00:00:00
These conversations aren't always easy, but nonetheless, they are important. So,
00:00:04
every single year, Professor Ian Bremer, who's one of the world's leading
00:00:08
political scientists, produces this risk report, and it highlights the top 10 biggest risks that everybody should be
00:00:15
thinking about. And today, he's going to talk to me about the three that matter
00:00:20
the most. So, he predicts that a US political revolution is on its way. the US has become the biggest driver of
00:00:28
geopolitical uncertainty in the world and in my view Trump will fail. >> And he also says that the other thing
00:00:35
everybody needs to be talking about and aware of is what's really playing out
00:00:39
with AI behind the scenes. >> They created a model which is so powerful that they couldn't release it
00:00:45
because it would have been an immediate systemic risk to the global economy and our security and artificial intelligence
00:00:52
is eating its users. and we can talk about that. >> And lastly, I want to end on a point of
00:00:58
optimism. Can we take this craziness and turn it into a utopia with realistic solutions?
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This is super interesting to me. My team given me this report to show me how many
00:01:08
of you that watch this show subscribe. And some of you have told us according to this that you are unsubscribed from
00:01:13
the channel randomly. So, favor to ask all of you. Please could you check right now if you've hit the subscribe button
00:01:18
if you are a regular viewer of the show and you like what we do here. We're approaching quite a significant landmark
00:01:23
on this show in terms of a subscriber number. So, if there was one simple free thing that you could do to help us, my
00:01:29
team, everyone here to keep this show free, to keep it improving year over year and week over week, it is just to
00:01:34
hit that subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll
00:01:37
ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.
00:01:41
I'll make sure every single week, every single month, we fight harder and harder
00:01:45
and harder and harder to bring you the guests and conversations that you want to hear. I've stayed true to that
00:01:49
promise since the very beginning of the Dio and I will not let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get
00:01:55
on with the show. Ian Bremer, what is this document that I have in front of me here?
00:02:09
>> This is our top risk report. We put it out at the beginning of every year. try
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to help people around the world understand the risk environment globally. >> So for the last 30 years your firm has
00:02:23
been trying to understand the world to help make better decisions based on the big picture of what's happening
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geopolitically. >> Yeah. >> And every year your firm releases this top risk report.
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>> The 2026 one appears to be pretty prophetic because a lot of things that
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you list as the top risks are playing out before our eyes. For anyone that hasn't read this report, what are the
00:02:45
most important subjects? You wrote this in January. We're now sat here in April,
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I believe. >> What are the most important subjects of the top 10 risks that you think we
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should talk about today? I think that there are three that are really big. Um, the first is that the United States has
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become the biggest driver of risk, the biggest driver of geopolitical uncertainty in the world. And we see
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that with the tariffs. We see that with Venezuela. We see it with Greenland. We see it with Iran. I mean, if there was
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that level of uncertainty in a smaller political system, and that happens all the time, we wouldn't care as much
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because the global impact would not matter. But everyone out there is affected by even small changes in the
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United States. Suddenly, big changes in the United States. The Americans are saying, "We no longer want to play by
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the rules that we set up historically. We don't want the free trade system that
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we put together. We don't want to be the global policeman that is paying for the
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collective security. We don't want the open borders that used to welcome so many people from around the world. We
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want a very different set of rules. It's the American system is not being challenged by the Chinese saying we
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don't want the Americans themselves and the leadership are saying we refuse to
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be the leader that we used to be. >> So that's number one. Yeah, that is
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number one. >> And this is a critical risk. >> That is a critical risk. That's but it's
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the most important without any question. >> And again, I say critical in terms of it
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is happening right now. It is overwhelmingly likely. It's overdetermined. Um and the impact is
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massive. So there's no way you could look at the geopolitical order today and
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not say this is the most important thing that is not just driving headlines but that's creating real movement in how the
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global economy works, how global politics works, global security, everything is driven by this change.
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>> And what's the second one? >> The second one is the big question of
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how the second most powerful country in the world is responding to all of that. Now we in the top risks piece talked
00:04:57
about overpowered. Overpowered being the global energy dynamic. How China has been working to build the most effective
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electric vehicles all over the world at scale and the batteries all over the world at scale and the critical minerals
00:05:16
in rare earths for decades now. not just having access so they can exploit them,
00:05:21
but also so that they can reprocess them. >> For anyone that doesn't know what
00:05:25
critical minerals are, >> Yeah. >> and how important they are to our
00:05:29
everyday lives, could you give us some color there? >> Sure. We're talking about all of these
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things that you take out of the ground, whether it's lithium, antimony, >> which is in all these devices,
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>> in every device, in your car battery, it's in your missile systems and your
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advanced weaponry that keeps you safe at home or allows you to go to war against
00:05:53
somebody. I mean, you can't have an advanced economy without critical minerals and rare earths. and and the
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Chinese have been investing at scale globally in that capability for decades now, thinking long term. And a lot of
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the rest of us have not been thinking long term. We're like just in time, globalization. How do we make the most
00:06:15
money now for our next quarterly return? And that reality is making China not a better economy today, but it's setting
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them up for a much stronger long-term trajectory. So, as a risk, you're going
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to ask me to do this. It is not as critical as the US political revolution because this is focusing on 2026 and
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China is playing out over a longer period of time. But it is absolutely severe because the Chinese understand
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that long-term as countries are saying the Americans are less predictable and we're more
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vulnerable to their sudden changes in decisions. Many more countries are saying well we want to hedge and do more
00:07:00
with the Chinese and those decisions really matter. If this continues, if this direction of travel continues, what
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happens next in terms of global order, in terms of the Middle East, in terms of all of these things we've talked about,
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>> Trump will fail. Um, and and I think that the level of policy incompetence
00:07:17
and unwillingness to take on expertise is ensuring that it will fail. He's quite unpopular on so many issues right
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now. He's going to lose in a big way in the midterms coming up in November. And
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that will make him look like a lame duck. and Republicans will start to think about their own futures as opposed
00:07:34
to holding on to this 80-year-old guy. Having said that, we will not have resolved these underlying challenges for
00:07:41
average Americans. So, there will still be a demand for a political revolution in the United States. The question will
00:07:48
be will the next person that comes and captures that are they going to be focused on themselves or focused on the
00:07:54
country? Right? that Trump actually identified the symptoms and was able to benefit as a political entrepreneur
00:08:04
twice from getting elected in free and fair elections. Right. Mostly the reality is a future person. We we're in
00:08:12
New York right now. Zoran Mdani, a democratic socialist, is the mayor of New York City, which is like the capital
00:08:21
of global capitalism and finance in the world. What does that tell you? That tells you that there's still a demand
00:08:28
for something very different. And we don't know is it going to come from the
00:08:32
left or the right, but we know that that level of uncertainty is growing. And it's not just growing in the United
00:08:38
States. It's growing in the global order. Because if the Americans are no longer willing to act as the global
00:08:44
leader, but no one else is capable of filling those shoes, you don't have a G7
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or a G20 where governments come together and agree on the rules of the road. You
00:08:54
have a G0, an absence of global leadership, where people, the powerful, make the rules that are useful to them
00:09:03
and the weak have to accept that, have to find a way to live under that. That that's where we're heading. There was a
00:09:10
Yale poll in April 2026 that said Camala Harris is leading the overall Democratic
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field with 20% narrowly edging out Gavin Newsome at 19% and Pete Bhajed at 14% with AOC at 13%.
00:09:24
Means literally nothing to me. You know, I think it was Jim Carville, the great um Democratic political strategist that
00:09:30
was talking about November. He said, "You know what the Democrats need to do?
00:09:33
They need to all get on a plane and go to Turks and Caos until after the election. Say nothing. be absent. Just
00:09:40
do not be and allow it's it's like um you know the SunSu it's like when your
00:09:46
when your opponent is making mistakes stay out of their way. >> When you say the election, do you mean
00:09:50
the midterm election? >> Midterm election. Yeah. Yeah. So for now there there's nothing happening except
00:09:56
Trump and the reaction to Trump. Then after that we have a two-year long god god help us uh election in the United
00:10:04
States. billions of dollars will be spent and people will have far too much information about far too many of these
00:10:09
people. Then we can have a conversation. It is too early to talk about 2028 right
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now. >> I have to ask you then what on earth is going on? >> I wonder when we're going to get there.
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We got this big map in front of us here. We haven't even touched the Middle East.
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We literally haven't touched it. >> What is going on? Like really take me
00:10:26
back to the beginning. What did Trump think was going to happen? How is this linked to Venezuela? Why would he do
00:10:31
this after saying that he was the president that was going to stop all the wars? What is the big picture here?
00:10:36
>> And literally one of the eight wars that he said that he had stopped was with
00:10:40
Iran. >> This was not what he was voted in on. >> He was voted in, he ended the war in
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Afghanistan. I mean, he cut the deal with the Taliban. Was it a great deal? Yeah, for the Taliban it was pretty
00:10:52
good. But it got the Americans out. 20 years, a trillion dollars fought on the backs of the Afghan people and of
00:11:03
Americans, not wealthy Americans, not people like Trump that could find a way out of service, but poor Americans
00:11:09
>> and Europeans. >> Yeah. And Europeans who fought side by side with the Americans when the
00:11:15
Americans asked them to. almost all of them sending troops and many of them wounded and dying in the same numbers,
00:11:21
the same percentages, just as courageous as the Americans were, right? So, Americans wanted an end to that.
00:11:28
Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, what the hell are you guys doing? We're not benefiting that. Stop it. Trump stopped
00:11:34
it. So, why did he do this? >> Why did he do this? >> Why did he do this? I think there are
00:11:38
three reasons why he did it. I'll take you through. First reason you said Venezuela, not on this map. Shouldn't be
00:11:45
relevant to this map. Turns out it's relevant to this map. Trump had plans to
00:11:51
take out Maduro. He's got a lot of people inside his administration that see this guy as a
00:11:57
real problem. And by the way, a problem for the region. 8 million Venezuelan refugees destabilizing the region. Lots
00:12:04
of drug export destabilizing the region. So he had been planning to do something.
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>> Was it also linked to oil? it was relevant. They have the world's largest
00:12:13
oil reserves. It is going to take far more years than Trump will be in office to make that meaningful. So, it sounds
00:12:22
good from a branding perspective and you're going to see a few hundred thousand more barrels a day, but it's
00:12:26
it's going to be years. If you saw that um testimony by the CEO of Exxon Mobile
00:12:32
who said, you know, Venezuela is not investable today and Trump was angry at him and all the other energy CEOs like,
00:12:38
"Thank you for saying that. We're not saying anything like him. Look at him.
00:12:42
Look at him. Not much courage among those CEOs publicly. So the oil is a great headline for Trump. It doesn't
00:12:48
matter much for Trump's presidency as we know. >> Just to get some color on that. Is that
00:12:52
because they just can't they have to build up lots of infrastructure to be able to extract it?
00:12:55
>> Oh yeah. And and because all their engineers are gone, most of them in the
00:12:59
oil patch up in Canada, which has similar uh geology to it because they've destroyed so much of their
00:13:05
infrastructure. It's broken down because the governance structure isn't there
00:13:09
yet. They don't have people that are capable of actually ensuring that there
00:13:12
will be contracts that you would follow through on engage in people that still have huge lawsuits that need to be
00:13:18
resolved. Right? So all of this stuff but to get to your I don't want to lose
00:13:22
sight of your why did Trump do this in Iran. So the first point is beginning of the year Trump goes in to Venezuela,
00:13:31
right? It is the most successful military operation you can possibly imagine. Not a single American
00:13:40
serviceman or woman is killed. They go in, they take Maduro out. They don't kill him. They don't injure him. They
00:13:48
bring him to a jail in Brooklyn, right here in New York. Out of burrow, but still counts. New York City, right?
00:13:54
Extraordinary. And he's facing justice. And meanwhile, Deli Rodriguez, right?
00:14:01
Suddenly, vice president becomes acting president. It's like, "Sir, we want to
00:14:07
work with you guys. We don't want any of that." Right? And so, you've got a new
00:14:11
government that is has a different trajectory, but it's basically the same regime. And they say, "Whatever you
00:14:16
want, we will work on. You want we'll open our oil sector. We'll open our
00:14:20
mining sector. We'll have better rags. We'll we'll we'll try to improve the
00:14:24
economy for the average Venezuelan. I mean, they're starting to become popular. In another year, if they had
00:14:29
elections in Venezuela, it is not inconceivable that she would win in a democratic election, which is like blows
00:14:36
your mind, right? Whole bunch, hundreds of political prisoners, they've released. I talked to leaders all over
00:14:43
South America. They all think this was a success. This is enormously popular among the populations in those countries
00:14:50
because they care about security. That's what they've been voting on. Their
00:14:54
elections have been about the economy and local security and Venezuela has been a problem for them, right? I mean,
00:15:00
they're exporting people causing crime. Colombia, Peru, Brazil, this Chile, right? This has been a serious issue.
00:15:08
Trump Trump is hugely feeling great, successful, and now he's like, I can do
00:15:13
that in Iran. I can do it even bigger. That's the first reason. That's the I
00:15:17
said three reasons. That's the first reason. Second reason, this is not Trump's first rodeo with the Iranians.
00:15:24
In his first presidency, the Iranians were engaging in strikes against the Americans directly and with proxies, uh,
00:15:32
bases in Iraq, other places also were taking on strikes against the biggest refinery in the world in Saudi Arabia.
00:15:40
Those drone strikes, you may remember, the Saudis and the Amiradis were telling the Americans, when are you going to do
00:15:46
something? we need to take some action. Trump didn't want to do anything. They're getting angry, right? Finally,
00:15:52
the end of his presidency, he orders, pretty bold move, the assassination of this incredibly charismatic military
00:15:59
leader, Kasamsulammani, the head of the Kuds force as it was called in Iran. And
00:16:04
Iran was so angry and they were going to destroy the United States. Death to America. What do they actually do?
00:16:10
Nothing. And then last June, Iranians are developing their ballistic missiles. They're developing their
00:16:17
nuclear enrichment in radian enrichment. They're like stockpiling at higher levels 60% and the Israelis want to go
00:16:25
in. Trump's providing intelligence. He doesn't want to go. Kind of dangerous.
00:16:29
The Israelis go in. It's enormously popular. It's going well. Succeeding.
00:16:33
Trump's like, I want a part of that. That's successful. So, he joins in.
00:16:37
Second time Israel took casualties about 100 killed I think in the course of that
00:16:42
12-day war. The United States Iran talked big did not hit the Americans. They threw some missiles at that Alade
00:16:49
base in Qatar, the biggest US base. They warned the Americans through Iraq before
00:16:54
the missiles were launched. So it was very clear the Iranians didn't want any
00:16:59
part of that fight. So Trump is thinking to himself, "This is going to be awesome
00:17:04
cuz I'm going to go in. I'm going to pull Venezuela in Iran. And I know they
00:17:07
don't want to fight me. I kill the Supreme Leader, 86 years old. He's going
00:17:10
to die anyway. He's not that popular among the Iranian, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the IRGC,
00:17:16
because they're the ones that really run the country. I'm going to have this huge
00:17:19
military force that shows what I'm capable of doing. Then the rest of the Iranian leadership, they're going to
00:17:25
want to work with me just like they did in Venezuela. That was reason number two. And then the most important reason,
00:17:31
the most important reason is that unlike Trump's first term where he had people
00:17:36
around him that were patriotic first and foremost to the country and when they had disagreements with Trump, they let
00:17:43
him know and they leaked and they also um were willing occasionally to do what they could to undermine an incompetent
00:17:52
decision that would hurt the country. And we saw that whether it was with Mike Pompeo or or or Mad Dog Mattis, right?
00:18:00
All of these people who were much more independent, strong actors. This time around, Trump has some really good
00:18:07
adviserss, people like Marco Rubio and uh Scott Besson. He also has some staggeringly incompetent adviserss like
00:18:15
Pete Hegath for example. But what they all share is that they are first and foremost loyal to the president and they
00:18:23
will not tell him. They won't push back. And what he hears from them is shaded
00:18:30
towards how brilliant he is. And that makes him think that he will be more successful even when the military thinks
00:18:38
this is a horrible idea. And we just saw this with the reporting from the head of
00:18:42
the joint chiefs, Dan Kaine, who clearly thinks that this is a really bad idea and understands that the military um
00:18:49
scenarios are super dangerous and that the Iranians will be able to shut down the straight. And every military in the
00:18:55
US for the last 20, 30 years has gamed out how the Iranians could shut down the straight in a major conflict. And Trump
00:19:03
hears very little of that and he's taking away. I'm incredible. I'm confident I'm going to make this happen.
00:19:10
Those are the reasons he went in. >> And so he thought it would be take out
00:19:13
the Supreme Leader, then they'll negotiate. We'll get a better deal. We'll have a political system there or
00:19:19
political leader there that is obedient to us. >> Yep. It'll be and it'll be maybe it
00:19:23
won't be a day, but it's not going to be a month. >> And what actually happened?
00:19:28
>> That did not happen. What actually happened is um the Americans took out
00:19:32
well the Israelis took out the supreme leader and also took out a lot of the military leadership that the Americans
00:19:39
had been speaking to which is why Trump came out and he said well a lot of the guys were talking to are dead now so we
00:19:45
don't really know who to work with. He said that in the not even if it's true
00:19:50
and it was you don't want the president saying that right he has no filter. Um
00:19:54
so which is which is one of the more interesting things about this presidency. What happened is the Iranian
00:19:59
leadership was taken out. The response was immediately what they call this mosaic situation uh where they
00:20:06
decentralized the um military decision-m to local commanders because they were worried that the high level commanders
00:20:14
if they were on cell phones, if they were engaging with other commanders, the Israelis would know where they were and
00:20:19
they'd be able to assassinate them. So then suddenly the Iranians were taking
00:20:24
shots at other at Gulf states at critical infrastructure and stopping transit from the straight.
00:20:31
>> This is one of the questions I had is in several interviews that Trump has done
00:20:35
he alludes to the fact that he thinks he's talking to the right people. Do you
00:20:38
really believe I know there was a meeting recently in Pakistan where they sent JD Vance in to negotiate with Iran.
00:20:45
Do you think anyone is running Iran at the moment? Is there leadership in Iran? Is it possible to negotiate and control
00:20:51
all of these dispersed forces um at the moment? >> First, the honest answer is it's
00:20:58
impossible to know because this is right now the the the internal decision-m of Iran is extremely buttoned up. Um and it
00:21:08
they ain't talking to anyone uh about that. >> But it's very easy to assess two things.
00:21:17
first um that their ability to make centralized decision plans and implement them is real. So when their biggest gas
00:21:29
field is hit and they say we're going to hit you back in return, they are able to
00:21:33
implement on that in short order. So we've seen a number of occasions in the
00:21:38
last five weeks where Iran has gone from statement made by the foreign ministry and by spokespeople to action taken by
00:21:47
local commander in Iran which implies that there is a centralized structure. We also see toll taking on the strait by
00:21:55
individuals that are being ordered by the central Iranian government to do that. They're not operating by
00:22:00
themselves. So in that regard, the fact that the Iranians showed up in Islamabad
00:22:06
in Pakistan with significant leadership with the foreign minister, also the speaker of the parliament, but also a
00:22:13
team of experts who had briefs on negotiating on a number of different points on the street and on ballistic
00:22:23
missiles and on support of proxy actors and on the nuclear issue which proved the most divisive in those 21 hours of
00:22:30
talks. shows that this regime is still very much functioning despite all of the Israeli and the American efforts to say
00:22:39
that, you know, they've done all this incredible damage. This regime is still
00:22:41
very much in place >> and they couldn't get a deal. So Trump announced that he's going to block the
00:22:46
strait of Humuz himself >> just hours ago. I think that that is also overstated.
00:22:52
You have 21 hours of talks led by the vice president of the United States. I assure you if these talks were a
00:23:00
disaster, they don't last 24 hours. Two or three and then they're out. 21 hours
00:23:06
means very substantive conversations on the entire range of topics that were of importance to the Americans and the
00:23:14
Iranians. Trump did not get the outcome he wanted. Ultimately, I'm not super
00:23:20
surprised because the Iranians feel like they have more leverage right now than the United States thinks they do. And
00:23:25
this frustrates Trump immensely. And so at the end, remember he's he's calling
00:23:29
and talking with Vance more than 10 times over the course of this entire conversation. It's a they're they're in
00:23:36
regular contact. At that point, Trump says, "Okay, I'm blockading the street."
00:23:42
But just before markets open on Monday, you also see reporting that, well, these
00:23:47
talks that were a disaster, we're we're going to engage in further talks. So
00:23:52
maybe it wasn't such a disaster. Maybe what's really going on here is Trump
00:23:57
wants to show that he still has more leverage to use against the Iranians because he's lost a lot of his leverage.
00:24:03
He gave a speech to the American people, one speech so far about Iran. Prime time
00:24:07
speech. In that speech, he said, "War's almost over. Two to three weeks, Max.
00:24:11
We're done. If I'm the Iranians and I hear that, I'm like, great. The
00:24:16
Americans can't take this pain anymore. They can't take it." He keeps saying,
00:24:19
"Straits, not my problem. Straits, let them take care of it." I hear that I'm
00:24:23
the Iranians. Great. He can't take this economic pain. He knows he doesn't have
00:24:27
a military solution. So, it's not that the Iranians are only hearing for Trump,
00:24:32
I'm going to destroy your civilization. They're seeing what he's actually doing.
00:24:35
>> And he seems to change his mind a lot or not follow through on some of the
00:24:38
threats that he makes. >> Right. Of course. >> And then they also will be aware that
00:24:41
he's becoming increasingly unpopular >> on this issue specifically. on this
00:24:45
issue >> on this issue specifically. He is underwater just like he was on Greenland
00:24:49
where he eventually completely did a 180. He was going to put tariffs on all the Europeans that supported Denmark. He
00:24:56
had to take Greenland. Those things went away. >> So you're sat there. You're going
00:25:00
Trump's own people are pressurizing him to get the hell out of here. >> He's unpopular day by day. It's hurting
00:25:07
his economy. Correct. His midterms elections that are coming up. He's going to be severely hurt and he's going to
00:25:12
lose power in that regard. So actually the Iranian leaders, I mean they might be incentivized just to wait it out.
00:25:20
>> That's right. Because they don't think they have to wait it out for months.
00:25:24
>> It's a democracy. So he's going to be unelected at some point in a couple
00:25:26
years. >> They saw China. China did this right last year, Liberation Day as Trump
00:25:32
called it where he puts tariffs on all these countries. He puts these high tariffs on China. They hit back. He does
00:25:37
it again. They hit back again. He's like, "I'm going to do export controls."
00:25:40
I said, "Well, we're going to shut down your critical minerals." Suddenly CEOs
00:25:42
are going to Mara Lago. They say you got to deal with the Iranians or or we're
00:25:46
going to shut down our factory lines. In red states, Trump has to back down. Right? So they've we've already seen
00:25:53
that when a country has leverage over Trump and they can hit him, he has the most strong military in the world, but
00:25:59
he also has a glass jaw. He can't take a hit the way that unelected non-democracies can. The Chinese and now
00:26:07
the Iranians over the Strait. So what Trump is doing with announcing the blockade, and by the way, he hasn't
00:26:12
broken the ceasefire. So even though a blockade is an act of war, he still hasn't said, "Okay, you guys have to
00:26:17
start hitting the Iranians again right now." So he this is still deescalated
00:26:22
compared to a week ago. A week ago, this looked much more dangerous than it looks
00:26:25
today. He's saying to the Iranians, hey, I'm willing to cut off your source of
00:26:30
funds. I'm willing to stop you from exporting oil and making money off of it. same Trump that suspended those
00:26:38
sanctions on Iran because he wanted to keep the prices down. So that's that's
00:26:42
what's happening right here. >> Iran also, again, I'm trying to put
00:26:46
myself in the the mind of, you know, the incentive structure of the Iranian leaders. They can't let it be seen or
00:26:53
known that dropping bombs on us made us pander to you. Because if they set that precedence, then for the next couple of
00:27:01
decades, every American leader is going to know, okay, if you want Iran to play ball, all you do is take out their
00:27:06
leadership, you drop loads of bombs on everything they have, and then they come and negotiate with you and give up their
00:27:10
nuclear weapons and everything else. So, I imagine there's an element of an Iranians now going, if we buckle here,
00:27:18
then for the rest of time, America are going to repeat this playbook. >> I I hear what you're saying. I I would
00:27:24
put it slightly differently. I I think that after the 12-day war last June, the Iranians understood that their deterrent
00:27:32
capacity had failed. They were incapable of preventing the Americans and the Israelis from hitting them and their
00:27:40
proxies whenever they wanted. We've talked a lot about Iran. We haven't talked at all about Lebanon. There's
00:27:47
another war going on in Lebanon right now. The Israelis are hitting the Lebanese very hard. There's over a
00:27:52
million displaced people in the last several weeks. >> Why? Why? What? What is this war?
00:27:57
>> Well, Hezbollah, which is um a terrorist organization uh as recognized by Israel
00:28:03
and the United States, though not everybody, continues to have the ability to engage in strikes against Israel.
00:28:09
Nowhere close to the strength of the Israeli military. But le the Lebanese government promised to disarm them. They
00:28:15
have not done that. And so Hezbollah has been able to continue to engage in missile strikes, relatively small
00:28:21
numbers of missile strikes into the north of Israel where Israeli citizens live. There was a period of time after
00:28:28
the October 7th um attacks by Hamas where over a 100,000 Israelis had to evacuate from their homes and their
00:28:36
schools and the rest for like a year because Hezbollah was making their lives hell. Right? So what Israel is now doing
00:28:45
is they're going to take territory about 5 to 7 kilometers of Lebanese land.
00:28:50
They're going to occupy it as a buffer zone to protect those Israeli civilians
00:28:57
from Hezbollah being able to hit them with their weapons. That is the intention here. And so what Iran
00:29:04
understands is that their ability to deter Israel from hitting Hezbollah, Hezbollah at the beginning in October
00:29:11
7th, Hezbollah was the most powerful non-state military in the world. No one else was close. And today, Hezbollah has
00:29:20
shown that their leadership gets targeted and destroyed, assassinated across the board by the Israelis, that
00:29:26
their military is incapable, their critical infrastructure can be disrupted, and that Israel can also hit
00:29:33
Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and no one can do anything and return to Israel.
00:29:36
>> There's lots of chaos going on in the world right now. >> Yes. Was there a way to have avoided all
00:29:43
of this? Was there something that someone could have done further upstream to avoid all this chaos that we're
00:29:49
seeing now in the Middle East? Like what was the first domino that fell >> in Iran?
00:29:54
You do have an enormously repressive regime that has the ability um to take action against their own people in a in
00:30:04
in a incredibly brutal way as we saw play out in January. >> And it's also a regime that does not
00:30:09
respect the right of Israel to exist. It's also a regime that has been sending
00:30:15
weapons and money and military advice to other revolutionary actors around the region, undermining security in Yemen,
00:30:26
undermining security um in Iraq, undermining security in Syria. So, I mean, the fact that at the core of the
00:30:34
Middle East, you have a revolutionary regime that was exporting instability and violence is a serious problem.
00:30:40
That's number one. Number two, Israel. America's top ally in the region.
00:30:45
America first. But Trump still gives billions of dollars every year to Israel, even as he's cut off military
00:30:50
aid and support for almost everyone, including for Ukraine. Right. This country is very capable of now attacking
00:30:59
all of its enemies and creating outcomes that it wants whether or not it creates
00:31:04
instability in those countries. We've seen that in Gaza and the West Bank, right? I mean reality is Israel is
00:31:11
continuing to take more and more territory in the West Bank and no one can do anything about it. They hit
00:31:16
Lebanon really hard. No one can respond to that. So that is creating a reality where Israel is able to determine
00:31:23
outcomes and even attack Iran directly with the United States. They felt very confident about taking that on and that
00:31:30
there would not be backlash that would undermine Israel's own political survival. It wasn't an existential risk
00:31:38
to Israel and even if Iran developed nukes which is everyone wants to prevent from happening but Israel has their own
00:31:44
nukes right I mean they have like a 100 plus so those are two fundamental drivers of of conflict and instability
00:31:53
in the region one aligned with the United States one a revolutionary theocracy there have been very positive
00:32:00
developments in this region very positive developments first of all Syria Assad was a brutal dictator that was
00:32:08
overthrown by his own people and his own military would not support and fight for
00:32:13
him and the Russians proved that they couldn't support him in a significant way. And so now you have an opportunity
00:32:19
for Syria to become a representative government that can engage with others around the region and more broadly.
00:32:26
That's a positive. You've got Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar that are
00:32:32
engaging in transformative domestic policies to attract investment from all over the world to build experiences that
00:32:43
everyone would want to travel and engage in to create work opportunities that are
00:32:48
far better remunerated than anything that foreign labor could get in their own home countries allowing them to
00:32:54
bring money home. And in the case of Saudi Arabia specifically, they're taking 35 million people. Half of that
00:33:00
economy used to be closed to women and now they're bringing women into the economy. They're actually not just
00:33:05
educating them, but they're giving them opportunities in every area of employment. That is one of the most
00:33:11
extraordinary stories in the world today in terms of change and governance and that continues. Then final point here is
00:33:18
that in the context of this Iran war we do and in the context of a United States
00:33:25
which is doing less global leadership there are questions of how these countries that are aligned with the US
00:33:32
want to ensure their own futures. And so we see increasingly two different blocks
00:33:39
that are starting to form. You've got the United Arab Emirates together with
00:33:44
Israel. You remember the Abraham Accords which was Trump's big foreign policy
00:33:49
success in his first term where he got these countries the UAE and others to recognize Israel and and start doing a
00:33:57
lot more tourism and you know business and technology transfers and the rest. So UAE, Israel, the United States and
00:34:04
India are increasingly aligning on national security and technology and they're becoming more of a international
00:34:13
block based on this region. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan long worked
00:34:20
together on defense are now much more public about an alliance. Pakistan is nuclear, Saudi Arabia is not, but
00:34:26
Pakistan would provide them nuclear weapons if they really wanted it. That's
00:34:30
absolutely something to think about. They are increasingly becoming a regional defense quad. Four countries
00:34:36
together with Turkey and Egypt. Big countries, big populations aligning more diplomatically and on defense calling
00:34:45
for a regional security architecture in the region, but that would not be easily
00:34:51
aligned with the UAE, America, Israel, and with India. So that is also a significant tension. And in the context
00:35:02
of all of that, 95 million people in Iran whose military has been substantially degraded, whose economy
00:35:11
and industry have been substantially degraded and who were already running their economy into the ground before the
00:35:17
war happened. These guys aren't winners. They're survivors, right? They have influence over the
00:35:23
strait, but they're not winning. And this is dangerous long term. >> Your firm makes a lot of predictions. So
00:35:29
I I wanted to ask you to help me try and look forward as to how this conflict might end. Um we're in a position now
00:35:38
where it seems that the US aren't going to give up the demand to Iran that they
00:35:43
cease to develop and pursue nuclear enrichment. It appears that Iran have said that they want the right and they
00:35:50
believe they have the right, they said this before this conflict started to enrich uranium and to have nuclear power
00:35:55
plants and all these kinds of things. So how does this end? Like Trump's now he's
00:35:58
blockaded the straight off news. >> Um we're in another standoff. >> Cease fires in place.
00:36:03
>> The ceasefires in place which I think he said was 14 days >> and we're now probably what got 9 10
00:36:08
days left of that. >> Yeah. >> He's thinking a lot about his legacy. He
00:36:12
can't be reelected. He talks sometimes about, you know, winning the peace prize
00:36:16
and want wanting to be on a Mount Rushmore of presidents and all this. So he he can't just leave. If he just
00:36:23
leaves, then Iran carry on with their enrichment program. It goes down in history almost like a Bush failure,
00:36:30
geopolitical failure. He can't just leave. He has to be seen to win. But also Iran can't let him be seen to win.
00:36:38
So So how what happens? I think unlike almost anybody else you can imagine, if he decided that he wanted to end this,
00:36:47
he could end this. He could just leave and he would say, "I won." He's already
00:36:51
said this in different ways. I don't even care about the nukes because we've
00:36:55
already intumeded them. They're under all this rubble. We've got satellite
00:36:59
coverage. If the Iranians try to get at them, we can hit them back. He's already
00:37:03
said that there's already a regime change. It's already new people. We can
00:37:06
work. We can talk with these people. He already said the strait isn't his problem, right? But of course, he's also
00:37:10
said different things sometimes in the same tweet. Right. So he he's picking
00:37:14
and choosing. But what I'm suggesting to you is that Trump has already moved
00:37:18
towards deescalation. >> You're spot on when you say he's set the stage to back out.
00:37:24
>> To back out. >> We won. Regime change. Straight is not my problem. We have our own oil. Blah
00:37:27
blah blah blah blah. But then >> if you don't open that straight, I'm
00:37:30
going to end civilization. >> Yeah. >> So which was which didn't seem to fit.
00:37:34
It seemed like he was setting the stage to back out. And then suddenly the civilization tweet, I'm going to bum
00:37:38
bomb your bridges and your nuclear power plants. Which suddenly made me think, okay, so maybe he does really care.
00:37:42
>> And wasn't plausible, by the way. I mean, there was no chance that he was
00:37:45
actually going to do all that that evening. >> So why didn't he just back out?
00:37:48
>> Well, I do not want to be Trump's psychologist, right? It is very clear
00:37:53
that he is impulsive and that he does not have much impulse control. Nor does he create around him mechanisms that
00:38:03
create impulse control that enforce impulse control. He's on his phone all the time. He watches the media
00:38:09
relentlessly. People engage with him from all over the world on his cell phone and he has recency bias. The thing
00:38:15
he heard and saw last, he frequently focuses on. >> But he also watches the markets. He
00:38:20
seems obsessed with the stock stock market. >> That's why so many of the announcements
00:38:23
he makes are right before or right after the market opens. And obviously there's
00:38:27
been a lot of insider trading concerns around that too. And people there's he's
00:38:30
concerned about personal enrichment and people around him making billions of dollars. That plays in too. I I wish it
00:38:36
didn't. It's it's horrible to talk about. But you can't avoid that topic.
00:38:41
What happens? You want to know what happens? I don't have a crystal ball. No
00:38:44
one does. But where I think this could be going on the basis of that, the most likely outcome is that the ceasefire is
00:38:51
eventually extended. That we have those talks that were 21 hours that were substantive. There'll be more talks.
00:38:58
Maybe not with the vice president, but there'll be more talks. They'll become
00:39:00
more substantive. and that eventually I expect that the Iranians are more likely
00:39:07
to give on the nuclear issue and on enrichment if they're able to maintain a privileged
00:39:14
position on transit through the straight because that will help provide them with
00:39:19
money and with security. They get a level of deterrence if everybody knows these guys could shut down the straight
00:39:25
in the future. That helps them. They never had nukes. They weren't going to get nukes. If they got nukes, they were
00:39:30
going to get blown up. Like everyone knew that they were two weeks away if they had access to the material and they
00:39:36
reprocessed the nuclear grade and they weren't stopped by the Americans and the
00:39:39
Israelis. That's a lot of ifands, right? So, but here they've got influence over
00:39:45
the strait. They have it. They've used it. They're using it. They're making
00:39:49
money. Trump does not have a military plan to hit them back. So, I think that is the most likely outcome. If that is
00:39:55
the case, then over time the Iranians will cut more deals with more countries to get more oil out. And meanwhile,
00:40:05
there will be after the ceasefire is in place and strong, then the Europeans and
00:40:10
other countries, the Indians, other countries will come in and they will start escorting ships to create a more
00:40:16
secure environment in the strait itself. That is the good scenario or it's the
00:40:21
less bad scenario because all of this should have been avoided. I want to make sure I'm clear on this scenario. You're
00:40:26
saying that they'll concede on the nuclear point Iran potentially >> at least somewhat. I think they will
00:40:30
compromise on the nuclear point, >> but in turn they'll get more control
00:40:34
over the straight. Yes. >> And what does that mean? That they'll be able to decide who goes through there.
00:40:38
They'll get a toll. Oh, they'll get >> they'll be able to charge. And by the
00:40:42
way, you could define them charging the toll as part of the reconstruction money
00:40:48
that they're going to need for the war that they just >> reparations for.
00:40:50
>> I mean, they'll call it reparations. No one else will call it reparations, but
00:40:53
that's fine. I think that is the good scenario again, the less bad scenario,
00:40:58
and I would say it is more likely than not. There is another scenario, right? And the other scenario is that
00:41:05
everything that Trump has been saying is because he doesn't yet have a military
00:41:09
plan. Over the last days with all this ceasefire, there's still this new aircraft strike group that is motoring
00:41:18
its way over to the Gulf. You got thousands more American troops that are heading into position, ground troops,
00:41:27
right? They're going to have almost 15,000 total that will be deployed by Trump since this war started. They're
00:41:33
going to be there in the next 2 weeks. Once Trump has them there, he can use them. And there are lots of things he
00:41:41
might use them on. He keeps saying, I keep seeing him go back. Before I was talking about all the ways he was
00:41:46
saying, we don't need to defend the strait. We don't need the nuclear. we
00:41:50
can hit them. But he also has been saying we should take the oil. >> I've heard him say this on a number of
00:41:56
occasions. I've also seen him say if just the American people were a little more patient, we can take the oil. What
00:42:02
does he mean by taking the oil? That's not a block. B blockade isn't taking the
00:42:05
oil. Blockade is stopping the Iranians from getting the oil out. Take the oil is control the export facility on Car
00:42:14
Island. Right. And and explain this for for anyone that doesn't know what Car
00:42:18
Island is and the significance of it in the oil situation. >> This is this is a comparatively small
00:42:23
island. It's about half the size of Manhattan. >> It's not incredibly fortified or
00:42:29
defended. Um and it's very close to the Iranian shore and it is uh responsible
00:42:35
for 90% of the export of Iranian oil. sentcom the central command say that you can take Car Island with 12 to 15,000
00:42:47
men relatively comfortably. >> So where is Car Island on here? >> Yeah. So Car Island is right about here.
00:42:53
It's not in the straight itself, but it is this is it's right off of the Iranian
00:42:57
coast and and we're talking about 90% of Iranian oil export comes out through
00:43:03
there. So if the Americans take it, obviously very easy for the Iranians to be engaged in strikes against them, but
00:43:09
the Iranians will not be able to get any oil out. So suddenly the Americans have
00:43:13
far more leverage over the Iranian economy, right? In a very direct way, in a very targeted way. And that is the way
00:43:21
that you take the oil. >> Could Trump take the actually take it out of this region somehow? Is there
00:43:29
like another passage through that doesn't involve Okay, so he could just stop the oil.
00:43:32
>> He could stop the oil. Okay. >> But again, if he has control of Carg,
00:43:36
the oil coming out of CarG, if you want to have bring it to market, the only ones that could do it would then be the
00:43:42
Americans. Now, the Iranians at that point could still disrupt the strait. And there are other conversations, there
00:43:47
other military plans about how you might be able to take coastal regions, raids on the territory that would take out
00:43:55
more ballistic missile sites, go after their drones. All of this takes more troops. All this takes more casualties,
00:44:02
but would also give you more capacity to eventually enforce a navigable straight
00:44:09
with escorts, which right now you can't do. Right now, the Iranians can prevent
00:44:13
you from getting any ships out if they wish to. I I think that the likelihood that Trump is ultimately going to make
00:44:20
that order is well below 50%. I think that the worst scenario is not the more likely one because he understands how
00:44:27
unpopular it will be. But it does mean that he's going to have to sell a pretty
00:44:33
ugly pig with lipstick on it. >> Mhm. >> It means that because this was the
00:44:38
problem Trump has is he can't blame anyone else for this. >> Yeah. >> He's the decider. Like he did it. I
00:44:44
mean, he's got his secretaries in the cabinet. They're all saying, "Well, the
00:44:47
war, it's up to Trump. He's got the war goals. It'll be over when he says it.
00:44:50
It's all about Trump. He can blame NATO for not want to join him. They're
00:44:53
joining him. It was his war of choice. and he's never been responsible directly
00:44:58
for an economic downturn. I mean, the the pandemic wasn't his fault, right? This is an economic downturn with oil
00:45:05
prices shooting up, gas is over four bucks a gallon, diesel's over five, inflation's ticking up, food prices are
00:45:12
going up, he's wildly underwater on affordability, and he is completely responsible for it. No one else is
00:45:19
responsible. And zooming out even further, when we think about this on a global scale, you've got Russia, who are
00:45:25
at war with the Ukraine, that seems to have just completely vanished from the news cycle, by the way.
00:45:29
>> It has not in in Europe, I promise you, but in the United States, they're
00:45:32
talking a lot less about it. It's true. In Poland, this is a very big issue. In
00:45:36
the Baltics, it is a very big issue. >> And then you've got China who must be
00:45:40
laughing because it looks like the United States are just sort of selfharming themselves.
00:45:45
>> Yep. And then you've got Europe, which is the last power, who seem to now just
00:45:50
be sort of colluding with themselves and getting together and saying, "Listen,
00:45:52
you know, we're not going to help the US anymore." I mean, we I grew up through
00:45:55
all these little conflicts and wars, and the UK always seemed to come to the US.
00:46:01
Yeah. >> And for the first time ever, I'm watching the UK go, "Actually, no, you
00:46:05
do this yourself. >> I'm going to meet with Macron in France, and we're going to we're going to uh
00:46:09
huddle and um go it alone." >> What is that big picture? And which part
00:46:13
of that big picture is most pertinent to talk about? Yeah, China is the most pertinent because it's the most
00:46:18
powerful. Russia is the easiest to deal with. Um, which is that for the Russians, they don't have um much that
00:46:26
they produce that's manufactured. They don't have very good technology, right?
00:46:31
They're they're relying more on the Chinese. >> They've got oil there, haven't they?
00:46:35
>> That they manufacture. They've got oil, they've got gas, they've got fertilizer,
00:46:40
right? All the things with the prices have just spiked through the roof. That's what the Russians have. That's
00:46:45
where their power is. And so they are making so much more money. Their economy was really getting squeezed with all the
00:46:51
sanctions. Now they're getting so much more for everything that they actually
00:46:54
sell. And the Americans have reduced sanctions like they did on Iran against Russia because Trump cares about the
00:47:00
markets as you say. So Russia's in a better position for that reason. And they're in a better position because all
00:47:06
the weapons the Americans have been selling to the Europeans to get to Ukraine, America now needs to get to the
00:47:11
Middle East. So the the Ukrainians are going to have a harder time defending their cities against Russian ballistic
00:47:18
missiles, against Russian drones. So this clearly means that Putin will be much much less interested in a
00:47:26
ceasefire, which let's face it, he wasn't really very interested in to begin with. Trump at the beginning of
00:47:32
this term promised he would end this war. He was hugely frustrated. He goes to Israel to announce the Gaza
00:47:38
ceasefire. It's a big win. the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, their standing
00:47:43
ovation. He's like, you know, I thought I was going to get the Russia war done
00:47:47
and I failed it. They haven't been able to do that. I got this one instead. Like
00:47:51
Trump never brings up his own failures. But this really bothers him. So here you've got yet more ability for the
00:47:58
Russians to say, "We're going to persist." And it makes it more likely
00:48:03
that Trump will eventually do a deal with the Russians over the heads of the Europeans. So that's that's the Russia
00:48:08
issue kind of in a little box. Now Europe, we already talked about how Europe is having its problems
00:48:15
economically. It doesn't have the productivity. It doesn't have the growth.
00:48:19
>> What What did Europe do wrong in your view? Like how did I'm a European, I
00:48:24
guess. I was born in Botswana in Africa, but I moved to the UK when I was young,
00:48:28
so I guess I'm I'm British. Um, >> what did the country do wrong? because
00:48:33
the country was so strong and powerful and respected when I was younger and I love Britain. But it appears on a global
00:48:41
stage that that perception has changed. The US are talking to us like a lap dog.
00:48:46
>> Yeah. >> At Davos, I saw the talks. They're like, "You need to get your together and
00:48:49
be stronger and stop being so woke blah blah blah blah." >> Yeah. Well, first, the the Americans
00:48:54
talking to the Europeans that way has a lot more to do with the change in administration. Okay. I don't think any
00:48:59
other Democratic or Republican president would do what Trump is doing to his closest allies. I think that's more
00:49:06
unique. But but it is certainly true that over the last 30 years, there have been two really big geopolitical shifts.
00:49:15
Right? The United States has shifted its orientation, but not geopolitical power.
00:49:20
But in terms of power shift, you've got the rise of China and the global south,
00:49:25
India in particular after China, but China is the biggest piece of that. And then you have the decline of American
00:49:31
allies. Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea. These are countries most of which are
00:49:39
contracting demographically, right? They're countries most of which that have much flatter growth and much more
00:49:46
reduced productivity than the United States. They've not been investing in their own defense. They've not been
00:49:53
investing in their own technology. So what you see is an asymmetry. At the same time that the Americans are saying
00:49:59
we're not interested in the rest of the world. We don't want to do all this
00:50:02
stuff. Want don't want to fight the wars. Don't want free trade. You're also
00:50:05
seeing a reality where those countries don't bring as much to the table in a
00:50:10
conversation with the United States. So the the so-called draggy plan, the 800page plan by the former central bank
00:50:18
head in Europe, the ECB, Mario Draghy, they called him Super Mario. He had this competitiveness report that all of these
00:50:25
things that the Europeans needed to do and he would say the Brits as well to to address that to build entrepreneurship
00:50:32
to spend in ways that would actually bring a return long-term to like invest in new technologies to reduce red tape.
00:50:41
The plan is there. But unlike the United States, unlike China, Europe is not a country. Europe is 27 countries in the
00:50:52
EU and the United Kingdom which decided for Brexit. It's a lot harder when you
00:50:57
don't have scale. It's just harder. And when you have elections every, you know,
00:51:02
sort of couple every few years, it's just more challenging. You can't do the
00:51:06
sort of stuff that the UAE or the Saudis or the Singaporeans or the Chinese can do at scale long term. So, as a
00:51:13
consequence, what did Europe do wrong? Europe focused, Europe believed that the world after the wall came down in 1989,
00:51:21
after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, they believed that the world was just going to be peaceful, that everyone
00:51:26
was going to have a system like the Europeans did. So, they didn't need to invest in invest in defense. And it was
00:51:30
okay if they didn't invest in lots of technology because they had friends that
00:51:34
they could work with and maybe their growth wouldn't be as big, but their quality of life would be so high. And
00:51:40
they were completely wrong. China did not. They got wealthier, but they didn't
00:51:46
suddenly align with the United States and Europe. China didn't become a free
00:51:49
market economy. China didn't become a democracy. China is a consolidated dictatorship under Xihinping with no
00:51:57
term limits and with control of the economy, state control of the economy. And that that's a not an easy
00:52:03
environment for the Europeans to be comfortable being non-competitive. >> A lot of this come down to energy and
00:52:10
productivity. >> The cost of energy, >> the cost of energy. So a lot of these
00:52:13
countries decided to carry on drilling oil and pursuing nuclear and a lot of the European countries decided to go for
00:52:20
net zero where they tried to focus more on sort of sustainable energy sources >> whereas China didn't seem to give a
00:52:26
quite frankly the US didn't really seem to care much um and then also on this
00:52:30
point of entrepreneurship and innovation these the US and China have both really
00:52:35
aggressively pursued entrepreneurship and innovation and new technologies whereas one could make the case that the
00:52:40
European environment has been less friendly ly to new technologies and innovation.
00:52:45
>> So the the Chinese, you said the Chinese didn't really give a Not true. The
00:52:50
Chinese have invested in everything. So the Chinese know that they still need lots of dirty coal in order to power um
00:52:57
their industry, but they also have invested like nobody else in green technologies at scale,
00:53:03
>> solar and things like that. >> Solar and wind and their their car
00:53:07
companies are the electric vehicle leaders in the world. and batteries that are the best batteries, the most
00:53:13
efficient batteries at scale in the world and all of the the the materials, the raw materials that go into producing
00:53:20
those. The Chinese have invested in this for decades now. And nuclear, right? While the while the Europeans have, with
00:53:25
the exception of France, France is, you know, has heavy nuclear and that's helped them in this crisis, most of the
00:53:30
Europeans have turned away from nuclear, the Europeans have not done an allforall
00:53:36
approach. The Europeans have done a let's lean into green but let's make
00:53:40
other technologies more challenging including nuclear which should be seen as a green technology. So yeah there's
00:53:46
no question that that has inhibited growth in Europe. The United States has been on again off again. You've got one
00:53:54
administration that's leaning into green, the next one that's not when America should be doing America today is
00:53:59
the world's leading oil producer by a long margin and fracking natural gas as
00:54:06
well by a long margin doing incredible work there. Yet the United States is actively undermining the ability to also
00:54:13
produce clean technologies for energy. Texas produces more sustainable energy than any other state in the United
00:54:20
States. Red Texas. So I mean it's not like this is these energy technologies
00:54:26
are not Republican or Democrat. They are at scale becoming cheaper. You need all
00:54:31
of them. And so the Europeans made a mistake in not recognizing that you need everything.
00:54:38
>> Everybody says that the United States is the world's leading superpower and that
00:54:42
has been the case. You know hard to argue against that for a long time. Is that set to change? Is China set to
00:54:49
become the world's leading superpower? not soon. Um but the trae the present trajectory
00:54:57
if it continues clearly would challenge America's dominant position clearly. I mean the US
00:55:04
has the dollar is the global reserve currency right now. Nothing else is close. And transacting in the dollar is
00:55:10
a huge advantage for the Americans who can continue to print money with reckless abandon and run massive
00:55:17
deficits and have lower interest rates as a consequence. China does not have a convertible currency. They don't have
00:55:24
rule of law. If they opened their currency to become convertible, there'd be massive capital flight and political
00:55:30
instability. That's what they worry about. So, they don't compete with the
00:55:34
US there. China's military is still a fraction of the capabilities of the US.
00:55:38
They're watching what's happening in Venezuela, in Iran. They don't have that
00:55:42
capacity. They're not close. They're building their nuclear weapons out.
00:55:45
They're building their conventional weapons out. They have never fought a naval war. They have It's decades since
00:55:51
they fought a ground war. U they're not capable of doing these things. >> So, is there any concern with China?
00:55:56
>> Yes. >> What is that concern? The concern with China is that the most the world
00:56:01
changing new technologies out there, the Chinese are investing at scale and the Chinese are now either at parody or
00:56:08
ahead of the Americans and everyone else by a long margin in many of the core technologies that matter most in the
00:56:14
world. >> And what does that potentially mean that is worth paying attention to? Why does
00:56:19
that matter? >> It means that they can set the rules. They can set the standards. They can
00:56:23
sell the products that you need them. that if they determine that they're going to shut you off, you're dead,
00:56:28
right? I mean, think about what happened. The Europeans were so dependent on Russia for gas and for oil.
00:56:35
And the Russians invade Ukraine, they want to shut it down, and it destroys the European economy. The Americans are
00:56:41
doing just fine. The Americans are building and get so many of their semiconductors from TSMC in Taiwan. I'm
00:56:48
sure you've talked about that before in your show. Well, what happens if China
00:56:51
decides that they want to cut that off? If they have that capacity, the Americans are really screwed. So you
00:56:56
don't want to be in a position where one country, an adversarial country that you
00:57:02
don't trust, have a good relationship with suddenly produces all this stuff that you desperately need or your
00:57:07
economy will fall apart. And yet that is the the the the trajectory where president if China if China had
00:57:14
elections coming up in November, I'd be worried, right? Because, you know, you
00:57:20
can just imagine a situation where the Chinese being more short-term would say, "Well, look, the Americans are
00:57:25
distracted with Iran and the Europeans are distracted with Ukraine. Now is our time for Taiwan because we really want
00:57:30
to get like all that support. So, let's jin it up." Chinese aren't doing short-
00:57:34
term at all. They're doing long-term. The Chinese are thinking for 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road,
00:57:39
and they're investing that way. They're taking very little risk. They're making
00:57:43
no regret moves to set themselves up long term while the Americans are doing all this short-term stuff, all this
00:57:50
electoral cycle stuff. That's the worry. If the the Americans the biggest danger
00:57:54
to the United States, not China, it's America. It's America getting in its own
00:57:59
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whisperflow.ai/stephven to download it now. That's wispr lw.ai/stephven. you um did a TED talk two years ago in
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June. It was published in June 14th, 2023 and it's done tens of millions of views on YouTube. It is titled the next
01:00:24
global superpower is not who you think. Yeah. >> And I was looking at the comment section
01:00:30
earlier and the some of the top comments are you called it a year ago and you were 100% right. There's another one
01:00:36
here saying hello writing to you from a year in the future. I have some bad news
01:00:40
about 2025. You were right. What were you right about? >> I was I guess what they're saying I this
01:00:50
you and I have been talking about the US and China and traditional geopolitics. What I was saying is that increasingly
01:00:56
the world is moving beyond geopolitics and that the most important new global leaders aren't countries, they're
01:01:03
technology companies that are writing their own rules. I was looking how the Russian invasion of Ukraine that that
01:01:10
war started not on the 24th of February but the 23rd of February when Microsoft found out about all of the cyber strikes
01:01:19
that were hitting Ukraine and made the US government and the Ukrainian government aware of it. I look at Elon
01:01:23
Musk and providing Starlink. If it wasn't for that, I'm not sure that the
01:01:28
Ukrainian government was going to be able to fight these guys on the ground. They wouldn't have been able to
01:01:32
communicate. Silinski might be gone. These are companies. The US government at that point was scared about sending
01:01:38
all the military support, but the companies were making a big difference. Now I see that these new AI tools like
01:01:45
we saw with Anthropic and Mythos. >> For anyone that doesn't know, Anthropic
01:01:51
released a new AI model, which they say is so capable that it presents the world
01:01:56
with a really fundamental security risk to all of our technology. They say in their report that in testing this new
01:02:04
model, this new um type of AI could find security vulnerabilities in lots of different applications and software
01:02:12
applications that we use. So essentially it posed a cyber security risk. It could
01:02:16
hack >> a lot of banks and >> critical infrastructure, your power grid, water systems, anything with
01:02:24
software. and and not just like the things that a hacker could get to, but every bug that could be exploited. So,
01:02:32
it's so powerful that they couldn't release it because it would have been an
01:02:37
immediate systemic risk to the global economy and our security. >> And do you believe them? I say this
01:02:44
because I heard some people debating whether this was marketing talk for them as a company to say, "Look, look how
01:02:49
powerful we are that we're not going to release this model because it's it's
01:02:52
going to cause that much harm." or do you think they are being responsible?
01:02:57
>> It is inconceivable to me that a company that is this capable of raising money
01:03:02
and this capable of talking to the markets is not going to have a communication strategy that is fully
01:03:08
aligned with that. >> So of course there's marketing here, >> but this was a real risk. When you have
01:03:15
Jerome Powell, the chief of the Fed, and Scott Bessent, the Secretary of Treasury, looking at this and
01:03:22
immediately calling an urgent meeting of all the CEOs of the banks, saying, "We
01:03:27
have to deploy this internally." And you have JP Morgan, Jamie Diamond, is by far
01:03:32
the best at cyber security in terms of the big banks and the big US institutions and considers this a five
01:03:40
alarm fire. I I take this very seriously. Mhm. >> I think this is actually a big deal that
01:03:45
also happens to be useful for anthropics marketing, not least because Anthropic had just been in a big fight with the
01:03:52
defense department and the US defense department saying we don't want these anthropic guys because like they're not
01:03:58
they're woke, right? I mean, they don't they refuse to let us use and deploy
01:04:03
their AI in our targeting or our surveillance. So, we're going to take them out of our system. Well, turns out
01:04:08
you can't afford to take these guys completely out of your system because what they're doing is too important for
01:04:13
American national security. So, the timing is convenient from that perspective. But this risk is real and
01:04:19
it's real because it needs to be deployed immediately to find these bugs and to patch them before other people
01:04:27
have those tools because other people will have these tools in very short order.
01:04:31
>> And so on the scale of risks that we have in front of us here, critical,
01:04:35
severe, >> yep, also severe. Okay, >> again would be critical if we were
01:04:39
talking about two years out because we're talking about this year and it's
01:04:42
already April. It just happened. I would say severe, but my god, underappreciated
01:04:46
because the amount of attention this gets on headlines >> compared to Iran or Venezuela compared
01:04:53
to China is still tiny. >> And is that because of unemployment because AI is going to take our jobs or
01:04:58
is it something else? Is it the nuclear? What is it? No, I mean if if what I just
01:05:04
mentioned with anthropic, like if suddenly your systems are hackable by anyone that has access to this tool,
01:05:12
your markets are going to go down. Your banks aren't going to work. Your data is
01:05:16
going to be stolen. You know, your your imagine if the Russians have that capacity, what they would do with it. If
01:05:21
the Iranians today had that capacity, what they would do with it, they will. the these AI tools are are becoming
01:05:28
available to anyone with a laptop or a cell phone. So I mean suddenly in the same way that the war in Russia Ukraine,
01:05:36
Russia is much bigger than Ukraine and yet in the last 3 months Ukraine has actually taken territory back from
01:05:42
Russia. How is that possible? Technology drones, right? They have become the most
01:05:47
capable drone producer in the world at scale. so much that when the Iranians were attacked by the United States and
01:05:54
they counter hit, what did the Americans do? They called Zalinski, remember the guy that didn't say thank you in the
01:05:59
White House, and they said, "Could we have your help with your drone technologies in figuring out how we
01:06:05
combat Iran for our Gulf allies?" So technology is changing the world so fast, and it turns out that the biggest
01:06:13
way it's changing our security and the economy is AI. on this point of AI. I
01:06:17
actually was watching a video this morning before you arrived, which I I thought I'd show you because um it's
01:06:22
quite it's quite dystopian, but what you'll see in this video is true and
01:06:27
it's happening around the world and I don't think anybody has any ideas. This
01:06:31
is the video. I'll play it for those of you that are looking at the screen at
01:06:35
the moment. Can you tell what's going on in this video from watching it? It looks to me um like uh they're uh the
01:06:46
work that they are doing is being uh monitored real time. Um presumably by some external source. Um you're going to
01:06:55
suggest to me that the external source that's monitoring them is not a human
01:06:58
being but is artificial intelligence. >> Yes. Kind of. What's happening is a
01:07:04
company has paid these Indian workers to wear cameras on their heads >> to watch their hands.
01:07:09
>> Yeah. >> To train the AI so that the AI can do that job in the future
01:07:15
>> to remove the workers from those jobs. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So it's kind of like sitting on the
01:07:20
branch of a tree and you yourself cutting the There's this meme I'll throw
01:07:24
up on the screen. It's of a guy sat on the branch of a tree and he's cutting
01:07:27
the branch himself. And what you're seeing here is because the AI companies and the robotics companies need real
01:07:34
world data of these jobs being done, they're now asking the workers in the factories to record themselves doing it
01:07:40
so that they can replace them. >> Yeah. >> It's um I laugh because it's slightly
01:07:45
terrifying. It's slightly terrifying and yet it's also slightly empowering
01:07:49
depending on what we decide to do with the wealth that comes from this because let's face it, most human beings do not
01:07:58
want that work to be what self-actualizes them. >> What kind of political system do you
01:08:04
need or social system do you need in such a world where a lot of the work that we do today is being done by these
01:08:10
intelligent machines and a huge amount of people don't have work? I was saying
01:08:14
to you before we started recording, a friend of mine called me the other day and he had had a conversation with one
01:08:18
of the most successful technologists in the world that everybody knows and he said next year is the year where the
01:08:24
unemployment because of AI really will take hold and people are going to get increasingly
01:08:30
annoyed. They also said that they think the Democrats, even though I think this person might be Republican, they think
01:08:36
the Democrats are going to win the election because the impact of AI is going to be so severe next year in terms
01:08:40
of employ unemployment that people are going to associate the Republicans with being the pro AAI party. And I saw
01:08:46
another report last week saying that AI is now less popular than ICE in the United States. And just as a podcaster
01:08:52
who has conversations about this, I know people are are not happy. I know they're
01:08:57
not happy. I see it in the comment section in part because we don't see it flowing down and making people's lives
01:09:02
better. We see major corporations getting richer. >> And so the funny thing that video you
01:09:08
showed me, most people in the global south are very excited, enthusiastic about AI because they think it's going
01:09:15
to give them tools to improve their human capital, to improve their opportunities. China, the Chinese are
01:09:21
very excited about AI because they think that it's going to make their lives
01:09:26
better. Mhm. >> The Americans, the Europeans are not. They worry that this is actually going
01:09:34
to undermine their jobs, particularly their white collar jobs, >> uh their knowledge worker jobs. And and
01:09:40
what I think is going to happen politically, I I I don't agree that we're going to see massive unemployment
01:09:44
in the US next year. I think there's going to be much more friction. And most
01:09:48
CEOs don't want to get rid of a lot of their workers unless they have to. So
01:09:53
unless there's a major economic downturn that gives them that excuse, I think
01:09:57
it's going to take a lot longer. And I also think that social mobilization long
01:10:01
shoreman in the United States like said no AI, you're going to protect our jobs.
01:10:04
And they were willing to actually demonstrate. They mobilized and it kept AI out. There'll be a lot of like, you
01:10:10
know, resistance that will slow this process down. But what I do think is going to happen, I think you'll see it
01:10:16
politically. I was talking to uh someone I know um reasonably well uh a senator,
01:10:23
US senator who was saying uh can't talk right now and prochecknology person pro
01:10:28
business person centrist right someone you and I would recognize as such say I can't talk about data centers I've never
01:10:35
seen people my constituents so upset about an issue as they do about data centers
01:10:41
>> AI data centers >> AI they said that no jobs energy prices going up water prices going up. Zoning
01:10:48
looks horrible in their neighborhoods. They're growing like topsy. Huge amount
01:10:52
of investment. Everyone hates these things. I I mean Trump in the United States won on the back of a lot of men
01:11:00
who many of whom had good jobs and were making good money, but they didn't necessarily have advanced degrees.
01:11:07
>> And they felt like the world was moving away from them. They saw robotics and
01:11:10
automation on their factory lines. They saw free trade and jobs going to much poorer, much, you know, less expensive
01:11:17
labor around the world, China especially, but India, other countries. They said they saw immigrants coming in,
01:11:22
but you're not taking care of me and my family, so why am I letting that happen?
01:11:25
You see this in Europe, too. This is the Nigel Farage movement. Like lots of stuff, right? They voted Trump in not
01:11:31
once, but twice. Despite everything he is, everything he stands for, they voted for. We haven't seen women with advanced
01:11:40
degrees, urban and suburban, worried about their jobs and worried about their kids. And that wave of populism is
01:11:49
coming absolutely in 2028. And that is AI is a very big piece of that. AI, data centers, and the rest. So in that
01:11:56
regard, I agree that there's going to be a real political wave here. And I don't
01:12:00
yet know who the political figures are that are going to respond to that. I I don't think that person today exists in
01:12:08
the political spectrum. I haven't seen that person. >> It appears that the least popular job or
01:12:14
least popular people in society at the moment are AI CEOs. I mean, you're probably seeing what um what's going on.
01:12:20
>> We saw what Sam Alman just had a you know, the the Molotov cocktail that was
01:12:24
actually thrown at his uh >> and then yesterday again they said someone shot at his house yesterday.
01:12:29
Yeah. >> Yesterday night again. >> Yeah. >> Which obviously nobody should support
01:12:33
violence of this type. My god, no. No, but it's not surprising. And we also had
01:12:38
the CEO of United Healthcare gunned down, you know, a year ago, just uh a few blocks from where you and I are
01:12:44
having this conversation right now. There is general anger at the elite. And it's true that the wealthiest people in
01:12:50
the United States right now happen to be those tech owners. Is there a solution here where the technology which presents
01:12:57
us with tremendous potential upsides can be be thrive and be successful and make
01:13:02
our lives better but also the average person the working-class people can also capitalize and benefit from this
01:13:08
technology? >> Of course there is. >> What does that look like? >> Well, I mean first of all these
01:13:12
technologies are already doing extraordinary things in improving productivity and in reducing waste. I
01:13:20
mean, recycling doesn't work very well, but with AI, you can recycle in a way
01:13:24
that would allow you to actually get that trash product back into a productive format. Who wouldn't want the
01:13:34
ability to make micro adjustments in um the way that an airplane is navigating real time because of AI that reduces
01:13:44
fuel consumption by 10%. Or improve agricultural use. In Ethiopia, you've got over a hundred million people and
01:13:51
they don't know what to plant and where and when. Suddenly, you optimize for
01:13:55
that. They have cheaper food. Like the these are amazing things. Every day I see uses for these technologies in
01:14:02
companies around the world that blow my mind. But I also see and again I focus on politics. And if we blow ourselves
01:14:11
up, it's not going to be because of technology. If we blow ourselves up, it's going to be because of people and
01:14:15
politics. What do you mean by that? >> That the system is deploying these technologies in inhumane ways. It's
01:14:24
allowing the benefits of the opportunities to be captured by a small number of individuals, a small number of
01:14:31
companies that write their own rules and don't care about people that are getting
01:14:35
angry. So when you ask, violence is the wrong thing. But if you're seeing that
01:14:40
people are getting so angry that they're starting to do things that they see the
01:14:45
only way that they think that they can respond is outside of the legal framework. It's not by voting for
01:14:51
somebody new, but it's by mass action or even violent action. Then the politics
01:14:56
are really broken. >> So, do we need like universal basic income or something? or does there need
01:15:00
to be an AI tax or >> I don't think that you go from everybody has a full-time job or aspires to a
01:15:06
full-time job to universal basic income in a year. I I I don't think that happens. But I could easily see pilot
01:15:14
programs that say instead of a five-day work week in the following areas that we
01:15:20
think are going to be disrupted, it's going to be a 4-day work week or 3-day
01:15:24
work week. And we're going to pay you the same amount of money, but that additional day every week is going to be
01:15:29
on AI training that will allow you to have a job. either be more effective in your existing job because the only the
01:15:38
people that know how to deploy these tools are going to have a job another three or five years or will allow you to
01:15:42
transition. But you've got to start spending the money on that now. And this
01:15:47
that that guy that you had that conversation with, I've been watching him publicly. He's not part of the
01:15:53
solution. He's saying I think the Democrats are going to win. Oh well, I'll be fine. I'm still worth a lot of
01:15:58
money, but I'm not going to do anything to actually help facilitate this. Like
01:16:02
if you if the people that are most capable of being aware of these challenges and of addressing them are
01:16:12
instead all in winner take all mode, then obviously we're going to have a breakdown in society.
01:16:22
It's a tricky situation, isn't it? Because we've seen what happens when
01:16:25
governments get involved in technology sometimes, you know, even in the UK for and the European Union. Bloody hell. I
01:16:32
remember speaking to I don't know if I have permission to say his name either,
01:16:36
but he is the CTO of one of the biggest technology companies in the world and he
01:16:39
was explaining to me that they can't release their features. This particular
01:16:43
piece of hardware, we can't even release it in Europe because the European Union
01:16:46
have so much regulation. >> Yeah. >> That they've actually created a bunch of
01:16:51
issues for us as companies. One of them was that in this particular device, the European Union demand that the battery
01:16:57
can be taken out and put back in again. And what this actually means, he was explaining to me, is that we're going to
01:17:03
have to buy loads of batteries and keep them on the shelf and then they're going
01:17:07
to go bad and actually it's going to be worse for the environment, but also it
01:17:10
means that the devices are no longer waterproof. So more devices are going to break, which is even worse for the
01:17:15
environment. And this overregulation that's >> which means that the Europeans are
01:17:19
nowhere in terms of competitive. >> They know they're not competitive.
01:17:22
>> So he and you know what he said to me? He goes, um, and I don't think what the
01:17:25
Europeans don't realize is we just don't need their market anymore. He said
01:17:27
Brazil's coming online and all these other big markets are coming online as buyers. So we just can decide just to
01:17:32
not sell to to Europe. >> So there are three systems out there, right? Broadly speaking, one system, the
01:17:38
United States system, most power in the hands of the private sector so much so that they're able to capture the
01:17:45
regulatory process, write their own regulations. That turns out that system drives an enormous amount of growth and
01:17:52
wealth. The problem is that lots of average Americans do not benefit from it. Mhm.
01:17:57
>> Because nobody is looking out for them. Then they get angry and then they lash
01:18:00
out, right? The Chinese system where the state actually captures the private sector and they say what the private
01:18:08
sector can and can't do. And frequently they own the private sector, state-owned
01:18:11
enterprises, right? And that system drives an enormous amount of growth over the long term, but the people have no
01:18:19
say over what is and what is not allowed. And that creates a lot of dissent and this lying flat. we're not a
01:18:26
part of the system and the solution. Then you have the Europeans and the European system is very oriented towards
01:18:33
we want to make sure that the social contract works for the citizens. We're very interested in like having all of
01:18:39
the benefits that people need, but we can't afford them because our system is
01:18:43
so heavily regulated and so anti- entrepreneurial that we don't drive the growth that would be necessary to keep
01:18:48
paying for the people. Right? So obviously each of these systems have challenges but the problem comes not in
01:18:56
the nature of the system but in when they become extreme. Americans today want a new deal whatever that new deal
01:19:04
looks like. And Trump won because of that. He won because he positioned himself as the outsider that would make
01:19:12
sure those things happen. Right? He was the guy that was going to end the wars. He was the guy that was going to invest
01:19:17
in the United States. America first, not these other countries first. People like
01:19:22
that. Take care of your people. That's what they want. People are voting for
01:19:26
very simple things. They want to be taken care of. They want to have opportunities for themselves and their
01:19:31
families and their communities. They don't want to feel despair. That's what
01:19:34
the American dream was all about. That's why my grandparents came here. My grandma, Armenian, you know, fled her
01:19:40
family fled the genocide. She came on Ellis Island. That's why I'm here. I
01:19:45
came and I started a company in a land that had great opportunity. But most Americans don't believe that applies to
01:19:50
them anymore. And you asking me all these questions about AI. The answer is very simple. Give these people the
01:19:57
opportunity to create a dream for themselves and their families in their own countries. If they don't have that,
01:20:03
they will eventually revolt against you. >> Is that what history tells us happens
01:20:07
next in such a situation where the people feel more and more powerless and they feel like they have less and less
01:20:12
opportunity? >> It doesn't happen everywhere. I mean, let's face it. We've got 25 million
01:20:17
people in North Korea that have been, you know, ruled by, you know, a cult figure who they essentially worship for
01:20:25
decades now. So, history doesn't necessarily tell us that it the story always goes well. But in a democracy,
01:20:31
>> in a democracy, sometimes democracies go bad. But what we see frequently is push
01:20:39
back against people that are kleptocratic, but it's people that put themselves above the system. And we've
01:20:46
seen that in many cases in many democracies all over the world. 70% of people who add something to their online
01:20:52
cart never actually buy it. And that number is based on over 10 years of research. But what I think is even more
01:20:58
interesting is what the Bayard Institute discovered. They're a private research
01:21:01
company that ran a study which found the average e-commerce store can increase its conversion rate by 35% just by
01:21:09
making its checkout easier. Not better marketing or better products, but by delivering a smoother checkout
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01:21:48
And don't tell anybody. We have finally caved in. So many of you have asked us if we could bundle the
01:21:55
conversation cards with the 1% diary. For those of you that don't know, every
01:21:59
single time a guest sits here with me in the chair, they leave a question in the
01:22:02
diary of a CEO and then I ask that question to the next guest. We don't release those questions in any
01:22:07
environment other than on these incredible conversation cards. These have become a fantastic tool for people
01:22:13
in relationships, people in teams, in big corporations, and also family members to connect with each other. With
01:22:18
that, we also have the 1% diary, which is this incredible tool to change habits in your life. So many of you have asked
01:22:24
if it was possible to buy both at the same time, especially people in big companies. So, what we've done is we've
01:22:31
bundled them together and you can buy both at the same time. And if you want to drive connection and instill habit
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change in your company, head to the diary.com to inquire and our team will be in touch.
01:22:42
I think the part that I still have this big question mark in my head about is what you do about that. I was reading
01:22:48
this morning that Jeff Bezos is investing or raising money raising a hundred billion dollars for I think it's
01:22:53
called Project Prometheus which is his own AI company. Um you've got Elon with
01:22:58
XAI, you've got Anthropic, you got Dermis at Google and Sundar, you've got
01:23:03
OpenAI, Sam Alman, you've got all these big tech CEOs that are trying to sort of
01:23:08
raise super intelligence like like it's a child. >> Yeah. And if they are to be successful,
01:23:13
one would one would assert that intelligence itself is the most powerful commod like currency or commodity that
01:23:18
there isn't on planet earth. So those that you wield it >> and commodity is right because Alman
01:23:23
talks about you're going to need to pay for intelligence the way you pay for
01:23:26
water. >> Yeah. >> Or pay for G and that that average American hears that and goes what what
01:23:32
I'm going to have to pay for intelligence. >> Yeah. >> That that feels like something we have
01:23:35
free will over. Suddenly you don't. Suddenly a company has control over that. You know, if you had a wand and
01:23:40
you could wave the wand and solve this techno oligarchy. Yeah. >> What would you do?
01:23:45
>> I want three things. I want three types of governance. >> First, I I want to make sure um that the
01:23:54
United States and China start to have AI arms control conversations. When we were
01:24:00
fighting the Soviets, there were no arms control discussions until after 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. We almost blew up
01:24:07
the entire world. That was super dangerous with much much lower levels of technology. And then after that we said,
01:24:14
"Oh, maybe we should like have a have a hotline between the two leaders. Oh,
01:24:18
maybe we should have deconliction. Maybe we should not invest in certain areas. Maybe we shouldn't try to develop Star
01:24:23
Wars defense, for example. Maybe we should have some arms control agreements that limit, you know, what we do so that
01:24:28
it's safer." We desperately need that between the Americans and the Chinese.
01:24:32
That's number one. Number one. Second thing we need the financial markets. We
01:24:38
all need the financial markets, right? We we need we need them systemically. When there's a financial crisis, the
01:24:43
whole world comes together to get out of the financial crisis. And it doesn't
01:24:47
matter if you're capitalist or communist, the People's Bank of China, the European Central Bank, the Bank of
01:24:52
England, the Fed, they all work together because they are first and foremost technocrats who understand that we need
01:24:59
the markets to function. You need something like that for AI. in an AI stability board so that whenever there
01:25:06
is a model that creates a danger to us globally like Anthropic just did last week that model is dangerous to all of
01:25:15
us globally because any software with a potential bug in it is findable by that model and it can be exploited that's
01:25:22
incredibly dangerous weapon so we don't want everyone to have that so you need
01:25:27
at scale because everyone's going to develop this stuff you need an AI stability board like the financial
01:25:31
stability board that is governed by technocrats, by people that have an independent capacity to identify threats
01:25:39
to the systemic environment, the AI environment that we need to work that can communicate that to the people that
01:25:46
have power and that can immediately attack and address it. Right? That's the
01:25:51
second thing we need. We don't have that yet. The third thing we need is we have
01:25:56
to have an ability to fund AI for people that otherwise would not be able to take
01:26:03
advantage of it. We've got half of Africa that doesn't have electricity.
01:26:08
The the gap between people with electricity and people that don't have electricity is going to be a hell of a
01:26:13
lot worse when it's AI. It's going to be a gap between people that act like
01:26:18
empowered human beings, hybrid individuals that have AI as a principal relationship and can deploy that
01:26:24
knowledge and people that we won't even treat as human beings >> like a different species almost
01:26:28
>> like a different species. That's unacceptable. We can't allow humanity to
01:26:32
develop that way. So, we have to spend the money to ensure that everyone has access. We aren't close to that. What
01:26:39
about the domestic economy here in the United States or in I know the UK or any of these countries that are developing
01:26:44
the technology. >> Same as the last point. It's the exact same. >> Okay. So, you've got to also fund.
01:26:49
>> Yeah. It can't just be global. I mean, the Americans will not care about this
01:26:52
if this is like for subsaharan Africa. They'll whatever, right? It's them. I'm
01:26:55
saying this is something that is necessary for humanity. But when I looked at our our teas going around the
01:27:01
moon, we're looking down. I don't see borders. I see 8 billion people. I mean,
01:27:06
if anyone that that came down that wasn't being shot up from the earth and came down, anyone that came down to the
01:27:11
earth would look at us and they say, "Oh, look at this. 8 billion people, they don't see borders, right?" And and
01:27:17
the first thing they would learn if they learned how we actually operate with our
01:27:21
8 billion people is, "Wow, you guys, given the technology you're developing,
01:27:24
you have nowhere near adequate governance for your 8 billion people. you guys are all divided into and all of
01:27:30
these short-term decisions you're making that are so inefficient and you are
01:27:35
you're going to destroy yourselves. That's what they'd say. That's what they
01:27:38
say. And and and I say that as a person who is a citizen of the country that created the United Nations because we
01:27:44
understood the last time we almost destroyed ourselves in a world war. We can't do that anymore. So we need more
01:27:51
global governance. We need more forums that bring everyone together, not that divide us apart. We're not heading in
01:27:56
that direction right now. >> We are not heading in that direction right now.
01:27:59
>> Yes. >> I mean, we're certainly heading in the opposite direction in every sense of the
01:28:03
word. >> In the opposite direction in most senses of the word, but technologically, one
01:28:08
could imagine that we're developing the tools that will help us move in that
01:28:13
direction if we wish to. >> There is another version of the future, isn't there? Uh sometimes I question
01:28:18
whether it's possible because the human condition is so you know contaminated with all of these
01:28:23
um these sort of darker parts of ourselves. But sometimes I wonder if there is like a version of the
01:28:30
future which is utopia. >> I don't see how there isn't. I mean I don't I don't see how you allow human
01:28:36
beings to create the kind of tools that we have and not have the ability to use them for good. The big stories of the
01:28:43
world over the past 50 years, my lifetime, those big stories have been about growth. Those big stories have
01:28:50
been about how human beings are living for longer with better education and better healthcare and more wealth and
01:28:57
less starvation and less poverty. Those have been the big stories of the last 50
01:29:02
years. Now, you can say maybe it's a blip, but actually when you look at humans history on the planet, it's
01:29:08
generally moved towards more capacity. We've just had a couple of really bad
01:29:13
episodes >> and information spreads so quickly that we hear about these bad episodes in a
01:29:18
way that we wouldn't have otherwise. It feels >> the algorithm serving me up what's going
01:29:21
on 10,000 miles that way. >> And I worry the most about that. I worry the most about people getting
01:29:28
programmed. I'm not worried about artificial general intelligence. I'm worried about human beings becoming more
01:29:35
computer-like. When you spend all of your time on your smartphone, that is a computer programming a human being. And
01:29:42
we're acting more like the computer when we know that we're not like that. We we
01:29:46
know that we're more like who we are over the last few hours. >> We're sitting here. We're having a
01:29:51
conversation with each other. I've never met you before. We know a bit about each
01:29:55
other, but we're having a real conversation. That's a humane conversation. As soon as it gets
01:29:59
intermediated by algorithms, as soon as you get programmed into a lane, we become much more much more inhuman. And
01:30:06
I I worry that's why I hate prediction markets. The idea that we're going to
01:30:10
instead of looking at our political institutions as things that we built that serve us, instead we create a
01:30:16
casino out of them, and we only care about whether we're in or out of the money. That that human beings don't
01:30:21
operate that way. Companies that want to line their pockets make us work that way. We're we're being forced away from
01:30:28
being our better selves. We need regulations and governance models and companies that help us be more of our
01:30:34
better selves. >> What's interesting is as a podcaster, you sit in this really interesting
01:30:37
position where I don't have like a boss or an overlord telling me who I can interview and who I can't. And my team
01:30:42
know me so well now that they would never even mention the implications of me interviewing
01:30:50
someone to me. And when I say that is like they would never come to me and say, "Stephen, you should you should
01:30:56
interview Ian, but just so you know, this is his politics and if you if you interview him, these people might scream
01:31:01
at you." They know me so well that they would never even mention it. So I say
01:31:05
this to say that I have the opportunity to be like truly independent and that means that you know last week we had
01:31:09
Ivanka Trump on had Michelle Obama Michelle Obama on then Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsome and I've interviewed Men
01:31:15
Dani and it's funny when you sit in this position and you have you look at your you know
01:31:21
the list of people that want to come on the show and that you've asked you know
01:31:23
can we reach out to these people and you see every name and yet you know that this having a conversation because of
01:31:33
the algorithms with someone that half my audience don't agree with is going to cause like real
01:31:38
anger. Real anger. But like it's what what I also find to be really funny is
01:31:43
like when I meet these people in real life that half my audience hates >> for some reason
01:31:48
>> you connect with them. >> I can see like a lot of the time they have a disagreement about the path but
01:31:53
they all agree on the destination. >> Well, no one's a villain of their own
01:31:56
story. The one thing I would tweak of what you just said, you said um because you're independent, you have the
01:32:01
opportunity, >> right, to to do what you want and to say what you want and to interview whoever
01:32:06
you want, handle you. I think you have the obligation. >> Yeah. >> In this environment, independence is a
01:32:13
responsibility because there are so many people that are not in your position or
01:32:18
my position that aren't independent that can be fired and they do not have the
01:32:22
same opportunity and and instead we can't be angry at those people. But we have to recognize no no we we are
01:32:28
fortunate enough to be independent and if you can't be fired we have an obligation to be out there and above the
01:32:35
50% of people that are going to hate you for whatever it is. >> Can I ask you a question then? Do you
01:32:39
think I need to say something to the audience on why this is so important? >> Of course you do. I think I think you do
01:32:47
that through your conversations but I think being mindful of it is important. >> I mean it's it's about being authentic
01:32:53
to who you are. I mean, you and I may not have exactly the same values. We may not have the same priorities, but but if
01:32:59
you're being honest about yourself, with your audience, about what matters, you're doing that through your podcast,
01:33:05
your conversation. It's about never selling out when you do that. >> It's about never pulling back and
01:33:11
saying, "Oh, no, that that might irritate someone, so I'm not going to say it." That's not who you are. You
01:33:14
can't do that. >> Yeah. >> Right. Because again, that's that's what
01:33:17
mainstream media does, and that's why they're in trouble. >> I I I completely agree. And I think it's
01:33:23
funny because sometimes I think that the audience might not understand that. But
01:33:27
the reality is in the real world when I go outside and I speak to people, they understand that and they appreciate
01:33:32
that. It's just sometimes I think vocal minorities that that really don't want
01:33:37
to hear from someone that disagrees with them at all. But I I just are they really vocal minorities or are they
01:33:42
bots? Are they algorithmically created? When you and I are on the street and people come up to us, it's over and it's
01:33:50
random. It's overwhelmingly friendly. >> Maybe, you know, I I think the digital
01:33:56
world is not really a human world. And that's why it's so much more important
01:34:00
to do more live, just get out there. Also, do more long form. The more that we can do to resist the algorithm, the
01:34:06
better we'll be as a planet, the better we'll be as a species. >> I'm so in love with the idea of like
01:34:11
talking to people you disagree with or just have a difference of opinion with. I'm so in love by their I remember
01:34:16
reading a quote once that said if you have the same opinion if you have the same complete set of opinions as one
01:34:23
group of people those are not your opinions and I find that to be really really true because I can steal and take
01:34:29
ideas and opinions that I agree with from almost everybody that I speak to. And this is such a strange position to
01:34:34
take in an algorithmically driven world where the echo chamber will un unbelievably
01:34:40
reinforce and protect me if I just choose a side. >> That's right. And the part of my life
01:34:44
that that resists this is that my view is that if you hold the same opinions as the world is changing, you will be
01:34:50
wrong. >> True. Yeah. >> And but the algorithm doesn't want you to change your views.
01:34:55
>> Is there any closing remarks that you have for for the listeners based on the
01:34:58
journey we've been on? >> I mean, again, I know you're based um you're Brit.
01:35:03
>> I live in Los Angeles as well. >> Yeah, I know. But but still, I mean, you
01:35:06
know, you got an accent and I mean, you know, you're global. You four years old.
01:35:10
You bought Batswana, right? that whole story. Um, I mean, the fact is that you've managed to build something
01:35:17
global without promoting irresponsible lies and hatred and dislike. And I don't I don't
01:35:25
think you're bad for people, right? And we need more of that. Look, I mean, I I
01:35:28
I think about when I think about where power is coming from, it's not just tech
01:35:33
companies. It's also people outside of established political force. When I was
01:35:39
a kid, I was here's what we're talking about. I was in second grade, I think.
01:35:43
Uh my my teacher's name was uh Miss Criticico. She was she was Greek. And she was asking us, we were talking about
01:35:50
um the elections and she was asking us who wanted to be president and and she was talking about what it meant to be
01:35:57
president. I remember raising my hand of course and everyone's talking about
01:36:00
think how cool it would be. And then all of a sudden, Ian, why why why do would you want to be president? And I looked
01:36:04
around and I realized that I was the only person that had my hand up, which did not make any sense to me at the
01:36:09
time. I would not have my hand up today. I thought when I grew up, I really believed that like public service was
01:36:16
the ultimate expression of how you make a difference. That is no longer true. But it's not because our system is so
01:36:23
broken, it's so bad. It's rather that we have created all sorts of opportunities
01:36:29
for people to really make a difference globally outside of political institutions. And I've devoted my life
01:36:37
to that uh professionally. And I think it's incredibly important, right? And
01:36:41
maybe people don't agree with me uh all the time. Obviously, that's fine. But
01:36:47
they do know that I really care about what I'm doing and I'm trying to get
01:36:51
better over time. That's all we can do. Um and I don't think that has to be It
01:36:54
turns out I'll go through my life and hopefully I'll have a long and healthy
01:36:57
life and I don't think I'll ever have served in public office, but hopefully
01:37:02
continue to have more and more impact in a good way over time. >> Yeah. I remember I remember hearing um
01:37:07
Neil Degrass Tyson say something very similar where he said the most powerful people on planet earth are no longer the
01:37:12
elected. They are those that influence the electorate because they end up going to the polls and making that decision
01:37:17
and and so it is a huge amount of responsibility in such a world for people like yourself who I do think do a
01:37:22
public service and educating all of us. I mean look at all these books in front of me.
01:37:26
>> Um unbelievable how many books you've written and how incredible they all are.
01:37:29
>> I don't know how you found them all but they are out there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm
01:37:31
going to link all of them below and I would ask my audience to take a look at the variety of different I think this is
01:37:36
the most recent one. The power of the most another one coming out next year too.
01:37:40
>> Yeah. >> What's the new book coming? >> Don't have a title yet.
01:37:42
>> Oh, you don't have no >> um The power of crisis, how three threats and our response will change the
01:37:48
world. And in this book, you talk more about AI as one of those threats as well, but I'm going to link them all
01:37:54
below. And I highly recommend people go and follow you both on your YouTube channel where you make content
01:37:58
frequently about these issues as they're evolving. If you want to keep in touch
01:38:01
with Ian's perspective and also over on your ex page, you've got over a million
01:38:05
followers over on X. Big audience over there. >> We have a closing tradition on this
01:38:08
podcast when the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.
01:38:11
>> Okay. >> And the question left for you is I cannot read this. Okay, here we go.
01:38:16
>> When you are on your deathbed, how will you describe your life? >> Unanticipated.
01:38:25
>> Sounds like a a good life. Definitely. I mean, you know, let's face it, the my
01:38:31
optimism comes from the fact that we have no idea what we did to deserve being here.
01:38:36
>> So, every day is kind of like it's a bit of a gift, right? The more you can
01:38:40
remember that, the more I think the better off we are. >> Ian, thank you. I really appreciate all
01:38:45
the nice you and you. Um, I've been watching you for many, many, many, many years. and uh whenever the world
01:38:50
descends into turmoil and I'm looking for someone who can turn the lights on
01:38:53
for me. You're the person that I come to typically on YouTube. I watch most of
01:38:55
your stuff on there, but I also follow you on X and find your takes um incredibly accessible and um
01:39:01
demystifying, which is I think exactly what we need more of at this time. So, you are doing a public service even
01:39:05
though you're not running a country. Um you're helping people like me understand
01:39:09
all of this craziness and therefore um hopefully live better lives and make better decisions as to who we elect and
01:39:15
and how we think about the world and how we treat one another. So, thank you for
01:39:18
doing that. It's it's a great service to humanity. >> Well, it's very motivating to hear that,
01:39:21
frankly, and uh I promise you I'll keep doing my best side. >> Thank you. YouTube have this new crazy
01:39:25
algorithm where they know exactly what video you would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior.
01:39:32
And the algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you. It's different for everybody looking right
01:39:38
now. Check this video out and I bet you you might love