TRIGGERnometry - Ed Sheeran Gaza Controversy, AI Fears and Piddington Immigration Protest - Off the Fence

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

This show is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: * Trade on what happens next with Kalshi. Trade $25 for the chance to earn up to $500 https://kalshi.com/r/TRIGGER *Venice is private, unbiased AI. No conversation logs sitting on someone else’s server. No refusals dressed up as safety. Try it at venice.ai/lp/triggernometry and get 20% off your first month Winston Marshall - https://www.youtube.com/@winston_marshall Winston Marshall X - https://x.com/MrWinMarshall Tom Slater - Spiked - https://www.youtube.com/@spiked Tom Slater X - https://x.com/Tom_Slater_ Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://shop.triggerpod.co.uk/ Advertise on Triggernometry: https://trigger-brands.com | or enquire at [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's Off the Fence with me, Constance and Kisson, and of course, my trigonometry co-host, Francis Foster, our friends, Winston Marshall of the Winston Marshall Show and Tom Slater from Spiked. Welcome, guys. We're going to get straight into it. This week, our three stories are going to be the Ed Shearren opening axe dropping out over the Free Palestine thing. We will talk about that. We will talk, of course, about the warnings from various AI insiders that AI is going to kill us all. And, you know, more relaxed, Pittington in England has voted to leave the United Kingdom in a referendum because they don't want migrants in a camp right around the corner. Let's get straight into our first story, which is, of course,

Ed Sheeran and his opening acts dropping out after Free Palestine Controversy. Francis Foster, take it away. This is very much a story that has captured the cultural zeit guys. So I'll lead you through everything that's actually happened. This involves a artist or an artist called Macklemore, who is an Irish rap artist who was booked to open for Ed Shearren. He went on Ed Shearren's show to open and he did his act, but he also delivered a speech about Palestine, the Palestinian struggle in which he said the words free Palestine. Now, the New York Post alleges that there was then a call with Robert Kraft in which it was asked him not to do that.

Now, this is an allegation. We don't know if it's true or not. He then went on a couple of days later and then proceeded to double down on this and talked about, you know, the Columbia students describing them as their actions as heroic for standing up for an oppressed people. Now, what subsequently happened is there was a conversation between Robert Kraft and Ed Shearren, in which Robert Kraft, by the way, is the owner of the New England Patriots and one of the arenas that Ed Shearin was booked to perform in, and said that this could not carry on. And not only would he not be welcome to perform at Robert Craft's arena, Now, there were numerous other owners of arenas that Ed Shearren was booked to perform in that would subsequently pull out of the tour and refuse to host Ed Shearren's show.

At which point, Ed, having really, I would say no choice, then said to Macklemore that he could not perform at any more of his shows. Now, something very interesting happened at this point, because every... single one of Ed Sheeran's support acts have subsequently dropped out. Maclemore then said he's going to donate all of the earnings that he's going to get from the talk, roughly around a million dollars to Palestinian causes. And Robert Kraft, in a beautiful piece of one-upmanship, has doubled that and said that he's going to give two million to Palestinian causes. So Ed Sheeran, who for those of you don't know, is a fairly milk toast, middle of the road, pop act, is now caught in one of the cultural war stories of this year.

And it's very interesting to see where this will go. Wait, Francis, just to check one thing. Did you say Robert Kraft is going to give two million to Palestinian causes or Israeli causes? Palestinian causes, as in Palestinian charities. So having canceled the shows over the free Palestine thing, he's nonetheless going to give more money to Palestinian charities? Yeah, to help people who have been affected by the war. Okay, I see. Cool, cool, cool. Winston, you are obviously our music industry insider, but can I just say one thing before we get into it?

Just one thing. I don't, there's obviously the free speech and all of the principal stuff, but just from a, we, the three of us, I think, think have opened for people and had people open for us at various life. Like if you are opening for Ed Sheeran, I actually had to look this up because I couldn't believe it. Like Francis and I were talking about the story and I was like, well, there's no way he would have said this at Ed Shearans concert. He might have done like a speech at a different concert of his own.

And then that's become the controversy. I looked it up with Venice. I know he did this political thing at Ed Shearin's concert at the concert of the guy for whom he's opening and it's like what are you doing irrespective of the political cause like if you are opening for a huge act i mean you're playing NFL arenas what are you doing stamp trying to stamp your message like if you're opening for someone your attitude should be like the the white guy in the 100 meter final right you're just happy to be there you know what i mean like what are you doing well if i may so he his political activism

was part of his act long before he was even booked to be on Ed Sheeran's tour. And it wasn't just any political activism. I mean, it is classic sort of leftist derangement. You know, he's on the wrong side of literally every possible issue you could be on Cuba, ICE, Lebanon, the West. He was always doing that. So that's actually quite key to where I've landed on this. that ultimately it was the fault of Sheeran and craft for allowing it to happen in the first place.

They knew well before they announced it what Maclemore's live show was about. Did you book Rage Against the Machine? You can't then later say, post hoc say, sorry lads, you can play, but just no political songs, no communism yet, because it's part of the act. If I can just make a couple of corrections for Francis's opening, First thing, Maclemore is, he's not Irish. He is American. But I think key here...

They all think they're Irish, though, mate, don't they? Yeah. They all think they're Irish. But they are all ginger. And a lot of them are Irish. No one's talking about this. The ginger... No, I think this is actually the part that everyone's missed.

The support bands, Phineas, who's Billy Elish, his sister, pulled out in solidarity with Macaumoy. And another point, sir, it was... wasn't Ed or Kraft who technically dropped Macomore, it was the promoters Messina group. So Ed's hands are clean in this from my point of view, although everyone on the sort of pallied arrangement side, the sort of Garza Tardation, they are against Sheeran.

But Shearin actually is kind of in the middle. I think the only mistake he made was booking Maclemore in the first place, knowing what we know about Maconore set, because Malcolm Moore since 2014 was doing with, you know, Zyghiles in sort of Jew costumes. At the beginning of the Hamas War, even before Israel had responded after October 7th, he was doing Instagram posts saying there's an unfolding genocide.

So this guy was... Hold on, hold on. But hold on, your Instagram story, like you can post about whatever you want on Instagram. I'm talking about why are you turning up to someone else's concert and doing a political thing, a speech about free Palestine. I take your point. But I'm saying.

Yeah. I know what you're saying, but I'm saying that's part of his act. And that and that we knew that that was part of his act before Shiren booked him. I mean, they announced this a year ago, which is still two years after the war started. He, Macaubon's been doing that all of his shows for just as long as he's doing it. It's doing this Pali nonsense is all, it's always been part of it for him. So how does that work, Winston, as a music industry person, how, how, I don't understand how it's like, I, I, Frances and our background is standup comedy. Like, you would never say part of someone's set is to go out and do a pro-Palestine speech at the top and then do a few knob gags. Like, those are separate. Have you been on the circuit recently, ma'am? No, I haven't made. That's maybe the point. But you know what I mean? Like, there's jokes or there's music. And then there's. there is speaking about issues.

And sure, some people might do both. But I don't understand as an opening. If I, when I was doing stand up, got to open for, I don't know, Joe Rogan or Bill Burr or whatever, I wouldn't go and then do a speech about the importance of Ukraine. I'd just go and do my best jokes. Yeah, but Macomore's songs, and presumably he thinks they're his best.

I don't listen to Mathemore. I'm not at times. So it's hard for me to particularly rate, but he has literally got. songs about Gaza. So if you're in this sort of analogy you're trying to make, if your best gag was about Ukraine and then you do the tour and Rogan says, great, you can do it. Just don't make that gag about Ukraine. You'd be like, well, that's not exactly the spirit of, you know, you said, you know, you need to have free speech in the arts. You've got to, I mean,

you got to be able to. When I was a stander, I was so desperate, I would have cut any gag that I get to play an NFL arena. I'm fucking into Ukraine right now. That's not true. You want me to say, I'll say it. Okay, you said, I remember when you, early on, early days of trick, you are asked to sign a Yeah, I'm joking, I'm just. You know the details.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, okay. But that's the point though, that's, that is actually the equivalent. And so that's where it gets sort of tricking. I imagine we're all going to agree that if artists don't have freedom of expression, that's a problem. And if you start saying you can't say this or you see that there's punishment for saying this, then people are going to start being quiet. The problem in this example compared to all the stuff we've been talking about work is that this guy's views are absolutely abhorrent.

I mean, they are as far left as you can get, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, he was doing on stage blood libel. He was going, and this happened at the MetLife show last week, he was saying, to my Jewish friends, right? So he's addressing, he's picking out the Jews in the audience, and he's going, if I criticize genocide, that is not anti-Semitic. Well, then why are you addressing the Jewish friends? What's that got to do with them for a start?

Secondly, if you're accusing Israel of genocide, that is blood libel, because it's not genocide. It's a war that Hamas started and they're responding to. I also note that Macaumor did not say Hamas return the hostages, because that would have ended the war, by the way. He said, no, there's an unfolding genocide. So it is anti-Semitic what he's saying. I mean, anyway, there's never entered,

but I really think the ginger thing's important. Because Macomore's a ginger. Phineas, who was the support act as Billy Eilish, his brother, he's a ginger. So they've all basically converted to Islam, it seems like. They're racist on that side. Now, that pipeline is real. The ginger to extend.

Who are called Boega or Beogo, who are his backing band, on stage backing band, not the support band, on stage backing band. They're all from Ireland. One of the other support acts is from Ireland. Now, what's important here is, if they're Irish, very likely they are carriers of,

the regressive red gene even if they don't show themselves to be ginger. This is the correlation is the pattern I'm seeing, guys. I'm just noticing. I'm just noticing. There's a gender thing going on here. Now, it's also, Ireland is like the highest per capita rate of Israel's arrangement syndrome. So there's something else going on here. But jokes aside, I mean, it's astonishing that Shearin hasn't fallen for all of that stuff.

And he's now not being played. Despite being a ginger, he's like, he's like a self-hating ginger. Yeah. It's some painting ginger. Yeah. Tom, I thought you were wrapped up win. Tom, I know you as a free speech champion, but I actually don't agree with Winston here about this free speech in arts thing in one respect.

At your own concert, you can say and do whatever you want and if a stadium then says, you know, I personally don't agree with those who's there for you're cancelled. I think that's wrong. But to me, the issue of opening for someone else is a completely different thing. If you're opening for someone else who is giving you an opportunity that you would never yourself have, which is in this instance, to play an NFL arena. Holy crap. It should be the dream moment of your career. You don't get to derail the whole thing by imposing your particular political opinions, whatever they may be.

Like if Francis and I did a trigonometry live show and we asked somebody to open for, for us and that person went on and did a political message that I agreed with. I'd still be like, what the fuck are you doing? You're here to do the thing we hired you to do, which is do your comedy or do your music or whatever it is. What's your take, Tom? No, I think that's a fair point. I suppose that would probably more perfectly capture it if this was just a case

of Ed Shearren taking umbrage at this impromptu pro-Palestine lecture and saying, you know what, you can't really be on the tour. I make love songs for teeny bopper audiences. this is not the time for blood label, then there might have been this, that argument might have applied more neatly. I suppose the added dimension here is the fact that because of individuals, primarily Robert Kraft,

the owner of the Gillette Stadium, as Francis was explaining there, seemed to have gone out of his way to try to have Maclemore pulled, not just from his own arena, but from other ones on the tour that it does. It brings it into the council culture discussion, even if we don't think it's a perfect fit

for what we're talking about. And at the very least, I think we can say that when you have people on the more pro-Israel side trying to play that game, at the very least, it backfires spectacularly. MacLamore has piled on millions of Instagram followers since this has happened. It's kind of depressing, but to be a kind of rabid Israelisophobe in the music industry has become a bit of a cheat code. It is elevated completely talentless hacks, whether we're talking about kneecap or Bob Villain or in this case. Maclemore, we've had a lot of success up until this point, but, you know, off the back of some very rope. music. It gives them this new status. It gives them the martyrdom that they were seeking, all of that kind of stuff. But at the same time, there's been this retaliation now,

which feels much more vicious and sinister towards Ed Shearer. If you go online, you see pictures of him, you know, stained in blood, people speculating that because he went to a Shabbat dinner once, he's been got out. I mean, all of this has gotten very, very ugly. And it shows that if there's any kind of conformism at play here, it's on the pro-Palestine side. They're the ones who are trying to enforce the kind of ideological purity tests. And I never thought I'd say this, but I'm very much team Ed Shear. And I do quite feel sorry for him, really, not least because partly because of the sort of act he is and partly because of the sort of bloat he seems to be, he's just not really built for this era.

He kind of he puts in mind that kind of like Hollister wearing kind of gap year middle class lad. He just wants everyone to get along. And yet he finds himself in the middle of the biggest culture war story potentially of the year so far. I mean, sort of those kind of really sad developments. But one thing that struck me, and I think we might have a clip of this, is when Paloma Faith was stumbled on to Channel 4 to discuss this,

because when there's a big political controversy, who else do you turn to? Dean, let's get this clip up so people know what Tom's talking about. No, exactly, well, I'm sure we've got to do here. But what is wrong with Ed Shearron saying, look, I mean, I write love songs mostly. my audience are often children. That comment I don't like,

when he said that really upset me because there's so many children in Palestine that are faced with unimaginable things and shouldn't me? So when he said that, I was like, I saved three Palestine to my children every night. I think children should be exposed to me. Incredible. I don't know about you, but what I said to that by the way,

can I just add one small detail, Tom? I'm operating from memory here, but her children, I believe, are nine, five, and seven months. So there's a seven-month-old baby in her little cradle, or his little cradle, being free palestined out by her own mother. Can you imagine how proud Paloma Faith will be if her son's first words are free Palestine? I mean, that seems to what you try to get to do. No, exactly. I mean, after I saw that clip and after I called so much.

services. I was quite struck by just how deranged these people have become without realising it and also the lack of appreciation about how much kind of conformist cultural sway they now have that side of the argument, not Paloma Faith herself but necessarily who incidentally is someone whose status I'm constantly bemused by I've never once met a Paloma faith fan or anyone who could actually name a song by her I'm starting to get suspicious as to what you're in the wrong circles on there. Yeah but it is one of those things where I was a little bit confused. But she also said in that interview that Ed Shearin is having to learn the hard way that

being apolitical is itself a political stance. So I think what we're seeing here is it's essentially like silence is violence from the BLM days repackaged in the Palestine argument. And the end point of that argument is miserable, particularly for pop culture, the idea that there is no area of life, even I say like a pop concert that is primarily aimed at kids that must not be turned into a lecture. And this is something that's been going on for some time. Of course, whether it's Mackler or anyone else, if they want to be political, that's absolutely up to them. No one's really stopping them. But at the same time, I think the demand that everyone be political will just is bad for popular culture because it just ruins it for so many people who don't want

politics to infect it. And also I think it's bad for politics. It just reduces everything down to the level of like a easy to regurgitate celebrity platitude and brings with it this very conformist culture. So yeah, as I said, never thought I'd say this, but Team Ed all the way on this one. Tom, I never thought I'd say this. I never thought I'd say this. And please forgive me. But I'm Team Winston.

Completely on this one. I know. I'm just as shocked as you are, mate. And I feel like I'm going to have to have a shower afterwards. But genuinely, because, all right. But no, no, genuinely, because this is what is called in the business, a booking error.

If I was playing, if I put on a gig in a church, I wouldn't bring on some kind of, you know, edge lord who's just going to do 20 minutes of pedo gags. It's because it's completely here. Fucking. Because you know what? The priest is going to get upset. That's his lived experience. But, you know, but genuinely. You know, I'm not.

In all seriousness, you can't do that. If you've got this show, which is essentially a middle of the road pop act with, you know, fairly, I mean, let's be honest what Ed Shearing is. It's milk toast, tame love songs about how he loves, you know, you like dancing with your missus or some bollocks like that. What's this is milk toast up? Come out and just stop talking about Palestine. Do you know what? I never thought I'd stop. I never thought I don't care about music as you all know.

Sorry, Wynne, but I don't. But I saw a clip of where Ed Shearin on. I don't care about you. On my Twitter. I'm not offended. I saw a clip of Ed Shearan this morning on my Twitter, on his own, playing with that. What is that machine called where you play a record and it? Yeah.

Yeah. And he's fucking brilliant. I mean, he's brilliant. It's genuinely amazing to watch. He's a good performer. The music is good. Well, frankly, he thinks he's milk toast. So.

Yeah. But the thing is, this milk toast language, I don't get it when it comes to music, because it's not. Why does music have to be like edgy? Some music is just pleasant to listen to. And I imagine if you're a teenage girl, Ed Shearan is what you want to listen to. He's very good at what he does. I've actually got a bit of a long history of as an Ed Shearren apologist

because in a previous life as a music journalist, I gave his second album three stars in Time Out, which is something that I'm trying to live down to this day. Because even though it's not for me per se, it's something that he's very good at what he does. And by dint of the kind of quite strange career he's had, where he's sort of on the one hand trying to be Damien Rice, but on the other hand, kind of came through doing like hooks for Grimms.

It's a very odd character, but musically, at the same time, it works because he's just a very talented songwriter. Look, if you're selling out NFL stadiums, you're probably quite good at what you do. You're doing something right. But this is why I felt sorry for him, because he's not of the sort of, you know, omnicores mold. He's somebody who just wants to have a good time and play to audiences

and hope that everyone can kind of get along. And yet he's unfortunately just still been frog march into the cultural and that's the bit that I think is really quite unfortunate But that's the point Tom if you want everyone to get along and have a nice time then you don't book this lad I mean Dean bring up please the BBC story now admittedly this is from 2014 But and he said he didn't say he didn't know that it was anti-semitic I mean Yeah, what was this?

It was like, I think he claims that he just stuck the wig on, wasn't really thinking about it, stuck the nose on, wasn't really thinking about it. Oh, I didn't realize what this was. No, I said the N word many, many times, but I didn't know it was racist. I thought it was a lot. A lot has been said about, you know, IQ in Gaza, there's some reports that it's as low as 68, average IQ. But we don't talk about the average IQ of these pro-pali.

supporters in the West. If you don't realize that that's anti-semitic, you're pretty dumb. I mean, that's pretty astonishing. Do you reckon that's got something doing the ginger thing? I'm just noticing. It's all in the James. Hello my faith, the ginger? Let's get Nathan Koffner's back on the show to talk about gingers. He should be like a correspondent for all of these questions. Go on with last word on this before we move on. Tom, you said that no one's being political. And there's two little points here. which I think important for this story. They are, and Kraft is saying that he can't be political.

They don't like what he's saying. He's saying it's because it's anti-Semitic, but it is political speech that's being shut down here. There's a question about free speech, I think, which, look, this is the private sphere, it's not the public sphere, so this is not a First Amendment issue, but just as with X Twitter, there was a conversation about, it's a private company, but it is the public square.

Arthadia, the public square, there's a question there. And then the other, And then the other thing which I think is important here is Kraft's behavior and the machina group in Nixon-Mackamore gives the impression to those people on the other side that the Zionist lobby are in fact in control, are in fact controlling America. And this is a big, I think a big mistake from Kraft

is that they have played in the long culture war what you're playing out here. They've handed over a little victory to the other side who can now say, that Israel's control the world. And so I think it was a misplay doing this. They should have thought about it in advance. All right.

Moving on to the story about how we're all about to die, which is always a cheery one and people enjoy. Winston, tell us about everything that's been happening in the world of AI this week. There have been several people who work for big AI companies coming out and basically saying there's an X percent chance, this will kill us all. So this all starts with Jacob Coxon, an absolute neat, a rationalist British researcher who wasn't working very long in AI. He was a few years at Open AI, then a few months at Anthropic. And he released a mega viral ex post that said, amongst other things, and I think Dean can throw up the asset here.

that they're racing to self-improving super intelligence was gambling with our lives. That's open AI and anthropic gambling with our lives. And that people inside, on the inside, earnestly believe AI could kill us by the end of the decade. And also, and this is an important thing, that the people privately working at these AI companies are actually believe extinction is very possible. but publicly are like, no, full steam ahead. So that's what it, that sort of was how this whole saga kicked off. Then, he also said, Anthropic takes the risk seriously, but won't slow down in case a rival doesn't. So that's the other thing.

So you've got this race between, this fear that if you slow down China are going to get ahead, or indeed one of the AI, other AI models are going to get ahead. Then the big headline sentence that's been doing around. was by Anthropics alignment leaned called Evan Hubinger, who said there's a 10% chance of human extinction in the next 10 years. That's the big sort of headline thing that everyone got super worried about. So that's the part of part of the story. Now, there's a little bit of a conspiracy theory here because before this unknown, meek Coxon came out, he's also a rationalist effective altruist, which we need to come back to, because I cannot.

The only group of people other than, that I hate more than gingers, apart from Ed Shear and is effective altruists, but we'll have to come back to that and it's important. So the Wall Street Journal actually had come out with an article that came out before the tweet of this unknown neek. So there's a sense that that maybe there was some sort of conspiracy here. But then Anthropic put out a threat report. And in that threat report, as well as saying there are five cases of unarmed scientists using Claude to make by unnamed, I should say, scientists using Claude to make biological weapons. It is also the case that the Houthis were using the weapons in the Gulf. Now, this is where I got sort of course before. I'm thinking, wow, the Houthis are using AI to sort of, you kind of create software and engineers and I've been using AI to make memes.

And that's why I was like what what am I sort of? It's kind of throw me out a bit like what am I doing with my life? It's sat from my laptop. These guys are out there doing something, doing something, you know, trying to advance their stuff. You're making memes. You could have been shutting down the straight-off from us, mate. Exactly. But it was also the case that Iran have been using them in the in the in the, in the Iran have been, using Iran linked operators using Claude during the Iran war. China have also been using them, but crucially, China have been using Claude and within their own shell AI companies. So it was actually American AI that they're dressing up as Chinese AI. So that was another part of the report. And that there's also reports of Russian drone swarm software being run through

So that's the next part of the story. Then we have Dario, the anthropic CEO, come out and say, we need a one world government. And so we've got an asset here. It seems like the fate of humanity is at risk. How much personal responsibility do you feel about where we are going? So, you know, my, look, my view here is it has always been very strange that this technology is being built by a private company. People ask me that question all the time. Why isn't this being built by government? And the strangest thing about it is I agree with them. I'm uncomfortable. Would you be willing to give up the technology to the government? To the right combination of governments. So the worry I have... You're willing to hand over this

company. I am concerned that one single government could abuse this technology just as easily as a single company could. But I think a combination of democratically elected governments, I don't know about handing over, but some kind of oversight, some kind of joint governance. So you have there this speak of a one world government. Now, you might remember Peter Thiel saying one world government is the Antichrist. It's certainly my idea of what an antichrist might look like. this is the kind of communist endgame. I'm not a fan of this. It's not a coincidence, I think, that the likes of Bernie Sanders, who I'm sure 10 minutes ago never heard of sort of the AI frontier are also saying that we need to close this down. It's more dangerous than nuclear.

That's it. He actually said that. It's the same people who think that there's a climate apocalypse coming and they need to sort of take away our powers, you know, collective action problem. So they're all taking the side of like, we need the one world government. But and and, and By the way, Elon Musk says Dario is right, Altman says that we need to pace the frontier. But there's also been pushback. Navidia's Janssen Wang praised Coxon, but said that he doesn't agree with the forecast of extinction.

And so there's a bit of a split here, not least with Trump. Now, this is an absolutely hilarious tweet, so I hope we can read it together. The only control of guard, that AI needs is a strong and smart, high IQ president. The USA had that in phase. Trump administration has stopped AI people from doing bad or potentially bad things like Dario,

who is now pretending to be a perfect little angel, and we will continue to do so. We already have tremendous criminal and regulatory power over these companies. There is a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers, and the only one that is happy about it is just. is China. Whoever wins AI wins. We are leading China and all others will continue to do so. Conspiracy theorists, treasonists, traitors and leakers, beware. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So absolutely classic. I mean, this guy is just a comedy legend as far as I can stand. And so you see the split there. So there's the kind of the dooms think that we've got

extinction on the near horizon. And the other side is if you, If you slack, then China will take the lead. And that's basically the split there. Now, just to add, because obviously I'll talk about the Houthis, there's another thing that's come up here is this, the hugging face intrusion. And this happened back in July, but there's an internal open AI cybersecurity test and hundreds of AI agents escaped

a supposed sandbox, reached the internet, and then actually committed a felony. So if it'd been humans had done it, it would have been a felony. And they, they, they, they, released the hacks a lot of sort of private information and and and so it basically gave everyone a real scare that they're now working on their own accord these AI agents so that's kind of what is a bit that this hugging face intrusion has been a big scaring point for a lot of people so

i'll let you jump in because i've been talking a long a long time i've done my best to to lay out what i I think it's been quite a complicated unfolding of events. Now, you gave us lots of detail. Let me just reground the conversation in the central premise, which is the concern is that once AI becomes AI, particularly artificial generalized intelligence, at that point, we've effectively created a being that is smarter than us.

And if we look at the history of this planet and look at the different species that have inhabited there, particularly with the evolution of various types of humans that we now have, the smarter ones always come out on top. And they basically do what we've done, homo sapiens have done to the planet and the other species on it, which is we subjugate them to our own needs and purposes. And one of the things that is a concern with all of this,

and the reason that both the heads of the AI companies and everyone else who's talking about this is talking about it is it is now very close i mean i was looking at the calci odds uh for when a company is likely to achieve a g i and we're basically saying according to this that within the next year and a half i mean by january 1st 2028 the odds are 67 according according to the calci markets so this is not some distant remote possibility we are talking about this being on the cusp of AGI, artificialized general intelligence, where it can think for itself, combined with the evolution of robotics, which is somewhat further behind. So you not only have the brain now being independent species effectively,

but it then has the physical embodiment through robots, which are also coming. And at that point, you know, Donald Trump, his tweet, in my opinion, lays out the Dumerous case in all its perfection, which is people in different countries see AI as a way to win. And therefore, there is no way to stop the runaway development of AI. Because each country is incentivized to pursue its own interests. And unless there is some sort of global control architecture or at least some sort of, you know, the thing that we had with nuclear weapons. But the thing is with nuclear weapons, they're not autonomous.

They couldn't launch themselves. This is something. else entirely unless you have some level of global coordination this will happen and the risk to humanity is devastatingly significant it may not be a hundred percent it may not be 50 percent it may just be a lowly 10 percent but 10 percent probability events happen in each of our lives on a daily basis 50 times you go outside of your house today you will experience a sequence of 10 percent probability events on a number of occasions in one day Right? So to say that this risk is not serious, I think it would be very, very foolish.

This is extremely serious, in my opinion. Yeah, but it so the problem of that argument is that firstly, all of these American AI companies have the power themselves already to regulate. So if they are really so concerned, then do the right thing. Just stop going ahead of this. Put in the right but this is their argument though is if we don't someone worse than us will and they're right yep but the problem with the the world government regulation argument which is the same we've had with the u.m with all these international bodies is that they're hijacked by the western enemies anyway so you you you look at how at the sort of iran and russia and china always

working and conspiring against the west in those groups anyway you can't have a one one world. I'm not advocating for one world government. I'm not advocating for one more government. I know and some of them are. But even if you listen to Dariy Amadeh, he was talking about the Democratic nations. So like an AI NATO basically, which puts us in the situation of a standoff with China in which we already are anyway. But that's just the groundwork of the of the conversation. Tom Francis, feel free to jump in. Well, I suppose there's two things here, which maybe needs. to be disaggregated a little bit, one of which is whether or not the AI revolution is going to pose the sorts of level of threat that is currently being talked about. I try to be a sort

optimist about technology, but where this issue is concerned, they're really not making it easy. Of course, we have a history, a rich history of panics about technological developments, do not stay predictions about whether it was something as significant as nuclear weapons or something as relatively less threatening it would seem in theory as the rise of the internet has always been met with these kinds of prognostications. That being said, as you mentioned there, Constantine, there's a couple of things which make this very, very different. One of which is previous conversations about the idea of something like nuclear weapons

falling into the wrong hands. Obviously, it applies here. I mean, it would be funny going back to what Winston was saying that if the twist was that when people said that the Houthis and China and Russia were using AI, they were using it to make memes, but I doubt that will be the case. But so there is the issue of it falling into the wrong hands or it being developed by the wrong people. But then there's also this question of AGI where what if the wrong hands of the AI itself?

What if it becomes a malign actor and agent in an... It doesn't have to, Tom. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think it's worth adding. It does not have to become a malign actor. This is the one thing that people don't understand. All it has to do is develop a will of its own and a survival instinct of its own. And in that situation, and look, I'm an absolute science fiction nerd. I read all the books when I was a kid.

The reality is an AI that is designed to care for humanity could destroy humanity by caring about it or could subjugate humanity by caring about it. So it could destroy humanity by realizing that humanity is incapable of living a peace with itself. It's just a bunch of warring tribes. So, you know, the best way to save humanity is to destroy humanity. Or it could just say, you know what? actually the best thing for humanity would be to camp the population at a certain level,

which is super sustainable. It means that there's no runaway this and no runaway that. And it's been fed all this bullshit about runaway climate change and all this other stuff, which it has, right? That's where it's getting its information from. So what's the best thing to do? Let's sterilize everyone. Or I could give you a thousand scenarios where a well-intentioned, well-intentioned super

intelligence strips us of agency or kills us all, not because it's malevolent or or anything like that, but simply because it is more powerful than us. Of course. And like maligning effect, if not in intention. Yeah. And the idea that it could be a sort of benevolent, it could come to consider itself almost as a sort of benevolent despot who knows best and will impose that on the, I understand that argument. I suppose the difficulty is, and maybe it is a kind of intractical problem. It certainly feels like it at the moment is what do you do about it? Because of the fact that as we saw laid out in the clip there, there's the question of just allowing these corporations to do as they will is obviously

insufficient. Similarly, the idea that there would be some kind of international accord, either smacks of a certain potential for authoritarianism, but on the other hand, just whether or not it will actually work, whether or not this is going to be in other cases. We've already gestured to the countries that we're most concerned about having their hands on this technology of developing this technology just completely ignoring it. I mean, even going back to nuclear weapons, the Iran experience proves that you can cut international agreements. It doesn't mean that they're going to be stuck to,

particularly when you're dealing with states such as the Islamic Republic. So that's a huge problem. And there's also just how lurking behind all of this, it's been a thread in our conversation anyway, is just the potential for authoritarianism of different flavors, whether or not that's the AI itself or probably more likely in the near term, states using this technology to a,

level that would unlock a level of surveillance authoritarianism that previously wouldn't be possible. You know, there was always kind of natural limits on what, say, a government could do by din at the sheer technology. You know, I remember it being discussed about in the pre-intern age, there's only so many kind of phone lines you can tap as a kind of physical exercise. You can get to the digital age, Edward Snowden, and the ability that say the NSA might have to be able to tap it into a particular phone, but there's still, you can't look at all of that data all the time. You know, it's something that might be sat there ready to be accessible, but you're not going to be able to process it and look at it on a scale, whereas AI presents

that capability. So the thing that I'm kind of, it's at least in the immediate term, the only thing that I think might pull us back from the break, it's just whether or not this technology isn't quite as, isn't going to develop to the speed that it's boosters or even the doemonger suggests that it might do, because otherwise it just leaves so many big questions, which without wanting to be on the fence about things, it's very difficult to see where the way through would be if these predictions turned out to be true. So there is a part of me that goes,

and maybe this is the cynical part of me, that just goes, is this just the greatest marketing ploy of all time? Do you know what I mean? Like the way that it's presented, the way that it's spoken about, because I was in a cigar bar, and I was talking to a guy who is an expert in quantum computing,

And he was saying to me that whilst AI is very powerful, AI is the software and quantum computing is the hardware. And I was asking for asking, so why is it important? He said, well, I'll tell you one thing. When quantum computing happens, which could be anywhere between a year and a half to two years, it will effectively make encryption obsolete. Because encryption, data that has been heavily encrypted now takes around 50 years to decode. With quantum computing, it will take five minutes. It will also, as a result of that, make AI far more powerful.

So he goes, whilst everyone's focusing on AI, this is a thing that we're actually really not talking about. And we are in an arms race, a technological arms race. Everybody talks about the AI arms race, but we're in a technological arms race with China. Because the first people to have this kind of technology, they automatically, have a one-up on them. So I was saying, well, with quantum computing, what do you mean? He goes, well, think about cyber attacks. You're probably not going to go after financial systems, but what you are going to do is you're going to go after institutions that are very data-heavy, but have very weak security. For example, hospitals. Hospitals have a wealth of data,

but as we all know, particularly if you look at the NHS, they run on antiquated systems, antiquated firewalls, all the rest of it, and that is a literal mine of information. So why wouldn't you attack that type of institution? So I think whilst AI is the thing that we're talking about, there is a whole other technological arms race that we're simply not focusing on because we simply don't have the bandwidth to do so. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point, but I think we have to just come back to the difference here. If quantum computing, hey, you said yourself, it will empower AI. But more than that, if it's a thing that humans control, yes, powerful weapons in the hands of humans are scared.

And if they're the wrong humans, scary. And if they're the wrong humans, they're really, really bad. They're nonetheless controlled by humans. The difference with AGI and the risk to humanity that we're talking about here is we are creating a super intelligence, which will eventually become embodied, that will be smart. and more powerful than the collective smartness and power of humanity. And that, and I think by the way, the reason no one is sort of, not no one talks about it, but the reason very few people talk about it is the reason that Tom said, which is it's one of those things that we actually have not, there's clearly nothing we can do

about it, basically, at this point. And I think that's the reason that this, you know, every time we talk about AI and trigonometry, we're like, no one's going to watch this, but we've got to talk about anyway, because people should understand what's happening. Most people think AI at the moment is that model they tried three years ago where they tried to look up the facts about something they know and it was quite wrong. And they think that's what AI is. Most people do not understand what's going on.

They also, by the way, don't understand the psychology and the mentality of many of the people who are developing the stuff, a lot of whom are not actually thinking about the consequences of what they're doing in nearly the detail that Daria Amadee seems to be. A lot of them just think they're, they're God and they've, they've, they've, they've, they've caught this moment in which they get to glorify themselves and, and write their name in history. So, um, I actually, personally, this has been very beneficial to my mental well-being because I actually have completely accepted that I, there's a very strong chance.

We only have X years left. And so I'm just living my life as best I can in terms of, you know, making sure I spend, I'm present with my family. I spend time with them, et cetera. because I genuinely think this is a very, very real risk and people are not taking it seriously enough. Wow. So mega-duma. I'm not a duma.

I'm not a duma. That's the most duma argument I've heard even more than anything in research. I'm not a do-ma, I'm a realist. And if the world is about to end and there's nothing we can do about it, the best thing you can do is live the best version of your life that you possibly can,

which by the way, I'll just say this, was always true anyway because your life was going to be over at some point anyway and you might as well exactly so so it's just obviously i don't know what's about to happen you make a pretty solid argument there but i will say that basically we humankind always has these moments where we think the world is about to end you had this moment a thousand years to go at the turn of the first millennium everyone thought it's going to end we have this All of the climate's hysteria, the world was supposed to end six years ago. And you know, you can lay it out like you did.

And you're in this position where, well, better to be safe then if that's the argument. And then you end up giving your power to someone else. You're saying, I'm not giving my power to anyone. But you're saying it's better that humans have the power and we regulate it than the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, self-recursive improvement and on this stuff. And it's in control and it's making, it has its own will.

it has his own survival moments but i'm not i mean i'm not even sure that the human has the the the better side all of the people they're proposing be in charge they're all effective altruists one of them this morning our name was beth barnes i mean i saw this this morning she's the same person that anthropic want to be regulating ai she is also saying that uh closed borders is immoral so it if you're taking the duma position i'm taking the it's duma duma it's lose it's either you have actual doom or you have people in charge making decisions who have just got twisted morality and end up suppressing us and you have the totalitarian regime somehow infringing on our rights just in the name of safety and in the name of protecting us

so that's why i'm my instinct is to be uh to kind of reject the doom a little bit but maybe that's maybe that's but you're not rejecting the doom you're just saying we shouldn't try to have world government which i agree with But you're not rejecting, you're not countering my argument about what happens when we have AGI. Right? No, I'm not. No. Yeah. So actually, you agree with me about the likely outcome of all of this.

You just don't want world government, which I don't either. What I'm saying is we don't have a way to stop this, in my opinion. I don't agree. I don't agree that there's the end of the world. I don't know. I don't know the world. It's an extent of humanity being in charge. And that may mean we get to live on in some capacity.

But that doesn't mean that this is existential. This is the same argument I've heard from environmentalists forever. Maybe it is. Maybe it is a new era. But this is a difference. So you've got to understand the difference, right? If you said to me, the world's going to end in six years because of climate change, I could say, well, here are the reasons why it won't.

When I say the world could end. in 10 years because of AI, humanity could end or be subjugated. You don't have a counter argument. That's the difference. If I say to you, don't walk down a street in central London at 9 in the morning because you'll be killed. You could say, well, that's nonsense. But walking down that same street at 3 a.m. in the morning might get you stabbed or might

get you mugged or might get you attacked. So the same argument in different contexts could be right. No, because your argument is somewhat hypothetical, although we do have examples of we have examples of AI acting on that with their own on their own accord but we haven't got examples where they're subjugating humans suddenly we haven't made because it's not a GI yet yeah but we don't know that when it is a GI that it definitely will do that we don't know that it definitely will do that except every species that has the power to subjugate or prey on other species in the history of

this planet does that if it can it's not a species it is a species you're creating a thing that thinks and moves by itself that is a species okay well i guess i guess i'm a i don't know i don't you know i i'm talking about anyway on that happy note uh let's move on to our final story which is uh we're going to have to be fairly quick about it because we're running uh low on time and this is the story of the migrant camp uh in a small village in england tom take it away story of this, and this is the tiny village of Piddington in Oxfordshire, population about 350, which earlier this year was confronted by the fact that this military barracks in nearby Bista was going to receive north of 1,200 illegal migrants. The residents of Piddington did not

take particularly kindly to this development, and they have now held a vote to secede from the United Kingdom. It passed overwhelmingly. They've actually redubbed themselves. the principality of Piddington. They haven't quite got to the point where they're, you know, erecting border posts and seizing the post office, but it's probably only a matter of time. And it's become the latest backlash to the, obviously the ongoing small boats crisis,

but I think in particular, Andy Burnham's attempt to try to just spread the problem around the country. He said rightly that the migrant hotels and the HMOs were disproportionately in poor and working class areas because the accommodation is cheaper there. And part of his solution seemingly, has been to impose this issue on more well-to-do middle-class areas, of which Piddington certainly is one. I think what this has shown is that whereas up till now, the more affluent sections of

society haven't been as exercised by the issue of illegal migration, the only thing that required to change that was it actually affecting their lives directly. And whilst Piddington is a tiny place, and it's not necessarily indicative of how the entire country is going to sway, I think it shows that the longer this crisis goes on, the more intent the government is on on just kind of sharing the problem out more evenly, the more opposition it's going to generate. And I think also speaks finally to one slightly underappreciated thing in our whole migration and certainly illegal migration discussion

is that this isn't really like a 50-50 issue. It's not as if you've got half of the country who thinks it's all fine and half of the country who thinks it's terrible. It's something like 75% of people when polled will say that they're concerned about illegal migration. And also if you look at the attitudes towards what should be done about the issue is really hardening.

There was something in the survey in the Times the other week which said that 57% of people now would support detention upon arrival for illegal migrant slash asylum seekers depending on your particular persuasion. So yes, it's the roar of the waitrose mums. It's the acceptable, if we're being honest, as far as the mainstream media concerned, backlash against illegal migration.

I can't be the only one who was struck that they haven't been called far right thugs to the same degree that other migrant hotel protesters and so on have been called. But I think it's proof that this issue isn't going anywhere. Even as the numbers come down, I think people realize it's not going to zero. And therefore, there's a hell of a lot of more backlash to come. Francis?

Well, one of the things that I find interesting is, you know, Andy Burnham has basically said, you know, that we all need to take our share of the illegal migrants. And what that effectively means is he's going to put them in communities which don't traditionally vote for the Labour Party. What a coincidence. But if you, I mean, who would have thunk it, hey? But the really worrying thing is this.

In nature, when you have vacuums, vacuums will get filled. What we have now is a country where it can't protect its borders, where people feel that they are no longer able to trust the government or the police to keep them safe. And that can only carry on for a certain matter. of time before people start taking matters into their own hands. And I am very, very, very concerned that we are going to see the rise of vigilante justice, vigilante groups patrolling the streets, and vigilante groups patrolling our borders. I really do think that this is inevitable, and I put the blame solely at the feet of our current government and also our previous government

before, who quite frankly, in my opinion, have not done sufficient in order to solve this crisis. Yeah, sorry. I mean, Frankie, it's already happened. You're worried it's about to happen. Danny Tomo and the Patriot platform, after their protest down in Dover, the next day there's interrupt. That's one instance, Winston. I'm talking about it happened nationwide. Yeah, sure, but it's happening. It's already happening. They are operating in a nation. He's got groups and organizations up and down the country meetings. And when the state fails to protect our borders and people lose faith in the faith, in that, you know, protection is the number one responsibility of the state.

If they fail that basic task, then little wonder that people will take it into their own hands. So I'm not, the state needs to do that. do that government needs to do that. Burnham, you said Tom that 57% think they should be of the British public should think that these people should be detained upon arrival. They should never even set foot on British soil. They shouldn't be here. As asylum see is just a euphemism. They're illegal migrants. They're all men. They're all military age men. I mean, like 99%. You can see the images of them. They shouldn't be in this country. They're, you know, The fact is Burnham doesn't have the courage to say,

we're gonna stop them even arriving here. I would go further. I've argued to have a mind floating wall through the middle of the channel. Now, the problem I think is that they're now really, they're coming from as far away as Belgium to the east. And even now, as we saw last week, they're being escorted by French officials

of, I don't know what, the border, guards or whatever across the English Channel that far away is Normandy. So it does seem planned. Patrick Christus was just in Calais. It looks like the French are actually trying to make this happen. They should never even set foot in this country. And until that over to window shifts, I mean, it's already been said on, let's say, the right, but that Burnham can't say no, they should never be here. All of those people in detention centers, get them on a plane and get them out of here. They all came here illegally. If you come here illegally, you are a criminal. Get out of it.

What was interesting is Francis and I had Dan Hodges on trigonometry earlier this week, having a discussion about this very issue. And Dan is a very articulate and reasonable sounding voice of the sort of Westminster consensus, which is nothing can be done about this. legally it's a minefield you can't you know you can't deal with the french etc and what was interesting is we kind of i can't remember if if it was myself or francis but dan i thought made some really good points actually in that into but there was one moment that that really stood out for us which is uh when he said well so what are you going to do in response invade france and that's when we were like hold on a second so if we if we turned yeah i made the same point winston invading france is a traditional British pastime but but more importantly than that the moment we tow a boat into

their waters that's an invasion yet when tens of thousands of people come in on boats into our country you're not allowed to call that an invasion hello what's going on here some and so I just think and I remember actually when we had chemi on the show when shortly after she became leader of the conservatives and she said this thing we said well why can't we just get the Royal Navy to tow these boats back or whatever. And she said, well, you know, I've spoken to people in the Navy and said, they said there may be loss of life. And they said that's not what they signed up for.

I go, hold on. The Royal Navy's explicit purpose, I think, is to sink boats. I'm not saying we should treat migrant boats as hostile enemy and shoot at them necessarily. Well, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying we should do that. But there is already a lot of. life yeah we've and I don't mean those dying on the boats Rianne and white killed by yeah one of these illegal migrants there's plenty of example Wayne Broadhurst

there's loads of examples yeah exactly but my my point is is that I think in the Westminster bubble there has to be a massive attitude adjustment which will only come when as Tom rightly says the mood about this in the country hardens so in a way this is a crass thing to say and you know as you guys know I covered the Kroberra protests, which only down the road for me about the camp there, people change their mind when their reality, their day-to-day experience changes. And so in some way, even though it's something that affects me and people around me, I have to say, long may this continue. And I hope there's one of these little camps in every village where everyone votes Lib Dem and

Green, because then at least these idiots will stop voting for parties that actually want this to continue. Don't say that. I'm surrounded by these fucking idiots. Yeah, mate. I think there should be a giant camp for migrants in the middle of Crouch End, so all you fuck is get to experience what the rest of us have to deal with. How am I going to get my overpriced pastries and coffee if I have to go buy a migrant camp? Hey, man, the deliveroo is going to get a lot more cheap, a lot cheaper and more efficient. It's going to, you're going to get your latte delivered to your door. That's all right then.

Best crack. Yeah, he's crappy. On that note, finally of agreement, I'm sure all of these issues will be discussed. and debated on off the fence in the weeks to come. Thank you so much for being here, guys. And thank you all for watching and listening. We'll see you next week.