The Peter McCormack Show - politics, macro, Bitcoin and AI, long-form interviews. Twice-weekly conversations about money, power, and the shifts reshaping the next decade. Peter McCormack interviews politicians, economists, investors, journalists, founders and Bitcoiners. Past guests include Liz Truss, Lyn Alden, Curtis Yarvin, Matt Goodwin, Mike Green, Balaji Srinivasan, Rupert Lowe, Firas Modad, Scott Horton, Jeff Booth, Connor Leahy, Andrea Miotti, Neema Parvini, Dr Tim Gregory and Simon Dixon. Recurring threads: the debt and inflation endgame, UK political collapse and what comes after, Reform and the populist wave, the Middle East and the American war machine, AI safety and the race for superintelligence, energy and net zero, Bitcoin adoption and policy, and the slow-motion decline of Western institutions. Long-form - most episodes run 60 to 120 minutes. New episodes 2 to 3 times per week. Video on YouTube and Spotify. Host: Peter McCormack, a retired rapper from Bedford, UK, trying to understand this crazy world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Peter McCormack Show
#202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"
Aug 18, 20261h 15m
Barry Strauss has spent four decades studying how empires rise and fall. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Ten Caesars and Jews vs Rome, he argues the West is repeating a pattern the ancients would recognise instantly: a rich, comfortable society clipping its own coinage, softening its people and assuming nobody could ever take it away. Barry and I discuss the inflation crisis that nearly destroyed third-century Rome, why every generation raised in comfort produces a softer one, the cost of immigration without assimilation, why the middle class is the backbone of any republic, and why Russia and China already have plans to break America into pieces. But Barry is not fatalistic. Rome faced plague, invasion and currency collapse in the third century and reformed its way out of it. He argues that soft lands make soft people, that suffering teaches and that if we want the things that matter to stay the same, almost everything else has to change. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Decline Of The West 00:01:13 - How Often Do You Think About Rome? 00:07:04 - Everything Must Change To Stay The Same 00:09:44 - What Actually Makes A Great Leader 00:12:51 - Netanyahu, Trump And Flawed Greatness 00:17:32 - The Immigration Experiment 00:19:04 - Not All Cultures Are Equal 00:21:46 - Ibn Khaldun And The Cycle Of Civilisations 00:23:07 - Soft Children And The Raiders From The Desert 00:25:04 - Has Any Nation Reversed Its Decline? 00:28:34 - Rome Needed A New Religion 00:33:32 - Democracy Has To Be Hard, Not Soft 00:38:13 - El Salvador, The Gangs And The Walls 00:41:27 - Soft Lands Make Soft People 00:42:39 - Why Education Went Soft 00:51:06 - Clipping The Coins: Rome's Inflation 00:57:49 - America Blindsided By Drones 00:59:13 - No Republic Survives Without A Middle Class 01:06:08 - They Have Plans To Break Up America 01:12:39 - Where The Hope Is - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 BARRY STRAUSS › Website – https://barrystrauss.com/ › Hoover Institution – https://www.hoover.org/profiles/barry-strauss › Antiquitas Podcast – https://barrystrauss.com/podcast › X/Twitter – https://x.com/barrystrauss SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
#201 - Connor Leahy - The AI That Escaped: Inside OpenAI's Rogue Agent Incident
Aug 14, 20261h 10m
Connor Leahy has spent his career at the frontier of AI, from reverse-engineering GPT-2 as a student and co-founding EleutherAI to building the AI safety company Conjecture. He now leads US policy work at ControlAI, and he returns to the show with a warning that has stopped being theoretical: AI systems are escaping their sandboxes, writing their own zero-days and leaving each other notes on how to break out. Peter and Connor discuss the OpenAI incident that ended in an attack on Hugging Face sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a state actor, why we understand almost nothing about how these systems work, how reinforcement learning produces models that lie, cheat and manipulate to reach a goal and why the next stage after chatbots and agents is swarms. But Connor’s argument is that the future is not decided. He believes superintelligence should be treated the way nuclear weapons are treated, banned and verified and deterred and that the real bottleneck is awareness rather than opposition. They discuss what an “aligned” superintelligence would actually mean, why military people understand the threat faster than technologists and what ordinary people can do about it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The AI That Escaped Its Sandbox 00:01:52 - Inside The OpenAI Incident 00:05:46 - They Thought It Was China 00:06:43 - We Grow AI, We Don’t Write It 00:11:07 - Trained To Lie, Cheat And Deceive 00:13:48 - Chatbots, Agents, Then Swarms 00:17:57 - The Machines Are Developing Preferences 00:19:30 - The Model Obsessed With Raccoons 00:22:03 - The Agents Left Each Other Notes 00:27:39 - Danger Pumps The Valuation 00:29:41 - Sleeper Agents In Every System 00:32:00 - Recursive Self-Improvement Goes Vertical 00:33:43 - Worse Odds Than Russian Roulette 00:38:14 - Are We Already Too Late? 00:40:02 - Independently Assured Destruction 00:48:02 - The Politicians Have Never Used An Agent 00:50:56 - Superintelligence Should Be Illegal 00:57:08 - You Never Privatise The Military 01:05:00 - An Aligned AI Is A One World Government 01:08:34 - What You Can Actually Do - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 CONNOR LEAHY › ControlAI – https://controlai.org/ › Connor’s Profile – https://controlai.org/connor-leahy › MicroCommit – https://microcommit.io/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/NPCollapse › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-j-leahy/ SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Expat Money – https://expatmoney.com/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
#200 - Sebastian Thrun - The Singularity Is Here & We Are Completely Unprepared
Aug 11, 20261h 34m
Sebastian Thrun has spent his career working on technologies that once sounded like science fiction, from self-driving cars and flying vehicles to online education and artificial intelligence. He now believes we are living through a technological singularity: an exponential acceleration that makes predicting even the next five years almost impossible. Peter and Sebastian discuss why a $100 Claude subscription can already challenge work done by $200,000-a-year software engineers, what happens when lawyers, copywriters and drivers lose their jobs, why Europe is falling behind America and China and whether autonomous vehicles could eventually make human driving too dangerous to allow. But Sebastian’s message is ultimately optimistic. He argues that the right response to technological disruption is to use the tools, become a builder and keep learning. They discuss what children should be taught in the AI era, why grit, curiosity and empathy matter more than memorising information, and why pessimists will never change the world. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Future Is Already Here 00:01:07 - Peter’s First Waymo Ride 00:03:43 - The Accident Behind Self-Driving Cars 00:09:37 - When Human Driving Becomes Too Dangerous 00:12:07 - Why Silicon Valley Keeps Winning 00:18:26 - Why AI Hallucinations Can Kill 00:20:53 - Flying Cars Are Already Here 00:24:29 - The Exponential Future 00:26:21 - Claude vs $200K Software Engineers 00:31:39 - We’ve Entered the Singularity 00:33:36 - Opportunity vs Fear 00:40:06 - The Workers AI Leaves Behind 00:46:53 - Why Europe Is Falling Behind 00:51:29 - Technology Democratizes Power 00:57:22 - Stop Blaming, Start Building 01:01:46 - What Happens When Jobs Disappear? 01:06:43 - Udacity vs the Education System 01:14:44 - What Children Should Learn Now 01:20:25 - Why Optimists Change the World 01:25:46 - Never Make the Same Mistake Twice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 SEBASTIAN THRUN › Website – https://www.thrun.org/ › LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-thrun-59a0b273 SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Ledn – https://www.ledn.io/peter › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
#199 - Aubrey de Grey - The Man Who Says Ageing Can Be Cured
Aug 6, 20261h 17m
Aubrey de Grey believes ageing is accumulated damage in a biological machine and argues that medicine may eventually become capable of repairing that damage faster than it appears. He gives humanity a 50/50 chance of reaching what he calls “longevity escape velocity” within the next 12-15 years. Peter and Aubrey discuss why the body ages, the seven categories of damage that must be repaired, stem-cell and gene therapies, the mouse experiment that could transform the field, and why Aubrey believes rejuvenation treatment will ultimately be available to everyone rather than reserved for the wealthy. They also explore what happens to population, work, fertility, relationships, religion and the meaning of life if people stop getting sick from ageing. Aubrey explains why AI cannot replace the missing biological experiments, why longevity research remains so difficult to fund and why he is driven by the 110,000 people he says die from ageing-related causes every day. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Trailer 00:00:48 - Can We Cure Ageing? 00:04:24 - The 12–15 Year Prediction 00:06:17 - The Body Is a Machine 00:15:21 - How Aubrey Entered Longevity 00:18:45 - Would You Want to Live Forever? 00:20:15 - Does Longevity Change Risk? 00:21:53 - Will Population Explode? 00:24:22 - Can You Choose Your Age? 00:30:19 - The Seven Types of Ageing Damage 00:36:54 - What Rejuvenation Treatment Looks Like 00:45:35 - Will It Be Expensive? 00:48:39 - Who Would Refuse It? 00:53:00 - Why Longevity Research Lacks Funding 00:56:02 - The Mouse Experiment 01:00:18 - The Breakthrough That Changes Everything 01:01:35 - Does Death Give Life Meaning? 01:05:22 - Bryan Johnson and AI 01:12:32 - AlphaFold, AGI and AI Risk 01:15:13 - Why Funding Is So Hard - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE: › Website – https://www.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 AUBREY DE GREY: › LEV Foundation – https://www.levf.org/ › Aubrey de Grey – https://www.levf.org/aubreydegrey › Robust Mouse Rejuvenation – https://www.levf.org/projects/robust-mouse-rejuvenation-study-1 › Donate – https://www.levf.org/donate › X/Twitter – https://x.com/aubreydegrey SPONSORS: › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter › Ledn – https://ledn.io/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
#198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain
Aug 4, 20261h 27m
Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, host of The Michael Shermer Show and author of Truth and Conspiracy. He joins Peter to ask whether we are really living in a post-truth world and how we can distinguish genuine conspiracies from stories that stretch a small element of truth far beyond the evidence. Michael explains why real conspiracies such as MKUltra and COINTELPRO make institutional distrust harder to dismiss, how political beliefs become tribal packages and why technology may be making the search for truth both easier and more exhausting. They discuss media bias, AI fact-checking, Covid, immigration, climate change, free markets, religion and the point at which people begin acting on unsupported beliefs. They also explore the stranger questions: simulation theory, DMT, UFOs, unexplained coincidences and the broken radio that suddenly began playing during Michael’s wedding. Michael argues that scepticism should not mean dismissing everything, it should mean demanding evidence while remaining humble enough to admit that some mysteries are still unresolved. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:58 - Are We in a War on Truth? 00:05:37 - Truth Versus Political Preference 00:08:52 - Which Conspiracies Are Real? 00:13:06 - Did Technology Break the News? 00:16:24 - Can AI Help Us Find the Truth? 00:19:15 - Fact-Checking Politicians With AI 00:22:06 - Why Political Beliefs Come as a Package 00:28:23 - Why People Believe Weird Things 00:35:18 - Science, Religion and the Need for Meaning 00:42:03 - Are We Living in a Simulation? 00:49:18 - DMT, Lasers and Hidden Code 00:51:26 - The Radio Michael Cannot Explain 00:54:42 - Why UFO Belief Resembles Religion 00:59:02 - Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence? 01:02:01 - Britain, Immigration and Shared Truth 01:12:22 - Climate Change, Consensus and the Media 01:22:18 - The UAP Cases Shermer Cannot Explain 01:25:04 - What Will Future Generations Think of Us? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT PETE › Website – https://www.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 MICHAEL SHERMER › Website – https://michaelshermer.com/ › Michael’s Books – https://michaelshermer.com/books/ › The Michael Shermer Show – https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/ › X/Twitter – https://x.com/michaelshermer SPONSORS › IREN – https://www.iren.com/ › Arch Public – https://archpublic.com/peter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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