green, I honestly just think it's, she is so mad that it's almost chosen, it's almost chosen at random what she thinks. And obviously, she got a lot of fame from being adjacent to trash. So she liked that. And now she's moved on to the next thing, right?

She's not really like... Like, one of the best pieces of advice I was given when we started this business, right, was don't negotiate with an irrational actor, right? Sometimes you get into negotiation with people who maybe want to present a show with you or work with you. And they're so self-obsessed or they're so odd that you can't predict that what they... First of all, you don't know what they want. And secondly, you can't predict how they're going to act.

And you've only got one of them. Yeah, wrapped in your hand and just move on. It's the same with her. She can't be relied upon for anything. She doesn't know what she thinks. But the discourse has become so weird now. I don't think people are properly grasping how weird everything is. I was listening to a show the other day.

What was it? Oh, it was a show that two of the actors from the Sopranos do, not talking sopranos with Maltese and Bobby Bacallar. It was with Meadow and Ajo. They've got a podcast together, right? Okay, right. And they talk about lots of different things. and I saw they had the actor who plays Adriana on there

who's a lady called Drea de Mateo right she is unquestionably mad right I have no idea what her origin story is I don't know I hope she's okay I don't really know anything about her but she did about 10 minutes on chem trails right on the soprano's podcast where the two hosts were just like all right and she's talking about this stuff like at one point she says yeah so I stood under a load of chemtrails and it started raining and I thought this rain isn't right

and so I waited for a bit and they got really cold and it started hailstoning and these hailstones were massive and then I kept one of the hailstones in my freezer and it started growing all this weird stuff on it and then another housestone I had I melted it and I drank it and it tasted weird and these other guys these presenters just going all right yeah you go keep keep doing you go kind of thing and that's like what like this is a mainstream show this is mainstream stuff but that's the thing with the podcast

like I think you feel because it's a podcast about a certain thing or just an old podcast you feel like it's not necessarily an interview and you I think this kind of like access journalism not really access journalism but like people will come on your show and you feel like you can't challenge them

because they're doing you a favour to give you content for your show but I think these guys are mates right okay so I think they're just like oh yeah she's a bit mad but she's her mate so we just have her on But the problem with that is there's been a complete absolution of responsibility, right? So you clearly, I know podcast has become like the thing, everyone does it.

But I remember there was a thing back in the day. I'm sorry to sound boring and a bit kind of stiff, stiff collared, but I remember there was a time back in the day in broadcasting people where you had responsibility for your guests. It's like, they've just put that out. They've clicked that up for socials and everything. We've had certain guests, guess that we've mentioned on this show not that long ago, that we've cut stuff out

because they've been weird or strange and we just sort of thought, you know what, that's probably more trouble than it's worth. You know, a couple of national treasures in there. We've kind of cut stuff out just because we're just like,

well, we have Martin Dauberney on a show once and he's gone completely mad. Right, which one's that one? Martin, he was on Berkhamstead. Right. He used to be the editor of a magazine, Zine.

Right. And now he is a, like, I think a kind of, it's hard to remember all the, all the different. He's basically, he's Lawrence Fox adjacent now. He was a Brexit party member for a while.

Is it the only way you can make money, though? Is it the only way you can make money these ways? But he does like, he does like, GV News and stuff. Yeah, well, that's right, but there's no, you know, there's no Guardian news, is there? There's just no money and,

and there's so much money in outrage and so much money in talking about this, and that, and there's so much money in stabbings and fucking, you know, London being, you know, London-Stan and all that fucking racist shit. There's money in the boats, there's money in, you know, you can't say anything these days, but there's no money on the other side because a lot of the stuff they're talking about doesn't actually fucking exist. Like, look at the way the fucking Trump, you know, Trump this week,

they've, you know, declaring Antifa terrorist group so he can just, you know, again, this fascist playbook, he's just kind of like, It's just such law rents. It's the sort of thing I would do if I was a maniac. I'd vote for you. Well, if I was done...

If your lungs were up to it, you'd be up for all this, wouldn't you? I'd be up all this. I'd be... It would limit my powers as an orator, I would say. But, you know, I always think back to the, the best example with personal experience

I can think of of how radical and how odd everything has become is that I was in a green room once at Sky News with Tim Montgomery. Do you know, Tim? Yes And he was the

You know He created a conservative home He's a conservative guy But was essentially As normal As they come for a Tory From what I could work out Right

And I sat with him And we got I told you this story before But we got bumped off Sky News For Barack Obama doing a speech Yes And so we're sat in the green room For ages

They were like I'm really sorry guys But you know Because you know How far away sky is They're like Oh do you might just stay in And we might need

To see you later So we're just sitting there having a couple of tea shooting the shit. I found like a really interesting bloke. Like he was a bit of a Thatcherite as a kid. He's older than me. But he's a bit of Thatcherite as a younger person. He's a Christian as well. And we just were very different.

But he was a very respectful plight man. I really enjoyed his company, right? And I remember seeing him about a year ago and thinking, what the actual fuck has happened to you? Like, where has this come from? He's like a reform guy now. He loves what that fellow's doing in Hungary. he's a big fucking Richard Tice man

like everyone seems to have been funneled in this way and it's really frightening it's really frightening do you know these the internet these kind of slightly it's it's usually men that were possibly like personally never like

the popular kid at school so to speak and you get online it's a bit of an echo chamber you you know you see these sort of characters who are quite successful online getting a bit of support for you know quite sort of you know what you

would regard as quite fringy rivers of blood stuff in the 1970s and 80s and and now they're getting you know you get that kind of fortification by expressing more and more extreme views and you get more and more success by just you know

I'm not really sort of couching your views in kind of you know half speech just really sort of going out there and just talk an absolute shit and you start to believe it and you spend enough time in the fucking sewer that you sort of think oh well people seem to like this stuff so I'll keep doing it

and I'll become more or more extreme so I must be right maybe yeah yeah oh yeah I must be right so this is a real kind of another good example is um you know this idea that someone like Douglas Carswell

who's a fucking odd guy but was ostensibly for a while at least a mainstream politician right elected MP for a while um he's now on the record of saying he wants to pursue policies like remigration. Like remigration was like essentially, for those people listening to a bit younger, like remigration was essentially the, the territory of straight racists.

Like, proper out there, national front, combating racists 25, 30 years ago, right? Yeah. Now, it's clearly absolutely appalling, but it is. Overton window stuff now, right? It's frightening, honestly. Let me just jump back on something you said earlier because I think it's a really interesting point as well,

which is that, you know this algorithm stuff and this funneling of people down to extreme views and this negativity, essentially? What's not talked about often enough, I think, is that we as a fucking species have always been obsessed with bad news, always. Like, you never, ever get good news running on any mainstream news program,

even before the internet, right? The news was the news and it was always essentially bad, right? And there'll be an and finally at the end which would be, oh, and by the way, did you see that this fucking budgie can say 50 words or whatever or, oh, by the way, interest rates have come down.

Oh, but there's been this and this happened. So it's in us, right? And the thing to remember is, yes, the algorithms are fucking sophisticated, yes, they're clever, but they're only tapping into the darker recesses of human nature, Anyway, so maybe we don't fucking deserve to survive as a fucking speech.

No, we're right fucking miserable sods, aren't we? We're like, with every, in between, you know, everybody's ears is just, you know, Stephen Patrick Morrissey's screaming to get out. We just want it all. We just want all the misery. He's a fucking another one. Well, you know. Peter, let's have a break.

Let's have a break. We come back. I want to do a couple of emails because we've been very, very heavy there. And I want to do a couple of emails that have genuinely interested me. We know you love. the thought of a vacation to Europe. But this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai, a city that everyone talks about

and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 14 flights per week between Canada and Dubai. Book on emirates.ca. today. Footy fans, Premier League and

Champions League are underway, and Fan Duel has fresh ways to bet your favorite clubs, like the new two-up money line. Cash out your bet as a winner if your team goes up two goals at any time during the match. We've also added 120-minute markets, so you can bet into extra time and never miss the late-match magic. From kickoff to the final whistle, you can make a live, same-gate parlay, your way. Download Fan Duel and hit the pitch today. Please play responsibly 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling Problem Call 1866-5-3-2600.

Visit Conaxontera.com. We're back with Luke Peach Shaw. Let's do some bloody emails for Cranetload. Hello at Luke Pete.com is the way to get in touch. So please do that for crying out. I'm really fascinated to tell you this email. I hope you haven't read it ahead of time. No, I'm not. That would be too much prep for me. Okay, fine. So Nathan's been in touch. I love this email. He says, hi, Luke and Pete. You spoke recently about plane hijackings, right? I know I said it's all getting a bit heavy and now I've said plane hijackings, but it's not quite as it seems.

He said, I wanted to share with you the truly remarkable story of a 1969 hijacking of a domestic flight in the US, right? Now, I said a while back, I learned this at uni, that hijacking was like a really, really popular thing back in the 60s and 70s in the US. It was almost like

the choice of protest which is mental. The amount of people who were like jumping on planes and saying, take me to Castro's Cuba, please, was I mean, it's wild. If you go to the Wikipedia page and look up like plane hijack in the US, there's like fucking loads of them.

Anyway, Nathan says in 1969, a flight from New Jersey to Miami was hijacked midway through and diverted to Cuba by the hijackers, which is not particularly unusual for the time. However, one of the passengers on board was a well-known TV and radio personality called Alan Funt, right? Now, I looked this up and it's 100% true, it's definitely happened. Alan was most well known for his popular prank show at the time called Candid Camera. right, a show he created which is regarded as the first ever hidden camera TV prank show. When the plane was being taken over by the hijackers,

many of the other passengers saw and recognized Alan and assumed this was one of his pranks. And not only would they land in Miami safely, but they would get their 15 minutes of fame as well they'd meet one of their favorite TV funny men. Indeed, many of the passengers were laughing when it was announced the plane was hijacked and approached Alan to let him know he didn't fool them this time and asked for his autograph.

Of course, Alan and the airline staff were well aware this was not a prank and actually incredibly dangerous situation and they were all terrified. Alan spent the rest of a journey to Havana pleading with other passengers to believe him this was not a prank and they were in grave danger on their way to Cuba

but he was unable to convince any of them. Look, I think that's a really nice bit of service. That just relaxes everybody because you think it's all a big prank. That's changing, is it? Yeah, so basically, he ended up they basically landed in Cuba

which then finally convinced the passengers and then they were all kept in captivity for 11 hours before being released Oh my God What are the chance of that happening? No, well very low I imagine That's fantastic

I'm a big fan of that But you would be like Well everyone just calm down It's not, this isn't a joke But I'm I'm appreciating That I am helping sort of Do you know what I mean? Yeah

It would be... People are more relaxed than they otherwise would have been. People are more relaxed, I guess. People would be more obnoxious, certainly. But I just imagine the conversation of Alan going, guys, it's not a prank. It's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know I always say that, but it's not. Oh, my goodness. Also, I want to do this email as well, so we'll finish up with this one from Chris. Hello to you, Chris. And thank you to Nathan for selling that story, because I was unaware of that. It's a really good one.

Chris says, good morning, lads. As an American, who was a long-time listener, I was chuffed to hear Luke bring up the Ford plant that built bombers during the Second World War in my town I wanted to bring you a bit more insight did you remember that Peter when I told you that once the US really decided they want to get stuck into the Second World War

they brought all the might of their manufacturing and infrastructure onto it and they started making a ridiculous amount of hardware but Chris says this plant you were talking about in Michigan was called the Willow Run plant it was conceived of in one night with just some rough drawings and by the end of the war

was building one B-24 Liberator bomber an hour and how many people were working on that? Good God. It's an incredible bit of engineering, incredible, yeah, I mean, I think it was the Ford company that did it

and they had it up and running in like by about I think, I don't know, like a few months by the middle of 1941, they had 42 and a half thousand employees. It was three and a half million square feet in terms of size.

And the crazy thing about it as well was that after 42 and a half thousand employees, every month, 8,000 of them were being drafted. Yeah. So they had to keep replenishing them, right? And they built like a whole town next to it for people to live and all the rest of it.

It's an incredible thing. So yeah, thanks for letting us know the name of it. Chris also says, Pete, he spent, I spent some time in Essex about 20 years ago as a scout. And I must say thank you for mentioning all the little shops, food takeaways and goings on in the area because it brings me a bit of a happiness and nostalgia every time you mention it. That's nice. And he's also invited us to South East Michigan to visit, to buy us a beer or three for all the hours of entertainment. Beautiful.

Yeah. Do we have any plans to go to Michigan, Pete? Not on the slate right now. I would say that to be honest, most of the chat around my area is mainly about the new bins. So, like, there's not a single post on Facebook. There's not a single post on Nextdoor.com. That isn't about the new bins, which come into operation. I think the back end of this month.

But everyone's very upset about it. We've only got the bins being collected like every two weeks now. Yeah, same here. We've got the big bins and we put them out. people, there's this one man who is so dedicated to pointing out that he's read a clause in his

house insurance that means that you need your bins, I think three metres or six meters away from your property to have your building's insurance covered and he, in every post about the bins he just gets in there and goes, they need to be six metres away from your house.

What? He sounds like an absolute hoot. Are you friends with him? Such a penis. There's so many penises How many houses are on your street? Well, it got quite a short little street, I suppose. Yeah, probably out 70, 70 houses. But, yeah, everyone's very upset about the bins. But what are you going to do?

What are you going to? It's just some bins. It's just some bins. So I hope, Chris, you find that interesting and bring you some nostalgia as well. But Chris does mention elsewhere on his email. I kind of cut it down for brevity. But he mentions that he was in Thorough,

which isn't that close to you anyway, is it? A half-hour drive away, or something? No. I guess to Americans, everything. I think it's close by in the UK. Exactly. You could get there. All right, Peter, take us out. All right, guys.

Yes, we'll be back on Thursday. Get your messages in about your batteries and that. Hello, at Luke Pete Shaw.com. We'll be back then. Take care of you and yours. Say goodbye, Lucky Moore. Goodbye. And it's goodbye for me.

Pete show is a stack production and part of the ACAST creator network. We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai, a city that everyone talks about and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures. to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 14 flights per week between Canada and Dubai. Book on emirates.ca today. Footy fans, Premier League and Champions League are underway,

and fan duel has fresh ways to bet your favorite clubs, like the new two-up money line. Cash out your bet as a winner if your team goes up two goals at any time during the match. We've also added 120-minute markets, so you can bet into extra time and never miss the late-match magic. From kickoff to the final whistle, you can make a live, same-gate parlay, your way. Download fan duel and hit the pitch today.

Please play responsibly 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem call 1866-5301-2600. Visit connex ontario.ca.