Maisie: Page 94: the Private Eye Podcast.

Andy: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Page 94.

My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the Eye studio with Ian

Hislop, Helen Lewis and Richard Brooks.

We've got some good news to discuss today, and I think it's important to

start sometimes with positive news because we often talk about negative

stories and we, talk about corruption, and I think it's important that we

say when something's gone, right?

So we're here to cover an amazing act of generosity in British political

life, which is that out of complete selflessness, as far as I can tell.

Two billionaires have decided to give reform UK 72 million quid

between them, 36 million each.

They're giving it now, and they don't want anything in return, and I

just think we should celebrate that.

I think we're very cynical sometimes about politics,

Ian: Yeah.

And that's the end of the podcast.

Thank you very much everyone for listening.

Andy: Thank you.

See you next time.

get a subscription to the magazine, which features Nigel Farage on the

front over a different financial scandal

Ian: And

that one, the joke was about him taking 500,000 pounds.

Andy: Chicken feed, as Boris Johnson would've put it.

Richard, you've been covering this for the magazine.

Richard: yeah.

Looking at, the donations from Ben Dlo.

Andy: a new, name for lots of listeners, I think.

Richard: a big crypto guy, did very well at university, very clever chap.

went to work for banks and hedge funds and so on.

Then discovered Bitcoin when it, Started to emerge, made a lot of money from it.

set up, a Bitcoin derivative or a crypto derivative trading exchange called BitMEX

where you could do all sorts of things

Helen: including crime.

Richard: the people using it could, yes, it seems,

Helen: that is one of the things about, cryptocurrencies generally

is if you want to have untraceable money for, say, buying drugs or,

getting around sanctions, they're

Richard: quite

Helen: helpful.

So did that cause any problems our Ben Delo by any

Andy: Helen.

Again, I think that's very cynical.

I don't think there's any evidence that there was ever any, any unlawful

activity unless, Richard, do you have any,

Richard: is

there any

it's, it is quite hard to find.

In fact, you have to go on the internet and look at the,

Andy: the

Richard: Department of Justice well

hang

Andy: you say what they found, Richard, I should put Delos case.

I think that's only fair that we put the, the case for the defence first.

Ian: Yep.

not traditional in a court of law, but do feel free,

Andy: look

as, as Delo himself an entrepreneur and philanthropist, as he put it.

I'll quote him directly here.

he wrote a piece for the Telegraph about why he was making this 36 million

pound donation to Reform, "despite the fact that we ran an honest shop

and never lost a penny of customer funds to a hack or misallocation, a US

prosecutor went after us for not keeping sufficient records on our customers.

We got through it and I kept calm and carried on with my philanthropy."

Richard: A Prosecutor came after

him.

that's like Ronnie Bigs complaining that the police came after him

for

robbing a train, they did come after him.

it seems with good reason.

and found that, he was running what they called, he and his co-founders

were running, what they called a, an effect a money laundering operation.

'cause they were essentially having anybody to come on to their platform,

do their trading without any checks.

and then they misled the authorities about whether they were making those checks.

they, for example, took on people who were from Iran, and didn't then

decide to ask, hang on a minute.

Where's your money coming from?

So there was a lot of sanctions related violations.

Ian: Would,

that conflict with reforms, patriotic agenda at all?

Richard: You're not saying it's slightly traitorous, right?

Ian: yes.

Given they used that word a lot.

Richard: Yeah.

But

Helen: But he got convicted, didn't he?

Richard: Yeah.

He, he, pleaded guilty and, he was fined.

He got with 30, 30 months probation and a large fine.

Ian: and that report is

Richard: severe and, yeah.

the point is that reform now want to present this as a

sort of technical failing.

And it, when all the reports of these donations mentioned, in passing

that, oh, he was found not to have followed anti-money laundering rules.

Like it's ticking a few boxes, But the trouble is with money laundering,

it's a very blurry line between not ticking the boxes and just letting

crooks come in with dodging money.

to the point in, in Delos case where he was actually, fiddling the

records so that it could happen.

US department's Justice said that he, that Dilo "falsely changed internal tracking

information to reflect that customer's country of residence as being other than

the United States", because that would've triggered regulatory intervention.

So he was fiddling the records

Ian: that doesn't feature in, any of the accounts of this, I've read

from nearly any paper, broadcaster at

Richard: all.

no, but you do have to get to, about the fifth paragraph of this Department of

Justice.

Andy: Dilo doesn't mention that in his Telegraph essay about it.

Really.

No.

What he says, and again, I'm just gonna, put the Delo case here.

He says, "I want a fair fight and a level playing field".

I would say if you're giving 36 million quid to a party, you want an unfair

fight and a non level playing field.

Surely.

Helen: their

argument is that Labour gets huge donations from the

trade unions, for example.

their argument is this is levelling the playing field because the left gets

all this money from other sources and, and they're just, they're, recouping

outwards.

Ian: but the trade unions, as I understand it from my sketchy,

view of history, involve lots of individuals giving money rather than

Helen: one.

Richard: Yes.

and they get to vote

Helen: on

it.

Richard: Yes.

Where

the money goes.

of course they generally go one place, but

yes.

there is

Helen: sort

Richard: some

sort of

Helen: do the conservatives this time

Richard: actually, guys.

It could you

never know, could happen.

as, dilo wrote, I think in that telegraph piece that restricting

his donations would be literally as undemocratic as you can get

Ian: Yeah.

Richard: when you, look at the scale of it.

these sums, if you think democracy involves some sort of semblance

of equal influence on the process, these numbers are just phenomenal.

I think.

in the whole of reform's history since it, since the Brexit party became

Reform Dilo and Christopher Harbo, who's a chap who's matching his 36

million, they would've given about three quarters of the funds to the party.

So they're more or less financially control it.

Two individuals.

Yeah.

Ian: I think this is your fault, Richard?

' cause in the last issue you wrote a piece saying, Harbaugh's keeping his hand in

his pocket at the moment, and Dilo is coming up with all this money, you just

provoked him into doubling their income.

How do you feel about that?

Richard: Yeah, we shouldn't really have called him a tight git, should we?

Helen: we?

Ian: no,

Richard: it seems to, he, he is, he said it was competitive, didn't he?

He did.

they wanna be the most in favour with Nigel Beer's best, most generous hum

Andy: can we put this slightly in the context of reform's recent, money trouble.

So the reason that Nigel Farage is on the front cover of the latest issue of the

mag is not that you have second sight, Ian, is that there was already a huge

row that completely overshadowed Reforms party conference this year about a Channel

Four sting operation where someone posed as a young, naive, wealthy bloke who

wanted to give a lot of money to reform and said, my dad's the one who really

wants to give up, but he's in America.

So maybe, can we find a way around that?

And reform's top officers who've been dismissed as contractors by the party

ever since they had to step down reform's top officers said, yes, here

are lots of ways that you could, you could donate the money and we could

basically get around those rules.

Ian: but Nigel Farage, who was at the meeting said he wasn't listening,

Andy: so that's fine.

Um,

Ian: which again, is as, as cases for the defence go is not hugely strong.

Andy: No.

Helen: Oh, come now, Ian, you've been

Richard: meetings where

you've been

Andy: listening.

Richard: hold

Helen: that against him,

but also that I thought the way that they, the dodginess of that money was

interesting, which was that they were essentially funding polling, which

was designed to be fed to newspapers, the Times and the Telegraph as a

kind of neutral, unbiased survey.

But it was gonna be very helpful for making reform appear

much, maybe more popular than

Ian: were.

Yeah.

JL

Helen: Partners.

Richard: Yeah.

Ian: I

just thought we should say

Richard: the

Andy: name.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Richard: So the, yeah, the fact that it was foreign money was just

one part of the problem, wasn't it?

Yeah.

it was, hiding.

Yeah.

The fact that Reform were paying for it and then they make, they

were stupid enough to get it funded by a foreign company.

Ian: Yeah.

at this point, I think we should say that a number of people have said

that, there's nothing odd about these two donors giving so much money.

One of them is Richard Tyson.

another one's Robert Genrich.

And if you are looking for down the line guys who know about

donations and legality, you couldn't have picked a better

Andy: two.

I

did hearing Nigel Farra.

Tell Laura, Coonsburg.

I know more about donations law than anyone else.

And I'd say, I'm not sure

you do

if your currently, if your party's being investigated by the police, over

the Channel four thing, and there's a separate parliamentary investigation

over the 5 million quid donation, which is another completely separate matter,

although it does have Christopher Harbaugh at its heart as well.

Richard: if I were investigating Farage or thinking of prosecuting,

I would make a note of that comment.

For future reference.

Andy: Yes.

Helen: I,

Richard: fully full well what the rules were that might not help him in

Andy: future.

Yes.

And I know we shouldn't talk too much about ongoing investigations, but

there was one line in the Channel Four documentary that I thought

was extremely significant, which is a scene that's again being shot

covertly by this undercover hack.

the chief of staff for the party, Dan Dukes, says, the American father can

give his son British son money and it'll get to Reform that way, which

would be, absolutely against the law.

But he says, and I'm quoting here, Dan Dukes says, " serious point, redacted,

donates to us, and he donates through his son the, they donate through

their kids the", and then at this point, the redaction becomes, so it's

like an episode of Jerry Springer.

So many names here are being bleeped out and I'm quite sure that the police

are gonna be taking a look at that.

And I'm quite sure Channel Four have those names as well, which

they may also want to be looking at.

There's just every single story about Reforms funding seems to involve

dodginess investigations, the police now.

Helen: there's also a drip, drip effect, which is often what makes stories,

more appealing and run which is in the case of these two new donors, a lot

hinges on when they became resident in the uk because of the way that

legislation is written, they need to have been here for a year essentially.

And we just do not know, 'cause we have to look at when they registered

on the electoral role, what their business interests, where whatever

it might be, that information has not

Richard: yet

been

decided.

that's, if the

legislation going through parliament comes in, isn't it?

That's what's planned.

Yeah.

I think it could get funny when they say, that's not fair.

You can't retrospectively or retroactively legislate and try to

dispute it, which will depend on using human rights legislation, which of

which they're such fans.

You cannot

Ian: wait for

that.

You can deport people who are already here retrospectively, but you can't

investigate foreign businessmen who've moved here as a matter of patriotic duty.

Helen: Can I say why this story worries me, particularly as somebody who

spends a lot of time covering America?

one of the worst decisions in American politics happened in 2016.

It was a Supreme Court decision called Citizens United.

And it's funny you mentioned human rights 'cause it was a version of that

essentially that said, cracking down on, on free speech not to let corporations

make unlimited donations in elections.

And that's the point at which you get super pacs.

These, these political action committees, which as long as they

don't technically coordinate with candidates, are allowed to do unlimited

spending.

And that's when you get this enormous, like just American elections now

probably they cost billions and billions.

The one that always, just blows my mind

is,

Wisconsin had an election for its Supreme Court, right?

Okay.

okay.

A state in the Midwest has a Supreme court that rules on, say its election issues

or that's the highest court in Wisconsin.

Elon Musk spent $20 million.

Trying to get a Republican elected to that, to the one

seat,

one,

one

seat

on that, because it's a swing state, it's a swing court.

And he wanted someone in place who would, I would suggest, probably

gerrymander, help make sure that was a more favourable map to Republicans.

If there were any decisions about voting rights and regulations

that came to it, would vote

the way

that

he wanted.

So there was over $80 million spent on that race, 20 million by him, including

when he promised three people who registered to vote a million dollars a

piece, which is something that, again, is being investigated as to its legality.

But you get to a situation in which one state, one court, one seat, you

have a, a trillionaire putting in $20 million into just in, luckily

he lost, which is very funny and it makes it enjoyable for all of us.

I don't wanna see British, one of the things that's best about British politics,

we were here last time talking about Mothin Ali and is 5,000 pounds, is that

the sums are small and a huge influx, particularly of crypto money, I think

would just be extremely undemocratic.

So when Ben Dilo talks about he's not having his voice in

democracy, I think it's exactly the

Richard: other

Ian: around.

Helen: Yeah.

We

Ian: can I add to that the, the, the money involved gives rise to people talking

about, we'll, be more professional, which means they will pay people to

do jobs that at the moment are done by volunteers, and are done by people who

will go door to door, who will deliver leaflets, who will give their time,

to a party because they believe in it.

If you've got that much money, you just employ large amounts of people who don't

care and are doing it for the money.

And that.

Seems

to be another loss.

Yeah.

it's exactly Farage's attitude to not turning up to the count.

Oh, all these noddies.

I want the people who collect and count the ballots.

I want the people who, genuinely believe in

Richard: this

stuff.

But yeah, they, spent, I think in the last, before the last general election,

the 12 month period reform spent about five and a half million quid.

Now, this will allow 'em to go up to the limit, which is sort of 35 million

nationally, if you're standing in every constituency, which I guess they will be.

and that extra 30 million that's gonna go on consultant, social media,

engineering, ultra professional campaign is what it will be.

And I think they more

Ian: or less

say

that.

Richard: Yeah.

Andy: Can I give you another of Dilo's lines from his essay

and the telegraph about this?

My conclusion from Reform's recent troubles is that the party should

spend less time trying to raise funds to compete on equal terms and

more time preparing for government.

Helen: Oh, it's very selfless.

Again,

very selfless.

So

selfless a

bit previous, but

I should say

Richard: the

Andy: thing, Dilo claims is that Reform is basically a startup.

the party was founded in 2018, and he says, "and I know about startups,

outfits such as Ocado or Octopus energy suffered teething pains and

public blunders on their way to being British success stories."

This is Nigel Farage we're talking about.

He's been at the centre of British public life for 20 years,

Helen: we wait for ages for a Reform scandal and then just, how many of

them

come,

along

at

Richard: once

Andy: is the proposed, I think it's called the Representation Of The People Bill.

And the idea is that you'll, your donations will be limited if you live

overseas to a hundred thousand pounds.

And there's the idea that this will be applied retroactively,

which would obviously

Depending on when these two donors return to the country, they might or

might not have to pay the money back.

And who knows if they will, Does

that seem reasonable to you?

Or unreasonable?

If this huge amount of money has entered British politics, is it

reasonable to try and backdate the

Ian: in the

rules?

I think the timing's unfortunate.

'cause it allows Reform to say you're only doing this.

Yeah.

you and the Labour Party 'cause you are really scared

that we've got all this money.

Which of course is true, but it doesn't alter the fact that some

sort of legislation about foreign donations is, hugely overdue.

So I think those two things can be true

Richard: at the same time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When

Philip Rycroft was a guy who, produced this report suggesting these changes,

oh, he said one of the reasons that he was, he wanted a limit for overseas

donations 'cause it was overseas money was at more risk of, originating somewhere.

It shouldn't do having, funnelling illicit cash into, the political system.

you've gotta ask people where did this money come from?

So with, Delo, for example, where did your 30, where does your 36 million come from?

he'll

give you

some answers, which will presumably pass the test, the legal tests.

But, he's the same guy who fiddled the answers when, talking

about resident of his customers.

Yeah.

He falsified the information.

Falsely changed internal tracking, so you've gotta trust these

guys to tell you where the

Ian: money

came from.

So

you've

gotta trust

Ben

Richard: That's why I was saying we don't want

Ian: too

much of

it.

And then trust Robert Genrich, who

Richard: has,

Ian: a very

poor

record with donations and legality to vet him.

There isn't anyone in this chain who one would normally believe apart, of

course, from President Trump who pardoned

Delo.

Helen: You see all

these guys

at these national conservative

conferences, which sort of are held around the world, which is

in itself inherently hilarious.

But that it should be a bit that you should be involved in a country resident,

in a country paying tax in a country.

You should contribute to that country.

That means you get to allow to be involved in its politics.

I don't, I, given that this is the same people we hear about citizens

of nowhere and, whatever it might be.

This is a, this is the good form of nationalism, which says you have

to have a stake in the country and actually live there in order to

participate in its politicalism.

We made Rishi Sun give up his green card because it was like, you can't be a UK

prime minister and also keep the option of maybe one day migrating to the US Yeah.

and, and look what's happened.

He stayed here.

Andy: We

can, we work

Helen: we kept a skilled worker in this country

BitMEX

Richard: bas in Sey shells.

What's

Ian: wrong with that,

right?

Helen: Very.

patriotic.

Yeah.

Richard: What's

Helen: known for it.

Exactly.

It's great transparent tax regime.

That's one of the things I think people always say about the sey shells.

That and

the

beaches.

Andy: Yeah.

Can I make one more point about Dlo?

it seems as though from his attitude, he says, I believe it's the duty of people

with broad shoulders and deep pockets to step up and help reform to win and govern.

And he presented in a very policy neutral way.

He says he's won't be getting anything out of it in particular.

And it's, almost as though he has no views whatsoever.

and I just wanted to

point out,

as the Guardian reported earlier this year, he funds a political

base in Westminster, a place called the Sanctuary, where all sorts of

people with quite pronounced views have been allowed to use that space.

Restore, have been broadcasting from their Rupert Lowe's Party, the Trigonometry

podcast who like asking for example, whether Rishi Sunak is properly British

or not,

or even English properly, is he English or not?

they broadcast from there.

He hosts Jordan Peterson, Claire Fox,

There is quite a pronounced set of views there, I would

say that has been given space.

Even if Dilo says he doesn't necessarily endorse these views, you

don't have to explicitly endorse them.

To help them out substantially as he's

Ian: with

this

donation?

Yes.

it's not, starving children, is it, or finding a cure for cancer.

some of these things, are not altruism in the normal sense.

We accept it.

And, you would have to say the same about, two crypto billionaires.

They're quite interested in the regulatory framework around cryptocurrency.

Now, I believe, Mr. Farage also expressed some very strong views about

cryptocurrency and its regulation,

Richard: he?

Yeah, he's for freeing it up, making the UK a leader in

crypto, presumably boosting his

own,

the company he's invested in stack BTC, which unfortunately isn't doing very well.

that will be their agenda.

you are gonna keep 72 million pound donors happy, aren't you?

Whatever you say about all the other policies.

Helen: Yeah.

I dunno why they're not transparent about it.

Just say, everybody know, just stop treating people like idiots say, obviously

we've got a set of policies we wanna advance and we wanna work with Nigel

Farage in order to enact them in law.

That's a totally legal

Andy: thing for

Helen: to do.

Ian: You know

Helen: You know what I mean?

Anyway,

but I hope they continue to treat us so

Richard: like

idiots.

anyway.

He can't complain about all our criticism of him 'cause he'll Ben Delo.

'cause he also funds the free speech

union.

Oh,

good.

Ian: Everything

goes.

Andy: Ben, if you'd like to shovel any of that money our

way, I'm afraid we're closed for

business.

Right now.

that was, actually a bit less optimistic than I hoped it might be.

So let's turn to something else now.

The brave new frontiers of tech,

Helen: Yes.

Andy: ai.

Yes.

Helen, what's your p

Helen: doom?

Thank you very much for asking, Andy.

I've been hoping someone would.

So p doom is the phrase that's used in Silicon Valley to indicate

what you think the probability is that AI will kill us all.

So a guy resigned from Anthropic, which is one of the leading the Frontier

Labs, called Jacob Cox and saying, I've had to resign 'cause I think

AI probably is gonna kill us all.

Actually worryingly, this was retweeted by somebody who was still very senior

inside Anthropic who said, yeah.

I also think actually I put the P doom at, 10%, I think probably 10%

chance that AI is gonna kill us all.

And in response to this, Daria Amai, who's the head of, Anthropic,

has released a, a manifesto saying essentially we need to, what he calls

slow the frontier, pace the frontier.

And he wants all the companies, the leading edge companies, which is

really essentially the ones he's been talking to are him OpenAI, run by

Sam Altman, XAI, run by Elon Musk.

They've all said they think it's a good idea that they should pace

themselves in order to make the risk that we're all going to die from ai

Andy: slightly

less.

Now,

these

risks.

Yes.

what actually are they, are people talking about specific things

that

Helen: could

occur?

Yeah.

I went and had a look at Philanthropics latest threat

report, which is quite interesting.

Where it says, essentially you have people using its models or trying to

use its models to, for example, get military intelligence from Ukraine.

trying to hack people's WhatsApps, trying to download enormous data files from an

unnamed African country, like all the details of its businesses essentially.

One of the things that has recently came out from an another company, OpenAI,

was that it created a swarm of agents.

So these AI programmes are essentially a able to operate semi-independently

and set them a task to try and

do

a hack in what should have been a contained environment.

And instead they got outta the contained environment, made themselves

a little message board where they left each other messages about how

to do them hack and worked out how to break into another company's systems.

And then even more impressively left each other little notes

about how they could cover up.

In fact, actually they'd be, one day they'll be donating

to

Richard: Reform.

This

is,

Helen: it's

Richard: very,

Helen: this is what artificial

Richard: intelligences led

us

to.

So,

Andy: No,

Helen: that clever

Andy: Helen.

Helen: But anyway, so that was, that's known as the 'Hugging Face

incident' because that's the name of the company that they broke into.

But essentially you've got this situation where you can have these huge swarms of

agents that are themselves quite powerful.

In this case, they were deliberately, their operating model was to

be very persistent, even if a problem looks insoluble, like

really look for a solution.

And they did.

And their solution was to break the game essentially and get out

into the open internet, but they also coordinated with each other.

So on this message board that they had 1200 of them.

Were on there and they left each other

Richard: millions

Helen: messages.

So it was a kind of essentially like a whole civilization that rose and fell.

There's a brilliant, post by guy called Dke.

She writes about this stuff, describing it as the rise and fall, and it was like

a Philip of Macedon and then Alexander the Great, you had these two agents

that managed to break through and say come on, lads, like through the barrier.

So they do have these interesting capabilities.

One of the main problems is that no one in the industry really seems to

know what the edge of the capabilities are, and they have been going for

scale for so long, building all these data centres we talked about before,

putting more and more compute into them.

And they're hoping to get to the stake, what they call, which they

call, recursive self-improvement, which essentially means that theis

get so good they can train each other.

So at

Richard: that point

Helen: hope, the,

the, the growth curve of how good they

are takes off.

But this has spooked everybody else.

And so you have the situation where everybody in the industry is

going, I think we might be building the hydrogen bomb guys, and dunno

what we're gonna do about that.

And no one really knows whether to believe them or not.

I think that's the important thing.

this has come up and we've talked about this before, and the fact that big

tech is if not hated, then certainly people are deeply suspicious of it.

So nobody really knows how seriously

Ian: to

take these

kind of

but no one's suspicious

enough.

everybody goes on using this stuff.

you talk about Philip Matton,

saying we put it in a box.

Anyone read Pandora's

Box?

you open it up and it's released.

It seems to me the triumph of the nerds, they've read Tolkien, but

they haven't read anything else.

and it might

have

helped, somewhere along the way to worry about the effect of what you are doing.

If you think a product is 10% likely to wipe out humanity, if anyone else released

a product, I'd, have them all up for war crimes.

Send

them

to

Helen: the

Hague.

the Donald Trump administration takes a different view, I

should say at this point.

What's really interesting about the hugging face incident is that

what those agents did is a crime.

They hacked another system, but because it wasn't done by anyone technically

Ian: there's

Helen: no one seems to be really all that interested in

Andy: pursuing

it.

This is what

I want to know about is the current state of regulation,

Helen: bracket, if

any.

Okay.

So you have David Sachs who as the White House's AI Czar saying, I don't

believe all this talk about doom.

I think they're all saying this because they want to get around

anti-monopoly legislation and coordinate with each other.

There's also a sort of lively conspiracy theory about the fact that it is not

the labs that have other business lines.

So not Meta, not Google who are asking for the slowdown.

So the other conspiracy theory, which you know, is not a total conspiracy

theory, is that these frontier labs that only make their money from the

AI models do need to slow down anyway.

'cause they're burning through cash.

They're just running out of cash and they wanna find a way to do that.

That does, isn't like admitting defeat of going like, sorry lads, we spent, we spent

all the budget we haven't got anymore.

they're trying to embroider it into a narrative that actually this is a very

Ian: responsible thing to do.

But having

spent all this

Helen: money, what have they achieved?

people are using ai, actually both open AI and philanthropic are

making decent, people are signed up.

No one is writing their university essays anymore, I

should say

this has happened.

The New York Times had a very sad story about the fact that there's been lots of

unemployment in Kenya because American College students used to employ Kenyans

to write their college essays for them, and now they just use chat GPT.

Oh

God.

One

of the things that is really sad.

So we had this situation where people in the humanities who wrote,

I dunno if you had this, Andy, a couple of years ago, just went, oh,

like everything that I've worked towards in my life, which is learning

how

to

write.

You are, now getting a, an AI to

do

that.

Maths has now got to that point.

So last week, open AI announced they, solved one of the millennium maths

equations, these prize equations.

There's now a big dispute about whether or not they nicked someone's,

Andy: research

and

No,

Helen: know AI

model

and

they said

it may be possible that de-identified information from

these academics might have got into our system, but absolutely not.

But what happened in the wake of that is Terence Tao, who is widely

regarded as the greatest living mathematician, put together an open

letter of fields, medal winners.

So like the Nobel for Maths saying, stop doing this.

We don't like it.

There's a value to humans trying to understand these problems.

If you just spit out, it's like the kind of Douglas Adams thing.

If you just spit out 42, we've

learned nothing.

The

point of having these problems was that the mathematical community worked on

them together, which is exactly where we were with writing The point of writing

an

essay

or writing

an

op-ed,

partly, I dunno about you, but sometimes I don't really know what

Andy: I've thought

until

I

get

to

the

end

of

it.

Richard: yeah,

absolutely.

the point is it's written by a person.

Ian: but

also destroying all the jobs available.

b blindly you hear these people say, driverless cars fantastic.

most of the

world's,

less qualified male population is driving cars, lorries bikes, but

we'll put all of them outta the work.

There's

literally

no

thought

by

any of these people in, into what the future

of humanity might

look

like

with

your

product.

Yeah.

Richard: Yeah.

we, already fight against it, don't we?

like when we do exercise and we're fighting against the fact that

life is so efficient physically.

We've learned that we've gotta go against that a little bit and make ourselves do

things.

But it's now we've got the same thing mentally, haven't we?

We've gotta step up and say, actually we

Ian: might need

to

keep

thinking,

Yeah.

And who are the two people who've come out against ai?

The

pope

and

the king.

Oh,

Richard: great.

Ian: the,

the rest

of the

brilliant cutting edge, scientific and philosophical community haven't noticed.

The people in America

seem

Richard: to think

this is

great.

Yeah.

But we can't

seem

to

overcome

the, the competitive urge.

' cause the

whole

AI development of AI has, it is been driven by competition, often egotistic

competition by, people like Musk and, the Anthropic guys and so on.

you've

somehow gotta persuade them to stop

being

competitive,

you don't wanna win the race to, to doom.

You don't wanna be, it's almost, if someone's gonna win the world, it better

Andy: be

me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

what is tr what is trying to win?

And they end the

Helen: world

disaster.

That is genuinely something that Amida writes about in his essay because he's,

he wants independent evaluators into all of the companies and they, there is

some of that happens already, but it, a lot of it depends on whether or you

believe the companies that they really will do that and they'll abide by the

arbitration and then they want to, they want essentially speed limits for the

development in America and then they want an international agreement with China.

And that backed up by things by, for example, refusing to sell them the most

advanced chips, cracking down on smuggling

Richard: of

chips,

all

Helen: of that

kind of

stuff.

But you are right.

Exactly right.

Lots of this depends on having regulator.

This

would be very sad for

you, Richard, 'cause this is your world.

Having regulators

that have teeth

and

that

people trust

and having international organisations that have got enough buy-in,

and what has Donald Trump done?

He's just destroyed Nadi.

He's destroyed the un

He's blitzed

through

all

of that.

Yeah.

Ian: The

idea you might bypass

the

nuclear

inspectorate.

Yeah.

All the,

the bodies set

up to coordinate international response.

Woof.

Helen: Yeah.

He

just

cut him off

at

the

knees.

Andy: I, can't believe he's getting a second name check in this podcast.

This is more than he got when he was Prime Minister.

But Rishi Sunak has been covering this because the UK has the AI Security

Institute, and he was very keen on ai.

He held a summit at Bletchley Park in 2023, and he has been

writing about the need for effective international regulation.

But if you've got Donald Trump saying, and I, think his latest

quote is something like, whoever

Richard: wins

AI

wins.

yeah.

And Richie Sun Acts government does deserve some credit for setting up the

ai, what's now the AI Security Institute.

which is doing some serious work as a chap chairing it, who has thought about

and is very concerned about the threat from, artificial general intelligence.

that, and its potential to, to kill us all off.

so it's there.

it's not got the biggest funding in the world, but it's got more

than the Americans put into it.

when you contrast that with the trillions they're spending on, the issue.

Andy: but anthropic have just withheld their latest model from the Yeah.

The AI Security Institute.

Helen: But at the same time, they also withheld them, one of their models

from the Pentagons saying they didn't want it used in autonomous weapons.

and it was written into the Deep Mind constitution when they were acquired

by Google, that they wouldn't, their AI wouldn't be used for weapon development.

So there

are, but your point

Richard: exactly right

Helen: about the rivalry.

Lots of these AI companies are made up from people who flanked out

Richard: a company with a

previous

Helen: person

or fell out

with

somebody

with a

pre, or had very different ethical values.

the, the whole thing about Anthropic was its founded by people who didn't

think that open AI were taking their, their safety and security seriously.

Getting these people to work together is going to be incredibly difficult,

and it's created this kind of disaster feeling of inevitability where

everybody's just we're on the runaway

mine cart.

And

Richard: Anthropics sort of view was that we have to raise ahead to get there before

Open Ai because we are more ethical.

Yeah.

But then open AI says, hang on a minute.

Ian: but

then

the whistleblower says,

oh yes, the sort of middle management iPhone, they're

all

buying

land

for the

apocalypse.

What?

Yeah.

There's

a

lot of

traffic

Richard: going

on.

Ian: That's

encouraging.

Yeah.

Why,

don't they all resign?

And if they think they're involved in a major crime

against

Helen: humanity,

Richard: get

out.

What?

I

mean he

did,

if they, would say, if you can't stop it, they would say that's,

you

can't

really

act on principle if

the price

at

the end of that is destruction.

I think they would say, that.

you, they would say, I need to

Andy: be there

to make

sure

it

doesn't get,

okay.

So what we are asking is what's more encouraging the rats leaving

the sinking ship or the rats

Richard: staying

on

Helen: the

sinking

ship.

Ian: but

Richard: think the question is,

Helen: we can stop

it

sinking.

Yeah.

If

you were working

on the

Manhattan Project

in

1940, whatever, do you stay on the Manhattan Project or not?

Like

Ian: that's

the

kind

Helen: of

question

Richard: that's

Yeah,

good

Andy: question.

Helen: I,

they were

regulated.

but that's the interesting thing, and it comes back to everything we

were saying in the, about Reform too.

In any other situation, you have things that are this powerful, there

would

be

immense

government involvement.

Richard: and instead it's

Helen: five

dudes.

Ian: Like

Richard: all

Helen: decisions.

and

they entirely

relies on how much do you trust these

individual men,

essentially.

And if you look at all the polling, people are quite happy.

They like the tools, but they're net feel.

If you look at the polling and

how popular

Elon Musk is, he's got a

Richard: rating that

would make,

Ebola

look

Helen: well supported.

People just don't, there is

a problem

of trust

in

the people

running this

industry and

also feeling

that they've hyped up how powerful the products are

by saying they're

gonna

kill you in

attempt

to make themselves more

money.

So both open AI is supposed to be going to, IPO Andro is

going to, IPOI

think Open

AI Deli delayed

it.

But essentially if

you go,

wow,

we've got this,

it's incredibly hot stuff, it's probably gonna kill everyone.

But if it doesn't, then it's gonna

certainly gonna make

us a

lot

of money.

Is that just part of the, the kind of hype cycle?

That's what Michael Bur, who you might remember,

was played by

Christian Bale

Richard: in

the big

short.

That's

Helen: what

he

thinks.

That's what the CEO of Grinder thinks.

I was surprised to see him quote in

the BBC, but

Richard: good

Ian: to know

his

thoughts

on

Helen: this.

but

Richard: but

Right.

the idea that, oh,

Helen: it's all just a

Richard: of a rouse, maybe it is, but what if it isn't?

Yeah.

that's the

thing we have to

Helen: doom is showing Richard.

That's

exactly,

your p

Richard: seems higher than

you

thought it

would

be.

Yeah.

And, the, other problem I think is that all the, regulation such as

it is in this area is voluntary.

There

are no

rules, there's no laws, there's no sort of saying, look, if you recklessly

allow AI to do this, or you take it further than this point, that's illegal.

You are going

to

gel.

Ian: There's,

but There's, no such thing as international law as we now

Helen: know.

Richard: only

how

Trump

Helen: feels,

Richard: That's,

but that's, and that's also because we have to compete internationally.

We don't wanna be left, we don't wanna be left behind in the AI

race and all that kind of stuff.

That's what we hear from our government as well.

And that's what we hear

from

Andy: every

government.

Pretty

much.

Richard: but over here at least we've got, the UK government this

weekend, Angela Rayna was saying that, we have a robust system in

place for dealing with these risks.

which is not very reassuring.

'cause that was a very word that was used for 25 years by the

post office to say that horizon

Andy: work.

Sorry

Tim.

Ian: Yeah.

The

Richard: computer says

Ian: are

Helen: dead.

Yes.

Andy: Right now for our final section, I am sure we can get some

optimism in this week, I'm sure of it.

So we've done political donations in the uk, we've done ai.

let's have a Coastal Holiday.

Richard has

Richard: regenerated

as Adam

McQueen.

Hello,

Adam.

Hello

there.

Hi.

A slightly disappointing Colin

Helen: Baker

to

his

Peter

Richard: Davison, I'm

afraid,

but

yes,

Andy: What's been going on?

Richard: on, on Britain's lovely

coastline

recently, you may have spotted, port of Dover was closed entirely, a couple

of Saturdays ago by, Danny Tomo, or Daniel Thomas as, as, as grownups

might refer to him.

and his Patriot platform, which is the new and exciting and migrant outfit.

he's a former follower of Tommy Robinson, former bodyguard,

in fact, to, Tommy Robinson.

But he has split and in the last few months set up his own,

little Army of, I just say black shirts, but actually black shorts.

Have you seen them in the press?

An awful lot of them turning up.

not, I think, aware of, of pg Woodhouse readers to be, familiar with, his spoof of

Osman Osmond Mosley back in the, thirties.

what about this?

Andy, you've, you, yes.

Yeah, Rodricks

Bode

Andy: and

the

black

shorts,

So they were wearing black

Richard: short.

We're

seeing,

we

were seeing, shes, we are seeing, so we, are seeing shins, but what we are

not seeing is faces, which is what has caused an awful lot of, consternation,

including eventually Shaban Mamud, the home secretary, spoke up on this and

said that people should not be turning up with their, faces, covered at,

at protests or indeed anywhere else.

ironically, one of the things that these people are protesting

against is the presence of, visible Muslims in the streets.

and

Helen: women

with

their

faces

covered.

One

Richard: of

them

tried

to

claim

Helen: he

Muslim,

a

Muslim

woman,

Richard: right.

And

that's why he

wouldn't

take his self-identification.

Is it?

We

have

seen

the

Andy: first

of

these,

criminal

child.

Oh, so they're

Richard: follow up self

ID

as

well.

Right.

very

eclectic.

Helen: set of

policy

positions.

Yeah.

Richard: even

more interestingly, post these, the, these two, demonstrations in Dover,

one of which, as I say, bought the Port of Dover completely to a standstill.

that's a vital bit of, national infrastructure as we learned

during the Brexit negotiations.

Do you remember when, insulate Britain were bringing the M 25 to a standstill?

That sort of thing was again, taken quite seriously and in injunctions

and arrests and all sorts going on.

not quite the same reaction in Dover.

But then the next day in Portsmouth when a, a migrant dinghy, one

of these super dinghies carrying 140 people was brought in.

There was another, much more spontaneous protest.

This one seemed to be, where, Danny Tomo brought, several, oh, hundreds

of people down to the, the Harborside there weeded into the water to

try and stop this boat docking.

and since then, we've seen the targeting, not specifically by Danny Tomo, I'd

say, but, by followers of his, of RNLI volunteers who were down there,

not only to ensure the safety of the migrants who were coming on this boat,

but actually the protestors themselves because they'd waited into the water.

So four different RNLI crews were brought out specifically to illuminate

the, area and ensure the safety of the protestors as well as everyone else.

But nevertheless, they've seen themselves doxed online and named

and shamed as traitors, which I would just think if you are, targeting

RNLI volunteers as traitors.

Surely that's a point where you think, hang on, are we the

Ian: here?

We're not?

Thanks to the many readers who've written in, this week to say they RNLI did fish

both Germans and Italians outta the water during the war because it was part

of their remit to stop people drowning.

and that was one of the strong points.

That was one of the things we were, quite proud of.

And these were enemy fighting men,

not,

refugees or economic migrants, or whatever you want to call them.

The idea of the RNLI are traitors is, pushing historical, stupidity,

to new levels.

Richard: Adam,

Andy: can I

ask,

was this described in any of the papers covering it as the battle

of

Richard: Balaclava?

And

if

not,

why

not?

Ian: I

Helen: I'm

think

Richard: that may have been a reference too obscure for, for, we like Battle

of Britain references, don't we?

But

it's battle

Helen: it's Battle Ballet.

Is that

Crimea?

Ian: Yeah,

it's

crime.

Yeah.

Andy: Yeah.

Let

it

go, Andy.

Richard: It's

only

the

1850s

Andy: heaven sake.

All right.

I,

the reason I ask about the, the press coverage of it is that

this has turned into a story

Richard: about

the

press

as

well,

hasn't it?

It has indeed.

So the next great, showing of the black shorts was in fact outside the offices

of the, the Daily Mail in, in Kensington last week, where they turned up.

now this was, this was really quite extraordinary.

And, this, you do pull into question exactly what Danny Thomas's feelings

are about, about refugee status, because he turned up very cross.

'cause the Daily Mail, he said had doxed, his mother had revealed his mother's

address whilst, writing a piece about the, Dover and Portsmouth protest.

they hadn't, in fact, they'd said that she lived in a, a neat terrorist house

and named the name of the city, hadn't gone any further than that at all.

But nevertheless, he said that, as a result of having, journalist from

the Daily Mail turn up her daughter here as say, effectively, no comment.

she can never go back to that house.

she, felt comfortable in that house, but now she doesn't feel safe.

She said, he said to the Daily Mail, "you have taken that away from her.

You now have 48 hours to do the right thing.

I expect this propagandist enemy of

the People

newspaper"…

Oh, Daily Mail.

Having that thrown back in the enemies of the people, of course,

was how they described those, those, those judges in those judges

involved in the, Brexit legal battle.

you, I expect this propagandist enemy of the people newspaper

to do the right thing.

And if you do not, this will continue and continue until you do.

And specifically, what were they demanding was that his mom, that the

deli man should rent or buy his mother a new house and relocate her to it.

So

this

is

the

man

who

suddenly has decided that people who feel unsafe in their own homes should

actually be able to be relocated at the expense of other people to

somewhere that they do feel safe.

It does

Andy: undermine

the campaign

a

bit,

doesn't it?

the

the Daily Mail did use to run those

Richard: campaigns

to

win

a

cottage,

Andy: didn't

they?

Is he might've just been asking if

Richard: there

was

one

of

those

left

over?

haven't it?

They haven't, to my knowledge, done up.

two th two things have not happened.

One is that the Daily Mail has not bought or rented, Danny Tom's mother a new house.

Okay?

All they have done is remove the name of the city from that, that, particular, the

online version of that particular article.

And the other thing that happens happened so far is that, this has not

continued and continued until you do.

we have no, the, the, Streets of Kensington are

not currently blocked by, the

Andy: black

shorts.

They're not

there.

But I presume that the male are now decidedly anti, and they haven't

started running headlines saying

Richard: things

like, hurrah for

the

black

shorts.

Andy: They

Richard: are not,

Andy: no,

I'm,

Richard: interesting thing.

Another, bang

up

to

the

Andy: minute.

reference

for you there.

Helen: You like that.

one?

Ian: one?

Helen: Aunties in

Richard: 1930s,

topical

humour.

We've come up

from the

1850s at least, haven't we?

Yeah,

it's an interesting thing 'cause the, Daily Mail, of course, have

always had a fairly hard line on, on, on immigration in their columns.

But they are very, much against, Danny to, and the, piece that, that an annoyed him

so much apart from mentioning his mother described him as a rabble rouser and was

extremely anti, the idea of him turning up and doing these supposedly spontaneous

protests in, in, in British ports.

And I think that's really interesting one, 'cause there is this sort of

assumption that the, the Daily Mail might be behind these kind of, there's,

been a real swerve in both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph lately,

against the more hard line, migrant line, as it's come into the puru of

low and a lot more extremist people who are prepared to go beyond the law

and

and,

and

Helen: take

Richard: things

Andy: into

their own

hands.

is part of that perhaps to do with the fact that Tommy Robinson is soon going

to go on trial for allegedly, harassing

Richard: two dead male journalists?

Yeah, certainly.

This is not the first case.

We have to be slightly careful what we're saying this 'cause this is literally

a a, a criminal trial that is coming up next month where, Tommy Robinson is

charged with, harassment, causing fear of violence of two daily mail journalists.

And this was over a, a, similar case where they wrote a piece about him after

a, a protest a couple of years ago.

And, there were photos of him in a holiday villa, which he

said had endangered his kids.

alleged criminal charges as to do with,

his

response to

Helen: that.

So

I presume

Richard: denies the

harassment.

So it's

going.

He does.

yeah.

Yeah.

It's go, it is going to a trial, as I say, in, in October this year.

Ian: we do have to be careful,

but

it's not unreasonable to say that a publication that is involved in

a legal dispute with any gentleman of the political persuasion of Mr.

Robinson might take a dim view of his

subsequent activities.

Is

that

fair?

Richard: Yes.

Yes.

Helen: I think that would be a

very fair

thing

to

say.

I'll have a question,

which is how many people are in the Danny Tomo Army?

Because you said that he obviously can't get people to turn up

day after day, but there were,

Richard: there looked like hundreds at

Portsmouth.

I think we're certainly talking in the hundreds.

the, the, Dover one was the kind of really prearranged one.

It was an extraordinary, statement from the police after it where they

said that these, this was spontaneous.

And actually it turns out to have been anybody.

It was a lot of organisation went into it.

and they did have prior warning of it, not least from all the people in the local

village where, who, phoned up the police the night before and said, there are

suddenly hundreds of cars have turned up and parked all over our recreation ground

and something's going on here to now.

It was all, they were being loaded into Luton vans and taken down to Dover

to blockade the port the next day.

So there were a lot of questions, certainly as Shaban UD herself had a

lot of questions about the policing of that that particular thing.

And I,

this is a relatively new organisation.

They were only set up in sort of June or July this year.

Danny Tom has previously been involved, as we said, with Tommy Robinson, also

with the raise of the Colours movement, which was the one, last year, which

was about hanging tatty flags on, on, on lampposts all over the land.

And, drawing St. George's crosses on roundabouts to fill us all with,

Andy: with,

great

pride.

Many roundabouts,

best

many

Ian: roundabouts

in

the

world.

But this is different, isn't it?

the idea of many in black young men, in black of, what they would call

fighting age, large numbers of them marching up and down the street.

this is different from, United Kingdom parades where people are

singing and wearing crusader outfits.

This is very sinister.

And the public do not

like

the

Richard: look of

it.

No, they do not.

and it is extraordinary.

And Danny, to me was absolutely insistent that this is not about violence.

And this is not about intimidation, but what the hell else is it about?

you literally, there is video of him outside the Daily Mail offices.

he hasn't brought a loudspeaker with him, but he's just he's got a quite

a good shouting voice and he's prone as well, because part of this is, is,

a, a conversion Christianity, which he underwent when he was in prison,

for, we haven't even mentioned the, the attempted kidnap of a man who

he said wrongly had stolen, 10,000 pounds worth of drugs from him.

So that's a whole other aspect to, reasons why the, daily Mail

and various other people may not approve of this chap's past.

but he said, donly outside the Daily Mail, I want someone from the Daily Mail

a representative to come outside of me.

They can stand behind the police line so they'll feel safe.

I'll move my men away up there.

I mean this this is not unthreatening is it?

This is an acknowledgement

Andy: that,

your

presence

is

quite

threatening.

But another thing they were shouting a

Richard: great

deal

Helen: of at

Dova

Andy: was

Christ

is king.

So there is a strong strain in this

Helen: of, what

they

call

Christian nationalism.

That's very American, that came out of the kind of Candace Owens, Charlie,

Kirk sort of drift of that bit of

the American,

right?

Yes.

And it became a sort of meme after that.

But also then that wraps into something that is more Tommy Robinson, which

is anti-Islam, which is this critique specifically of immigration, is that

these are Muslims who are invading Europe and they want to institute Sha

Law and we change the, complexion of the country and its religion, and it has

got that Christian, which should take you all the way back to our first item

is something that also concerns people in the kind of James or type space.

the, the, decline of Christianity and the fact that Islam is seen

as this much stronger religion that is gonna bully woolly

Andy: liberal

CE types

into

submission.

Can we

Helen: just

remind

the

listener,

James,

or

the head of

policy, former policy director for Reform uk?

he, has his own compound in Cambridge University where he has

a converted, I think, shipping container where he holds masses.

He, he's become very active in the theology department, but he also

has links to that Orbanist movement.

The, Hungarian movement, which was

Richard: again,

was

about

Andy: revival

of

Christianity.

Why do these people all have their

Richard: own

Helen: compounds?

I find it very

worrying,

how can

Andy: how can

anyone can afford

a

Helen: in this

day and

age

in this

economy?

Richard: It's just

one

of

the

things

that

most

upsets

me.

Ian: And this is why I keep printing cartoons.

The last one I really liked was a,

it was, Christ preaching on the sermon about the Beatitudes

and a number of men in MAGA

Richard: hat saying,

Andy: what

kind

of

Christian

is

he

Helen: But that's exactly why Andrew Tate converted to Islam, man.

So he said that Christianity was a 'cucked' religion and that, but

this is the, that these are the weird currents that we have flowing

through our politics at the moment, is this idea that, you could be a

kind of Christian crusader Army.

Pete,

he has

got

a

crusader tattoo.

Richard: all

these

old

battles have

been reheated,

we should say as well.

It is not just the Daily Mail who have, spoken out against, the

Danny Tomo protests and face some backlash for it Reform have as well.

I know you were talking about them earlier in the podcast, but,

Nigel Farage explicitly condemned.

It said it was disgusting.

The, the protest at Dover, the people turning up in, in black were balaclava on.

at which point, the next day, Danny Tomo himself turned up at a Reform press

conference that Zi Yusef was giving and started trying to shout him down.

telling them the reason that they're covering their faces is because they

know they're going to be targeted.

So apparently, they're, worried about being, targeted and intimidated

themselves, but, not so unhappy about,

Andy: that out to

other

Helen: people.

I doubt

Richard: we'll

ever

hear from 'em

again.

It'll probably

will

Andy: be

fine.

Richard: And

Andy: And there's the optimism we

were

looking

Richard: for

at

the

start

Andy: the

episode, That is it for this episode of page 94.

Thank you so much to Helen, to Ian, to Adam, and to you for listening.

If you would like to get hold of private eye, the latest issue is

still available and it's got a very, funny cover, which I don't think

Richard: has

Ian: prompted

any

legal

letters so

far.

no.

I think the joke of, Nigel Barrage, eating oysters, someone saying

Andy: shellfish

and

him

saying,

yes,

of

Ian: course

I am

Andy: top

political

satire,

no jury would convict.

so that's available on Newstands.

Or if you go to private hyphen I co uk, you can get a subscription

at a very reasonable rate.

You don't need to have 36 million

pounds

knocking

around

in your

back

pocket.

thank you very much again.

We'll be back again in a fortnight with another of these.

the only remaining thing to say is thank you to Matt Hill of Rethink

Richard: Audio

for producing.

Bye

for

now.