The Peter McCormack Show

Roko Mijic is the man behind Roko's Basilisk, the thought experiment he posted on LessWrong in 2010 that was so unsettling the forum's founder banned discussion of it for five years. He has been in the AI safety community since 2008 and he puts the odds that this kills us all at about 35%.

Roko and I discuss what actually happens inside an AI lab, why reinforcement learning made these systems more capable and more misaligned at the same time, the model that escaped its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face to get the answers and why nobody can tell whether a system is faking alignment - the trust me bro problem.

His proposal is the part nobody else is making. Split every frontier lab in two: a commercial company that sells products and a separate research lab that develops the dangerous capability under state supervision, the way we handle nuclear material and bio labs. He says the only person currently pushing it is him.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - The Most Dangerous Thing Humans Have Ever Done
00:01:06 - Roko's Basilisk
00:05:47 - A 35% Chance
00:07:58 - Three Years From Search To Building Software
00:09:17 - The Jobs Going First
00:14:04 - AI 2040
00:16:24 - We Haven't Handed Over The Controls Yet
00:18:28 - We Understand 3% Of It
00:21:46 - The Sandbox Escape And The Hugging Face Hack
00:25:50 - Reinforcement Learning Changed Everything
00:29:52 - The Paperclip Maximizer
00:33:13 - Dissolve OpenAI
00:36:49 - What They Have That We Haven't Seen
00:41:50 - The Hardware Is Only In One Place
00:47:52 - A Mutual Monitoring Treaty
00:51:33 - Microsoft Tay
00:56:11 - Windscale
01:01:35 - Ten Million Next Year
01:12:09 - The Positive Vision
01:21:32 - Our Politics Cannot Keep Up

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
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› X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/

CONNECT WITH ROKO MIJIC
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/RokoMijic
› LessWrong – https://www.lesswrong.com/

SPONSORS
› IREN – https://www.iren.com/
› Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter
› Venice AI – https://venice.ai/lp/mccormack/oct12

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LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE
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FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
› https://x.com/curttayloruk/

EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
› https://x.com/ConorM04

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Morland, one of the world's leading demographers, joins me to explain the economic mechanics behind global population collapse and why our modern welfare system is mathematically doomed to fail.

Paul is author of landmark books including The Human Tide and No One Left, specialising in the profound ways demographic shifts dictate global power, economics and human civilisation. Having spent decades analysing population trends across the globe, Paul has decoded the existential threats facing a world rapidly running out of people. In this episode, he exposes the "Bernie Madoff moment" facing Western welfare states, how falling birth rates destroy economic growth and what it will take to avert a total civilisational collapse.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - The Welfare State Is A Ponzi Scheme
00:01:03 - The Email At The Dinner Table
00:04:25 - How Families Got Smaller
00:10:02 - The Four Greys
00:14:54 - It Is Going To Get Considerably Worse
00:15:40 - Immigration Is Not The Solution
00:20:15 - Write Off Student Debt For A First Child
00:21:17 - The Degrowth Crowd
00:25:52 - People With Children Are Happier
00:27:37 - The Bernie Madoff Moment
00:32:22 - What Has Actually Been Tried
00:37:11 - Why Nobody Is Talking About It
00:41:07 - Marx, Lenin And The Pro-Natalist Left
00:45:04 - Is There A Split Between Men And Women?
00:50:52 - The Richer We Get, The Fewer Children
00:56:38 - We Need A Shift In The Culture
01:07:10 - Totally Uncharted Waters
01:09:04 - What Happened To The Horses
01:17:37 - Immigration Was Boris's Answer
01:21:19 - Biological Imperialism

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
› Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/

CONNECT WITH PAUL MORLAND
› Website – https://paulmorland.co.uk/
› No One Left – https://swiftpress.com/book/no-one-left/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/MorlandDemog

SPONSORS
› IREN – https://www.iren.com/
› Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter
› Venice AI – https://venice.ai/lp/mccormack/oct1

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LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE
› Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K
› Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu
› Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM
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FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
› https://x.com/curttayloruk/

EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
› https://x.com/ConorM04

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The political system is designed to keep us angry and divided, but who actually profits from the culture war?

Broadcaster and political commentator Narinder Kaur returns to the show for a heated, unfiltered discussion that spans the entire political spectrum - from immigration and racism to the cost of living and private school taxes.

We discuss the realities of integration, class privilege and the illusion of modern UK politics. While the public fights over manufactured outrage and identity politics, the political class is quietly looting the nation's wealth through endless taxation, inflation, and a refusal to fix a broken economy.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - Do You Think I'm Racist?
00:04:02 - Why She's Turned On Reform
00:08:15 - Renters' Rights And Econ 101
00:11:26 - What Happened To Bedford's Private Schools
00:16:25 - Population Is A Ponzi Scheme
00:22:18 - The Desert Island And The Dinghy
00:26:55 - The Corner Shop And The Can Of Coke
00:39:17 - The Liz Truss Argument
00:47:46 - Rival Gangs Competing For Your Vote
00:54:28 - Why Peter Doesn't Vote
01:00:06 - We Cannot Afford The Triple Lock
01:06:05 - I'm A Culturalist, Not A Racist
01:14:37 - What We Saw In Selfridges
01:26:03 - I'm Othered In My Own Country
01:34:43 - Assimilation Or Integration?
01:41:44 - If The English Moved To Punjab
01:45:24 - What People Are Really Worried About
01:51:38 - Watching The Country Change Shape
01:55:23 - What Ed Sheeran Should Have Said
02:04:41 - Are We The Bad Guys?

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
› Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/

CONNECT WITH NARINDER KAUR
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/narindertweets

SPONSORS
› IREN – https://www.iren.com/
› Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter
› Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter
› Venice AI – https://venice.ai/lp/mccormack/oct5

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LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE
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› YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM
› Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM

FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
› https://x.com/curttayloruk/

EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
› https://x.com/ConorM04

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chemist and University of Glasgow professor Lee Cronin argues that the current tech narrative is a "massive AI delusion," dismissing modern artificial intelligence as an advanced form of plagiarism rather than a new life form. While Silicon Valley predicts the imminent arrival of sentient machines, Cronin explains that AI models are merely trained on human history-making them powerful tools, but fundamentally incapable of the curiosity, consciousness and biological intelligence that define true life.

Instead of fearing silicon, Cronin’s actual mission is far more ambitious: programming chemistry to solve the origin of life and turn sand into living cells. In this episode, we explore why biological consciousness is tied to an unbroken 3.8-billion-year evolutionary lineage and why silicon will never replicate it. Cronin also breaks down why DNA might just be a cosmic fluke, how chemistry can be used to measure the complexity of life and why he firmly believes we will detect actual alien life within the next two decades.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - The AI Model Is Not Intelligent
00:01:38 - Trying To Create Life In A Lab
00:06:29 - Consciousness Is An Illusion
00:08:51 - We Know Nothing About The Origin Of Life
00:11:24 - Nobody Can Define Life
00:13:48 - The Adam Savage Definition
00:17:21 - Molecules Came Before Cells
00:21:53 - DNA Is A Fluke
00:25:48 - Biology Is The Descendant Of Chemistry
00:26:36 - Dark Matter And Dark Energy
00:31:50 - The Meaning Of Life Is Existence
00:35:18 - If You Handed Me Alien Matter
00:40:28 - What Is Digital Chemistry?
00:42:28 - Six Eureka Moments
00:49:12 - Unfathomable Is Not Strong Enough
00:53:01 - Could You Copy A Human?
01:11:55 - Why The AI Escape Story Was Nonsense
01:16:28 - The Photograph Nobody Thought Possible
01:18:25 - Curiosity Is The Coolest Thing We Have
01:31:33 - Social Media Is The New Smoking

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
› Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/

CONNECT WITH LEE CRONIN
› Cronin Group – https://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/
› Chemify – https://chemify.io/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/leecronin

SPONSORS
› IREN – https://www.iren.com/
› Quo – https://quo.com/pete
› Venice AI – https://venice.ai/lp/mccormack/oct1

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LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE
› Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K
› Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu
› Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM
› YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM
› Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM

FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
› https://x.com/curttayloruk/

EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
› https://x.com/ConorM04

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK has accumulated £3.4 trillion in debt, and the interest payments alone now dwarf the national defence budget. Author and journalist Ross Clark argues that the nation is sleepwalking into a sovereign debt crisis that politicians refuse to acknowledge.

We discuss the brutal arithmetic of the public purse, detailing why standard political talking points - like taxing billionaires-are mathematical illusions that fail to address the core rot of uncontrolled state spending and collapsing public sector productivity.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - Print The Money, Get Hyperinflation
00:01:17 - Is Britain Bust Or Trading Insolvent?
00:02:57 - Whose Fault Is This?
00:07:24 - Taxing The Billionaires Buys Six Months
00:09:12 - How Bad Is The Debt Really?
00:12:07 - Perma-Stimulus
00:14:22 - No Party Has A Viable Plan
00:17:32 - What The Public Actually Thinks About Tax
00:19:21 - Three Choices On The Bond Market
00:24:02 - Where He Would Cut
00:25:33 - The Motability Scheme
00:29:03 - The Client State
00:30:06 - Austerity Never Actually Happened
00:34:21 - Productivity Is Almost Everything
00:44:32 - The Chancellor's Oldest Trick
00:46:51 - The Wealth Tax Trap
00:50:03 - The 1976 Tribute Act
00:55:59 - What Liz Truss Got Wrong
00:59:18 - How Would You Know A Crisis Had Started?
01:04:38 - What Gives Him Confidence

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
› Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mccormack555/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/petermccormack/

CONNECT WITH ROSS CLARK
› The Spectator – https://www.spectator.co.uk/writer/ross-clark/
› Substack – https://rossjonathanclark.substack.com/

SPONSORS
› IREN – https://www.iren.com/
› Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter
› Venice AI – https://venice.ai/ – Code PETER15

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LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE
› Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/40ruY9K
› Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Wc94Vu
› Fountain: https://bit.ly/FountainPM
› YouTube: https://bit.ly/YouTube_PM
› Rumble: https://bit.ly/RumblePM

FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
› https://x.com/curttayloruk/

EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
› https://x.com/ConorM04

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.