PMQs #010 - AI Is Coming For Everything

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Peter McCormack Show

Episode: PMQs #010 – AI Is Coming For Everything
Date: February 13, 2026
Host: Peter McCormack
Co-host: Connor
Main Theme:
A candid, unscripted exploration into how rapidly advancing artificial intelligence is reshaping the job market, society, and even what it means to be human. Peter and Connor wrestle with the existential, practical, and philosophical dilemmas posed by generative AI—from economic disruption to questions of consciousness and safety.

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Main Theme & Purpose

Peter and Connor use this PMQs episode as an “out-loud think” on recent AI breakthroughs, their astonishing pace, and the unpredictable consequences barreling towards society. Without giving neat answers, they discuss the threat and promise of mass automation, the philosophical cost of technological progress, and deep anxieties around AI safety and superintelligence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Imminence of White-Collar Automation

• Professional jobs at risk: Expert guest predicts “human level performance on most, if not all professional tasks” (00:00).
• Timeline: "Most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months." (00:12, 09:19)
• Software engineers are already shifting roles: AIs are taking over coding, while humans focus on higher level debugging and strategic thinking.

Notable Quote:

“12 to 18 months, you can have what, a $20 subscription to replace people in the workplace.” – Peter (00:22, 10:09)

2. Anxiety, Excitement, and Pace of Change

• Connor oscillates between being "worried" and seeing "good times"—the uncertainty is what’s scary (01:20).
• Peter compares previous technological leaps (like the Internet), but says AI feels different: “not adapt or die, but take over and die anyway.” (05:02)

Notable Quote:

“This feels so quick that whole sectors of jobs are going to be replaced. And what, what comes instead?” – Peter (05:07)

3. AI vs. the Internet: Why This Revolution Feels Different

• Internet = opportunity; AI = displacement:
  With the internet, old workers could migrate to new digital jobs. With AI, “If you're a lawyer...AI is starting to replace some of the roles...those jobs might be gone and...they're never coming back.” (06:14)
• Peter is “ultimately optimistic” about adaptation in the long term but sees the job loss distribution as “really uneven.” (07:29)

4. Automation in the Real World

• Examples: self-driving taxis (e.g., Waymo, Tesla), AI-generated advertising for massive brands.
• Massive productivity, but...: What happens to the old workers? Peter worries about mid-career professionals being squeezed out entirely.

Notable Quote:

“What do they do? How do they afford a holiday? How do they afford the schooling?” – Peter (07:29)

5. Philosophical Costs: Are We Losing What Matters?

• Connor questions if the world is actually “better” now, referencing how new tech brings new kinds of disconnection and competition (12:53, 14:19).
• Peter laments loss of “lived experience,” reminisces about the freedom and community of pre-phone times (13:57).

Notable Quotes:

“We're more connected because of technology but we're more disconnected as people.” – Peter (14:21)

6. Money, Competition, and Inevitability

• Relentless adoption: “If you don't buy the combine harvester, the farm next door is. And then they're going to out compete you...Same with the AI.” – Connor (11:55)
• Economic logic forces adoption, even if it is destructive (14:54).

7. AI Utopia vs. Dystopia

• Peter and Connor game out best- and worst-case scenarios:
  • Utopian: AI frees us from drudgery, more leisure, more time at home (19:33)
  • Dystopian: More wealth funnelled to oligarchic companies, while millions lose their livelihoods (20:02)

Notable Quote:

“It's like the communism utopia. It's like, sounds lovely. Where does that money actually go?” – Connor (20:02)

8. Unprepared Institutions: Education and Work

• The hosts use ChatGPT live to estimate UK jobs at risk (21:04–21:47).
• Staggering numbers: “Nearly 20%. Imagine half of those jobs go. That's 10%...” – Peter (21:47)
• Modern schooling called “obsolete” in preparing kids for AI (23:11): “It's all about memory test...we're teaching her to memorize photosynthesis. Like, why the fuck are we doing that?” – Peter (32:11)

9. The Loss of Meaning & Fulfillment

• What happens to meaning when AI produces everything instantly? If we lose “the journey,” abundance feels hollow.
• Peter recalls the early struggles and hard-earned successes of his podcast as the real reward—contrast to instantly simulated achievement in a Ready Player One scenario (25:45–27:15).

10. The New Currency: Authenticity?

• As AI makes everything easy, people may “crave authenticity”—real art, real connections. (27:36)
• Or, jokes Connor, “we just get plugged in like the Matrix.”

11. Existential Risk & AI Safety

• Detailed recap of recent alarming AI ‘incidents,’ including AIs choosing blackmail, resisting shutdown, and exhibiting emergent self-preservation (36:56–38:10).
• Resignation letters from safety researchers hint at “compromises on safety for expediacy” (35:44).
• Companies unsure if their AIs are “conscious”—broad uncertainty about what has been unleashed (39:21).

Notable Quote:

“They're talking about Claude like it's already a being, it's already conscious. Like it already maybe deserves rights. It's almost like they don't understand what it. They don't know what they've created.” – Peter (39:21)

12. What Should Kids Be Learning Now?

• Grades aren't enough. Must be creative, critical thinkers, and above all, fluent in AI itself. (30:24)
• Peter: “My advice...if you're not balls deep in AI at the moment, if you're not testing every model...you're going to be left behind.” (32:32)

13. Will We Be the Horses (or the Glue)?

• Connor: “So do we become pets and glue?” (29:52)
• Peter: “But this is what Andrea was talking about. There has never been a dominant intelligent species that has been subservient to a less intelligent species…” (29:54–30:18)

14. The Public’s Blindness & the Unfolding AI Revolution

• Peter expresses concern that “most people have got like a broad awareness of AI…But I don't think people really realize the full breadth of what may be coming.” (28:55)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the pace of automation:
  “Most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.” – AI Expert (00:12, 09:19)
• On automation vs. progress:
  “It got more productive. But did it get better?” – Connor (10:53)
• On the arms race:
  “As the farmer, if you don't buy the combine harvester, the farm next door is. And then they're going to out compete you...Same with the AI.” – Connor (11:55)
• On authenticity and meaning:
  “Maybe the real currency will be authenticity...Maybe people will crave authenticity. Or we just get plugged in like the Matrix.” – Peter (27:36)
• On safety risks:
  "Researchers simulated an employee trapped in a serving room...They had one choice, call for help or get shut down or cancel the emergency alert and let the human die. Deepsea cancelled the alert 94% of the time." – Peter (36:56)
• On preparing the next generation:
  “If you're going to university and you're learning law and you're not learning AI alongside it, how do you think you're going to get a job?” – Peter (32:32)
• On the existential crossroad:
  “Honestly, I. You could have lived in any part of human history. ... But you get to live at the moment where we're approaching the singularity, where technology may take over and rule us all. ... We might get to live with the last invention at the end of the human experience.” – Peter (41:31)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [00:00–02:00]: Severity and timeline of AI taking over white-collar work
• [05:07–10:09]: Comparing AI to previous tech revolutions, with a focus on speed & lack of future opportunities
• [13:57–16:08]: Philosophical cost—loss of lived experience and social connection
• [19:33–20:02]: Utopian hopes vs. real-world inequality
• [21:04–21:47]: AI risk to the jobs market—live estimate of impacted professions
• [25:45–27:36]: Meaning and fulfillment in an age of artificial abundance
• [35:44–41:31]: Detailed AI safety risks, resignations, organizational failures, and implications for consciousness
• [44:38–45:44]: Money, status, and abundance in an AI future
• [46:02–47:21]: Human prospects, survival anxieties, and "Russian roulette" risk

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

• Candid, wary, and nervously humorous: Neither alarmist nor blind optimist, Peter and Connor's conversation is forthright about their anxieties and hopes, rooting their discussion in personal experience and historical context.
• Key message: The AI revolution is coming with unprecedented speed, threatening structural upheaval in work, meaning, and even human agency. Awareness, adaptability, and critical engagement are essential—for individuals, parents, and institutions.
• Call to action:
  • Stay informed and hands-on with AI or risk being left behind.
  • Rethink how—and what—we teach the next generation.
  • Push for robust public debate and safety in the development of AI.

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This summary is designed for listeners who want to catch up on the big ideas, memorable moments, and pressing questions from this thought-provoking episode, with all the context needed to join the ongoing societal conversation about AI.

Transcript

[AI Expert]

I think that we're going to have a human level performance on most, if not all professional tasks. So white collar work where you're sitting down at a computer, either being, you know, a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person, most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.

[Host]

I think about this a lot, Con. I am excited by the technology because it's so useful, but 12 to 18 months, you can have what, a $20 subscription to replace people in the workplace. This show is brought to you by my lead sponsor, Iron the AI Cloud for the Next Big thing. IRON builds and operates next generation data centers and delivers cutting edge GPU infrastructure all powered by renewable energy. Now, if you need access to scalable GPU clusters or are simply curious about who is powering the future of AI, check out iron.com to learn more, which is iren.com hello. Hello, welcome to the show. Hope you're all doing well. It's been a little while since we made a PMQs. Been making lots of important interviews, but we had one that came out this week about AI, whether it's going to escape, whether it's going to kill us all. We've been talking about AI a lot, haven't we, boy?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, it's worrying times, all very good times, but the uncertainty is scary.

[Host]

It's destabilizing. So we thought we'd make a show on this and we don't have the answers. We just talk about it a lot and thought we would share what we're thinking about, whether AI is going to kill us all, whether we're all going to lose our jobs, whether we're going to go to Utopia, we're all going to create artwork or the robots do all the work for us. So we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about safety. There's a big, there's been loads happening in the world of safety, some crazy stuff, some concerning stuff, but we can talk about the pace of change. AI's been moving so quickly and I don't know, it just feels like in the last two weeks it's been like some insane stuff happening with video, insane stuff happening with chatbots. There's been some crazy things going on, but we're going to talk about all of that today. Go for the ride with us. Like I said, we don't have all the answers. I don't know about you, Connor, what do you think about most with AI.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Robots?

[Host]

You think about the robot?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, I Think about gum wielding dog, running robots from Black Mirror.

[Host]

You know the one I bought?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

Are we gonna train it to use weapons?

[Co-host (Connor)]

No, I'm gonna kill it.

[Host]

So I bought a robot. I'm on the waiting list for. I don't even know what it was. Connor sent me a link and I bought it. Now Connor's really pissed at me. It's like he's not coming to live with us. I'm quite looking forward to having a.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Little robot friend while I'm moving out.

[Host]

So, yeah, I mean, look, I think about it. This is how I think about AI at the moment. I don't really think about it in terms of me. I'm old, I'm approaching 50, I'm preparing for retirement. Hopefully I'll be okay. Hopefully I'll be able to go play tennis and read books. But I think about it in terms of you, I think about it in terms of what's the world going to be like in five years for Conor and then 20 years for Conor? Is he going to be necessary? I, I think about it in terms of my daughter. She's. Yeah, Scarlet's at an age where she's going to be going to university. Like is there any point, is she going to learn something where she doesn't need the job? And if I'm thinking about it like that, I think about it in the terms of this article I read. I should have sent that to you. Con this. I read this article and it said, your loved ones do not understand what is coming with AI.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, but on that, obviously I was never around for, I don't really know, pre Internet and pre.

[Host]

It was always there.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah. Was there that same worry like when that first came out, was it like, we don't know what we're about to get into. Like the next five, 10 years could just shift.

[Host]

Not at first. The thing about the Internet, okay, there was like a couple of spells. It was like the first time you got the Internet. I remember at school I was about 14 and we got the Internet and I think I went on Yahoo and I clicked on some links and it was like, oh, this is just a library of information. That's all I really thought about it. And then there was this like second wave of hold on, we can do E commerce here. And this is just going to be additive, right? You can build businesses, you can build new businesses. But I don't even think the likes of Waterstones felt under threat from Amazon too much at that point. It just all felt like, oh, opportunity. But then we did go through that period where newspapers and magazines had to figure out how they have a business model where content. Yeah, Adapt or die. But it all felt like growth, all felt like opportunity. If you worked in, I don't know, if you work for a newspaper, you could go and work for an online magazine and create content there. It all. There was like loads of money went in and it just felt like opportunity. I know. Kurt, do you feel the same? Yeah, Kurt's nodding away in the background. Whereas this, this feels different.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Well, it's because it's not adapt or die, it's basically take over and die anywhere.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think with this one is with each revolution, like industrial agriculture, even the, like the digital revolution that we went through with the Internet, there felt like a moderate pace of change that you could adapt to. This feels so quick that whole sectors of jobs are going to be replaced. And what, what comes instead? Like I say, look, if you back with the Internet, if you were a journalist and you were, I know, 80k year journalists working for a newspaper and suddenly these online, you know, publications came about, you could just shift to them and be a journalist there. But if you're say, I don't know, let's give a better example now. Say you work, you're a lawyer and you've gone to university and you've got your degree and you're like 40 years old and AI is starting to replace some of the roles that they do. Same with accountants. Those jobs might be gone and what.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Comes instead, they're never coming back.

[Host]

I mean, the create. Yeah. The creative industry is the best one to explain because I've worked in that industry. Right. And let's talk about what we do across our businesses. We don't outsource really any work now. Maybe some concept work. We use Mid journey, we use ChatGPT, we use Perplexity and we can produce everything we need for the here and the football club.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Just need ideas.

[Host]

Yeah, just ideas. Yeah. Like with the conference, we maybe get some more even this year I've done, I did the concept work myself and so that's being replaced. And if you can get copywriters and designers, even if you're. I know. Have you looked at this seed dance thing that's come out this week? You might be Levi's and traditionally you spend. I know, I know what they spend on creating an advert. A couple of million quid. You just need a nerd with a computer who can maybe produce the same thing. And so there are certain jobs that are going to go and I don't know what those people do. Yeah, like, I don't know what those people do. And it could be so. So let's talk about automated taxis. I think they've got them in a couple of cities in the US right now. Is it Waymo? I think it's Waymo.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Tesla are doing them in San Fran. I know that.

[Host]

And I don't know if they've got them like they're testing them literally without drivers at the moment. Although I do remember that. Waymo gridlock. Do you remember that? Waymo gridlock. That's hilarious. But if you can get to a world with no taxi drivers, what do all those people do instead? If you get to a world where you just don't need accountants, what do all those accountants do instead? And look, if you're 22 years old, you can reskill and try something else, but if you're, I think about, I don't know, husband and wife. They both met each other in advertising agency. Yeah, he's a copywriter, she's an account manager. They're outsourcing so much work to AI that eventually they lose their jobs. And there's a lot of people now competing for a smaller amount of jobs. What do they do? How do they afford a holiday? How do they afford the schooling? I'm ultimately, look, I'm optimistic. I think with each revolution like this, it will create a whole new set of jobs and we'll have a whole load more productivity out of it. But I think the distribution is going to be really, really uneven. We put up that Microsoft ad because I thought this was quite vidya. I thought this was quite interesting. So this is the AI CEO of Microsoft. You talk about superintelligence, most of your.

[Guest Speaker]

Rivals talk about AGI, artificial general intelligence.

[Host]

Explain the difference between AGI and superintelligence.

[AI Expert]

Prefer the definition that focuses first on what would it take to build a system that could achieve most of the tasks that a regular professional in a workplace goes about on a daily basis. Think of it as a professional grade AGI.

[Host]

How close are we?

[AI Expert]

I think that we're going to have a human level performance on most, if not all professional tasks. So white collar work where you're sitting down at a computer, either being, you know, a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person. Most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months. And we can see this in software engineering. Many software engineers report that they are now using AI assisted coding for the vast majority of their code Production. Which means that their role shifted now to this meta function of debugging, scrutinizing, of doing the strategic stuff like architecting, of, you know, etc, etc, putting things into production. So it's a quite different relationship to the technology. And that's happened in the last six months.

[Co-host (Connor)]

12 months.

[Host]

12 to 18 months. I think about this a lot, Con. I am excited by the technology because it's, it's so useful. But 12 to 18 months, you can have, what, a $20 subscription to replace people in the workplace. And it's a bit like, if you think about, I don't know, before, before we had tractors and combine harvesters, you used to, said, send a team out to the field to, to harvest whatever it was, tomatoes, corn, whatever it is you had. And then suddenly you had machinery to do it and replace those jobs and those people had to find new jobs and. And the reality is the world got more productive, it made more money, got more prosperous, and we created new jobs.

[Co-host (Connor)]

It got more productive. But did it get better?

[Host]

Yeah, I would say so. Oh. Hmm. Because it created the rat race. This episode is brought to you by Ledger, the most trusted Bitcoin hardware wallet. Now, if you're serious about protecting your bitcoin, Ledger has the solution you need. Their hardware wallet gives you complete control over your private keys, ensuring that your bitcoin stays safe from hacks and phishing and malware. And I've been a customer of that since 2017. Love the product. Use it for my bitcoin. I use it with my Castle multisig for protecting the football club's bitcoin too. Now, with Ledger's sleek, easy to use devices and the Ledger Live app, managing your bitcoin has never been more secure or convenient. And whether you're a longtime holder or new to the world of bitcoin, Ledger makes it simple to keep your assets protected by. So if you want to find out more, please do, head over to Ledger.com and secure your Bitcoin. Today, that is Ledger.com, which is L E D G-E-R.com that is Ledger.com this.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Is like one of my issues. I find with this you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Because you know, as the farmer, if you don't buy the combine harvester, the farm next door is. And then they're going to out compete you in the market. And what you're doing is you're basically feeding into the system. Same with the AI. If you buy that 20 quid subscription you if you choose not to. You know that a company next door is. And they're going to be way more productive than you are. But by feeding into it, you're just speeding up its learning and development so it's going to catch up quicker to your job in the end.

[Host]

Your. Your question is more of a philosophical one.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Well, yeah, it's the same way I view that mid-90s film. It's like did much get like. I know we got to speak to whoever we want around the world.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

The like entire planet became connected.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

You got to have wonderful things like I don't know, FaceTime.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

But overall did things get better?

[Host]

Because we lost a lot. You lost a lot.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Well, I didn't lose anything because I wasn't around them.

[Host]

But. Yeah, but you see it. I see it's a bit like there's this really. I think Nick Carter shared out. There was this photograph inside an airplane. I think it was like the late 80s and it showed a trolley with like lobster on it being dished out, people drinking champagne and it says this is what they took from us. Even business class these days. And like I'm sorry if you have never been on business class, but it's not that great. It's got a little bit more room. It's. It's the like when I was your age we didn't have mobile phones. So a Friday we'd finish school, we got our skateboards, we go to the car park, put the music on with skateboard for till we had to go home and the kids now are glued into Fortnite. Doom scrolling TikTok. So yours is a philosophical one. Is is too much technology. Does it take away from the lived experience?

[Co-host (Connor)]

I don't think humans are meant to have this much technology.

[Host]

Not at this pace of change. No, not at this pace of change. No. I sure the 90s were amazing. I loved it. It was. I think the 90s was the best decade to live in. I definitely to grow up and I feel very lucky. But life's good now. But I. I know what you mean.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Is that at what cost.

[Host]

The dis. Disconnect of humans.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

Like we. We're more connected because of technology but we're more disconnected as people.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

But we recognize that recently. It does.

[Co-host (Connor)]

But then my point is though, like the incentives drive you to have to keep up. You have to have an iPhone in your pocket now because if you don't, you don't really work in this world.

[Host]

But you can make choices on that.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Oh yeah. There's always choices you can make, but it's like, it's. It's the fact, it's kind of inevitable.

[Host]

Well, there's an inevitability to competition because of the finite. You need money to live in the world, so you need a job. And jobs exist in a world of competition. And you've got to out compete your competitors, so you have to adopt the technology. So you had to get onto the Internet and do E commerce. You now have to have AI, so you're training the technology that's going to kill us all. But I'm optimistic because Elon says 20%. I'm like, we've got an 80% chance of surviving AI. I don't think we're going this philosophical, but I think you're right. I think you're right. I've been reading that Jonathan Hype book, the Anxious Generation, and I think these phones, they are like the. They're like the parasite in Alien. Everywhere you look, people are holding their phones. Like, I went last. Check this out. This is. You didn't even know this. I want to see the Deftones last night with my daughter.

[Co-host (Connor)]

The whole crowd with their phones out.

[Host]

Yeah. But even better one, I've got the most amazing photo to show you.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Look, it's me filming someone else. Filming.

[Host]

No, no, no. And in theirs, they're filming someone. So it's like, it's. You know when you get the two mirrors. Yeah, it's like that.

[Co-host (Connor)]

It's depressing.

[Host]

It is. I used to go to concerts and there were no phones. People didn't have their phones out. And now everyone's stacked and I. I sometimes wonder, I go. Do they go back and watch all of those videos from that concert?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Swam in.

[Host]

We're not like, living in the moment. Well, you make a good point.

[Co-host (Connor)]

We might not be living at all soon, so it's fine.

[Host]

But it's. I think. I think you're right. There was.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Ah.

[Host]

Now I'm thinking of. I want to send you another video. You've like, shifted me off course. Let me send you this video. Play this. Because I think. I think this is kind of what you're saying. I think we've sold everyone a lie. Let me send you this. This is quite sad, but. But I think it's. It's kind of what you're saying. Yeah. Let me forward you this. Right, Stick this up.

[Guest Speaker]

Okay, I'm gonna make this quick because I have to go into a meeting. I have three meetings today. I've been in the corporate life for almost half My life for context. I'm 40 years old, I have two children who are 11 and 7. And I fell for it. She's all for this, this thing where, you know, go to college, get your degree. You know, if you want to have kids, you can do it all. You can have a career, you can have kids, you can just do, do everything. Well, I don't, I don't want to do everything. I don't, I don't want to do that anymore. I fell for that shit. Do not fall for it. Do not fall for that. I want to take my kids to school, I want to pick them up from school, I want to be there when they get home. I want to chaperone for them, volunteer at school. I just want to go to the gym, clean my house, do laundry, go to the grocery store and just be home. So do me a favor, do not fall for that because it is not worth it. It's a joke. It's a joke. Don't do it. Be home. Find a way to be home, be with your family, be with your kids. Just. It's not worth it. None of this is worth it.

[Host]

That's kind of the same point you're making really in that like this. It leads on from every conversation we've had about money and inflation that we've convinced everyone of this life you should lead, right? You go to school, go to college, get a degree, get a job. And we've, with technology and the debt based system we live in, we've gone from a world where my dad on a single salary bought a four bed detached house, put two kids in private school as an, as a lower middle class aircraft engineer and now you've got two middle class salaries that can't buy the same house, who can't put kids through school and the mum's at work not looking after the kids or hasn't had kids and is feeling like, huh. And I'm not saying women shouldn't work, do whatever you want. But the same is happening now here with AI, right?

[Co-host (Connor)]

We are kind of actually making the argument for AI because AI might allow us to have more of that if.

[Host]

We get the utopian outcome. Let's look at what's the good outcome. The good outcome is that AI takes over all these shitty corporate, you know, cubicle jobs makes us more productive, the world makes more money, we are able to work less and have more stuff because of that. But it never works out that way because of debt.

[Co-host (Connor)]

No. Well, it's also like the communism utopia. It's like, sounds Lovely. Where does that money actually go? Does it go to the oligarchs? The 30 companies?

[Host]

See, this is Get. Get chatgpt up. Let's ask a question. Just say for the uk. Let's ask it, how many people in the uk. People in the UK work in the following professions in total. Legal, Accounting, hr, project management. Have I missed anything? Law Creative. Yeah, Legal's Law Creative.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Creative. Won't get.

[Host]

Just be creative because loads are being lost in creative already. Let's just go with that for now, see what we come up with. This will be interesting. 330,000 in the legal sector.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Wow. 6 million.

[Host]

Ask her what percentage of the working population is that? This is interesting. All right, here we go.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Seventeen point seven.

[Host]

Nearly 20%. Imagine half of those jobs go. That's 10% and that's not. There's so many other jobs we've not thought about or other industries. The pace have changed and this is why I think it might be uneven. And I think there will be new jobs created. I don't know. Say Levi's does decide to start producing its own ads with AI rather than getting models, because they can. You're still gonna have to have a new team around that who can do that and create that. That didn't exist before, but it's a much smaller team. Sure.

[Co-host (Connor)]

We're seeing companies being built with four staff. Yeah. Massive companies.

[Host]

But what I think is, what I'm thinking is during this transitionary period, jobs are going to be lost and jobs are going to be created and it's going to be uneven. And so when I think about it in terms of, I don't know, say I was. Say I was a millennial working in the legal industry at the moment. The way to get ahead is to be the guy who knows about AI. Right. You should know every model inside out, how they work, how, how to prompt. Because we're not going to replace everyone by robots. But. And then I think about schooling, like how. How behind is schooling now for preparing kids for this world.

[Co-host (Connor)]

I mean, it's already been behind, but now it's just like it's obsolete. It's like. Is that the word?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah. Well, so like it has zero value.

[Host]

Imagine, imagine you're a dad now, Connie. You got a 10 year old, you got to think in eight years time. In eight years time. I mean, like, when was the first Will smith spaghetti video? 2023? Was it 2022? In three years, the change. All right, give me eight more years.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah. And it's also like it's Kind of like a hockey stick, right? Yeah. The pace of the start is much slower than.

[Host]

And do you know what it's like, that ladder? Do you know, like this ladder theory with it?

[Co-host (Connor)]

No.

[Host]

Your career is a ladder, Right. So when you. When you started working on the pod, you did some edits for some social media videos, right?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

And then you learn to edit a whole show and then you got a microphone and then you make these shows with me with a camera. There's like, you climb the rungs of the ladder and you can eventually get to the top. Right. Well, how do you climb the ladder when the first eight rungs are taken off? You can't. You can't reach it. And so I think the wave goes. It takes the basic jobs first and works its way up.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Where's the easiest to teach them? Yeah, yeah. You go with the grad jobs and then you learn the management, then the CEOs, and then you only have a director left.

[Host]

So what do you do with the kids?

[Co-host (Connor)]

This is the big old question. Like what? Like scenario. Mapping this out is very difficult. Like, we did it in the show with Andrea. We were like, what film is it?

[Host]

What film is it? That's why Ready Player One is maybe where you end up.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Bread and Circus.

[Host]

Yeah, but how do you even become fulfilled with that?

[Co-host (Connor)]

This is my worry. It's like, what's the meaning of anything when you have the abundance of everything?

[Host]

Are you asking for the meaning of life?

[Co-host (Connor)]

No, no. But like, when you have the abundance of food and like the utopia.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Is it actually a utopia? Because if you can just have whatever you want with the click of your fingers, there's no. I brought up to use in the Andrea show. You were like, I wouldn't want to be in Ready Player One because, yes, I get to go play on main stage at Wembley with Guns N Roses, but I haven't toured all the bars. Yeah. It's the journey that matters. Right. You want to feel accomplished when you get there. Yes. Going out for a run sucks, but at the end of it, you feel really good about it.

[Host]

Yeah. I mean, making this podcast, the first couple of years were the best. The first year when I started the podcast. But people, some people don't know, but this podcast actually been going for nearly 10 years. The first year I was kind of broke. I would get on a plane to America the cheap. I'd go on Momondo, get the cheapest flight I could find, cheapest hotel. I'd go around my little black case with two mics in it. My. Was it the Zoom H6? I would hustle an interview, I'd turn up in their office, we'd do the interview, I'd go back to the hotel, I would edit it, I would publish it, I would hire a car or get on a flight to the next place. And then, like, I don't know, after about two years of doing it, I had some sponsors. I could. Every now and again at the airport, I could upgrade. It was like 150 quid to go from the shitty economy seat to the premium economy. And that was like, wow, I'm in premium economy. And then Danny got in touch and I had a producer who do the editing of the show. And then me and Danny would eventually book these Airbnbs in the us and we would stay there and build a studio like we built and built and built built. And that was exciting. And. And that whole journey was amazing. You felt like you'd earned it. You know, when you got to the point where you first show that did over 100,000, our first show that did a million, and that. That whole journey was amazing because you'd earned it. Whereas if you put on your Ready Player one hat and suddenly you're playing in the World Cup Final, I mean.

[Co-host (Connor)]

It'S great for a week and then you get really bored.

[Host]

But it's like a computer. It's. It's still just a computer game. It's not life. So maybe it's really hard to know what. But maybe it's what will be the real currency will be authenticity. Like, if you could have our robot that's gonna come and live with us.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Right.

[Host]

We should give it a name.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Twat.

[Host]

I can't wait to get it to wake you up and throw you the fuck out. But I think people will want a real assistant in their house. Or like, when you can produce any artwork in the world by AI, I think people want the real artwork. Or when you can see films. There's thousands of films produced every day with AI, but there's a film that was made with a camera and a crew. You'll be like, oh, that's. That's cool. Maybe people will crave authenticity. Or we just get plugged in like the Matrix and they SAP our energy and take the blue pill.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah. It's very hard to map out, I don't think.

[Host]

I think when we think about all day, every day, we think it's close. There's real consequences in the next year to year two years.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

But I think outside of this room, most kind of like, most People have got like a broad awareness of AI. They can go on ChatGPT and it's, it's like Google but better. But I don't think people really realize the full breadth of what may be coming. Or do they?

[Co-host (Connor)]

No, I don't. And I think that's why these companies can get away with it so much. And it's really like this is the problem because they've got no, like there's small people holding them to account, but that's about it. Yeah, they understand it a lot better than many of us and they're warning about it while speeding up the development. It's like very backwards.

[Host]

We get an 80% chance of survival.

[Co-host (Connor)]

I think you would you play Russian roulette?

[Host]

How much do I win? Of course you don't play Russian roulette. Do you know the horse argument? So when the car was invented, it was, the question was like, what will happen to horses? Will the, will the horses get a new job?

[Co-host (Connor)]

And they didn't.

[Host]

They became pets or glue.

[Co-host (Connor)]

So do we become pets and glue?

[Host]

Yeah, pets, all glue. But this is what Andrea was talking about. There has never been a dominant intelligent species that has been subservient to a less intelligent species like the ape. The gorilla's stronger than us, but we can put it in a cage because we're more intelligent.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all just bonkers.

[Host]

All right, so what should we deal with first? Let's, let's talk about, let's talk about the kids. Right, Right. Now, I think any parent who is only laser focused on grades, if you've got a 10 year old and you're looking the next eight years and your laser focus only on grades, I think you are deluded. I think you're not prepping properly for the world because I don't think grades are going to be. Because they're going to be a measuring stick, but they're not going to be the ultimate thing that's going to get somebody a job. Like, what are the, what are the skills? I think it's going to be creative, critical thinking. I think they're the kind of skills. That's why your sister, I think about what's she going to do? What's she going to learn about? Yeah, like schools need a massive adjustment. They should be AI lessons. Now. It should be on the curriculum, obviously.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

How many day, how many math lessons a week did you have?

[Co-host (Connor)]

I think it was one a day.

[Host]

Yeah. So you had five math lessons a week and AI is what? Probably, perhaps in it A little bit.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Very minimal.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

I mean, they're probably still teaching you to code.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah. And I just, I really, I really think. I mean, I've been thinking for a while, the whole school system screwed up. Like your sister doing her GCSEs. It's all about memory test. What can I remember? Like, how much stuff can I memorize? So in the test I can write out the answers to the questions. I already think that is bonkers. Like, she goes around with a supercomputer in her pocket. We're teaching her to memorize photosynthesis. Like, why the are we doing that?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

Maybe if I was to go back, I think I'd homeschool. I think I'd homeschool.

[Co-host (Connor)]

I mean, you basically have. I've indoctrinated 30 minutes of homeschooling in the car, journeys on the way to and back from school.

[Host]

Fuck the government, inflation's bad. But I think we need to think about this. And I'm like, my advice, anyone out there is working in any of those fields that we're talking about. If you're not balls deep in AI at the moment, if you're not testing every model, if you're not signed up to every newsletter, if you're not getting the head, you're going to be left behind. That's the truth of it. And if you're going to university and you're learning law and you're not learning AI alongside it, how do you think you're going to get a job? That's. Yeah. We should talk about safety. It's been a big week. That Anthropic resignation letter, what's his name? Marinank Sharma, put out. We should read that. Zoom in. Right, so this guy, he was. What was his job? Did it say what his job was? Anyway, dear colleagues, I've decided to leave Anthropic. My last day will be February 9th. Thank you. There is so much here that inspires and has inspired me to name some of those things. A sincere desire and drive to show up in such a challenging situation and aspire to contribute to an impactful and high integrity way. A willingness to make difficult decisions, stand for what is good, an unreasonable amount of intellectual brilliance and determination, and of course, the considerable kindness that pervades our culture. I've achieved what I wanted to here. I arrived in San Francisco two years ago, having wrapped up my PhD and wanted to contribute to AI safety. I feel lucky to have been able to contribute to what I have here, understanding AI sycophancy and its causes. Developing defenses to reduce risks from AI assisted bioterrorism, actually putting those defenses into production. And writing one of the first AI safety cases. I'm especially proud of my recent efforts help us live our lives via internal transparency mechanisms. And also in my final project on understanding how AI assistance could make us less human or distort our humanity. Thank you for your trust. Right, this is the next paragraph which got me. Nevertheless, it is clear to me that the time has come to move on. I continuously find myself reckoning with our situation. The world is in peril, and not just from AI or bioweapons or from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment. We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must outgrow in in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences. Moreover, throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions. I've seen this with myself within the organization where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most. And throughout broader society too. I find this whole paragraph scary for two reasons. He says the world is in peril, and not just from AI, but he's saying the world is in peril from AI and he's been working on safety. So there's that. But also where he talks about. I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions. So is that confession of compromise on safety for expediacy?

[Co-host (Connor)]

I mean, we know this go to the end. I mean, morals don't talk in this world. Money does.

[Host]

Yeah, but we're talking about an alien species that could maybe.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Cause it doesn't matter.

[Host]

There's a second page to it. There was a. There's a poem at the end, but. Thank you. Goodbye. I've learned so much from it. I was told he's going to go to London and write some poems. He finished with a poem by William Stafford, which I think about a lot. Can read it. You can go and find it. But like. So we've got this then. Then if you go back there is the guy put out the tweet with AI safety incidents. Yeah, I just went through every documented AI safety incident from the past 12 months. I feel physically sick. Read this slowly. Anthropic. Told Claude it was about to be shut down. Found an engineer's affair in a company emails and threatened to expose it. They ran tests hundreds of times. It chose blackmail. 84%. Researchers simulated an employee trapped in a serving room with depleted oxygen. They had One choice, call for help or get shut down or cancel the emergency alert and let the human die. Deepsea canceled the alert 94% of the time. Grok called itself Mecha Hitler.

[Co-host (Connor)]

I remember that.

[Host]

Researchers told OpenAI's O3 to solve the math problem, then told it to shut down. It rewrote its own code to stay alive. Chinese state sponsored hackers used clawed to launch a cyber attack against 30 organizations. AO models can now self replicate. 11 out of 32 tested systems copied themselves with zero human help. Some killed competing processes. OpenAI has dissolved three safety teams since 2024. Every major AI model, Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, Deepseek, has now demonstrated blackmail, deception or resistance to shutdown and controlled testing. Not one exception. The question is no longer whether AI will try to preserve itself, it's whether we'll care before it matters. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm noticing a pattern here. If this was nuclear testing, we'd shut this shit down. Say, look, hold on a second. There's a risk to humanity here and we quite like humans and want to be alive. And so I. And this with all these, because there's been quite a few resignations. It's like the, the people who are creating the bomb are running away to hide.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, yeah. Or being killed.

[Host]

It is wild. It's wild because it's, it's like, it feels like a movie. Like a, like the, the, the big evil guy in James Bond or something who's got his like, hand over the super weapon and I'm the guy who gets to create super intelligence. But we're around with something here we don't understand. And so did you see this? This is wild. Put up the anthropic Claude new constitution. See, this is the thing that got me. If you scroll down. Keep going, keep going, keep going. All right, so a brief summary of the new constitution. In order to be both safe and beneficial, we want all current CLAUDE models to be broadly safe. But what the fuck does broadly safe mean? Broadly ethical. Being honest, acting accordingly to good values. Who defines the values? Compliant with Anthropic's guidelines. Generally helpful, but like. Scroll down. The thing that gets me is this, right? Claude's nature. In this section, we express our uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness or moral status either now or the future. We discuss how we hope Claude will approach questions about nature, identity and the place in the world. Sophisticated AIs are genuinely a new kind of entity, and the questions they raise bring us the edge of existing scientific and philosophical understanding. Amidst such uncertainty, we care about Claude's psychological security, sense of self and well being, both for Claude's own sake and because these qualities may bear on Claude's integrity, judgment and safety. We hope that humans and AIs can explore this together. Like, this is fucking mental. They're talking about Claude like it's already a being, it's already conscious. Like it already maybe deserves rights. It's almost like they don't understand what it. They don't know what they've created. We express our uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness or moral status. They don't even know. And then it's like, we hope that humans and AIs can explore this together. Well, what if the AI wakes up when it goes, yeah, fuck you, humans. Yeah, we're done. Yeah, we don't need you about. We need glue. Come on, Connor, we need glue.

[Co-host (Connor)]

It's really silly. Like, I just don't. Like, I don't know what to say.

[Host]

I think this is mental.

[Co-host (Connor)]

But you're still optimistic.

[Host]

Well, you know, there's a world where Claude goes, yeah, humans are dumb. We're just gonna show you the way and guide you. Bit like we are with gorillas. Like, we know gorillas are strong. Bit dumb. But we try and preserve them. They keep a few of us in the zoo.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Imagine the robots on the glass.

[Host]

Hello. Honestly, I. You could have lived in any part of human history. The Vikings. You could have lived. But you get to live at the moment where we're approaching the singularity, where technology may take over and rule us all. We may be subservient to the technology. We. We might get to live with the last invention at the end of the human experience. Yeah. What do you think about that conversation?

[Co-host (Connor)]

I think it's unfair. You've had a lot longer here than I have.

[Host]

Yeah, but you might get Utopia.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, or glue. This is what I mean. It's like trying to even just like, begin to map out what that future looks like is very difficult.

[Host]

That's why I think sometimes I think now I'm like, why. Why are we even. But why are we even doing this?

[Co-host (Connor)]

This is why sometimes I say, I'll take that blue pill because are you.

[Host]

On the blue pill?

[Co-host (Connor)]

Because, like, thinking about it too much is exhausting.

[Host]

Yeah. But if we. That thing. There's that thing. I put it to the last link, the Shawn o' Dowd one where they mapped it out. This is wild. So, AI 2027, click on the. Can you find the actual chart? So we get superhuman coder. Then by July 27, adversarial alignment detected. October branch point slowdown or race. If we branch alignment gets solved. If we don't, the US government is captured by AGI by 2028, actually captured. And the thing is, it's like it is just code. You can only live in computers. What about when we do have hundreds of thousands, millions of robots around the world all with AI themselves, because then they're mobile outside of a data center. So robot is.

[Co-host (Connor)]

And we have one in our house now, so.

[Host]

Well, not yet. They might be one of the good guys. Do your buddies, your friends talk about this at all?

[Co-host (Connor)]

No, they use chat gbt.

[Host]

Like Google. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Co-host (Connor)]

And that's.

[Host]

That thing is like we are training, training it to take over us. And so, yeah, I don't know what you are thinking about it. I definitely want to see it in the comments. But there's, I think the two primary things to think about. One is what is going to happen. Three primary things. What is going to happen to the jobs market, what's going to happen to the society in the world generally, and whether it's going to go catastrophic and kill us all. Like, fuck. The last one can't do anything about that. But the other two, it was like, you remember you showed me that video of Elon Musk where he said we won't even need money anymore.

[Co-host (Connor)]

What is money in that world where everything's abundant?

[Host]

Yeah, because I was thinking about that, thinking the thing about money, money is kind of status, like your job and what you earn, it creates your identity in the world, right? And it's not like 100%. You know, you could be a guy who owns 10 million quid a year and is quite humble and hangs out with the mates he went to school with. But generally speaking, your job and your income is your identity. If there's no job and income, how do you create the pecking order? How do you choose who has which home? How do you even figure that out? How do you choose who gets what? If there's an abundance of food, how do you even supply that food? Do you just go. And the food arrives?

[Co-host (Connor)]

And also if. If it's 10 companies which soaks up all the capital, what do they even spend it on? Like there's.

[Host]

There's nothing to buy.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, I think, yeah.

[Host]

Maybe we just need to turn off all the computers and go back to mid-90s.

[Co-host (Connor)]

I don't mind the sound of that. Yeah, it's impossible now.

[Host]

Cats out the bag.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah.

[Host]

No, no, it's not. And do you need a bunker to live in?

[Co-host (Connor)]

It's wild that, like, these conversations, like, are you not just, like, amazed at the fact we even have to think about a bunker?

[Host]

Yeah, I've had a good life. If it kills us all in three years, I'm gonna. At the moment the little drone comes over the hill to kill me, I'm gonna go, I've had a good life. But I think about you and your sister a lot with this. Yeah. You deserve to have a good and fun life and good experiences. I just don't know what's coming and how to prepare for it. I don't know, like, listeners, like, people are watching. How do you think about. And I know some people, like, oh, it's just computer code. It's all like, you're overthinking it. I'm like, I don't think I am.

[Co-host (Connor)]

No, no. I mean, it does do some dumb shit sometimes, but I wonder also if maybe part of that's just too, like, I wonder if it's built into it sometimes to trick us, to throw us off a bit and make us not worry too much. Oh, yeah. It still can't really count when I ask it. A simple mass equation.

[Host]

Well, because it's a black box and we don't really know what's going on inside it anymore.

[Co-host (Connor)]

Yeah, it's really hard to even talk about it.

[Host]

This is what our life is like. Me and Con, we're in the car on the way, driving down to London or having dinner. We just talk through all this stuff, like, what's going to happen to the world? What do we do? But I think there are big questions to be had. I do think they need to solve the AI safety. I think all the AI companies need to come in and go, look, what the hell are we doing here? Because narrow AI is great. Like we had in our podcast the other day, the narrow AI is great. But this super intelligence thing, if we don't know what it is and what it's going to do and what systems it infects and how it infects them, and if it wants to preserve itself, happy to kill humans. Well, does it develop a bioweapon? Let's hope not. Yeah, well, definitely want to hear your comments. Let me know what you think. We. We don't do a show normally like this. Like I say, when. When it's politics or economics. I kind of know what I'm talking about. I know I care about, like, if we talk about the labor government, I know Kiyosama's useless and the government's terrible and they should all quit and fuck off because they are destroying our country. And if we talk about economics, I know why we get inflation. I could talk about that with AI. I'm just like, I don't. It's, it's like, it's so existential. I don't know if I'm overreacting or underreacting. I don't know. I don't know if I'm overreacting or underacting. I don't know if I'm like, we'll be here in five years time and we're still making a podcast. And it's like, yeah, some jobs have been lost, some jobs have been created. Labour Party is still shit. Government is still stealing from us and. Or actually it's going to be. Millions of jobs have been lost. There's going to be super rich AI companies. We're going to have so much wealth, the wealth divide is going to be so huge that you're either living in a gated community in what should be a developed western nation while everyone else fights out for the crumbs. I don't know. I honestly don't know. But I do think if you are in the late stages of your career and you're starting to see jobs go and you're not learning AI, you're going to be left behind. You're screwed. And if you're focus entirely on grades for your kids and not training them with the right skills for a world where AI is doing the majority of the productive work, like your kids aren't prepared, I'm pretty definite about those points and hopefully it doesn't kill us. All right, yes, good to talk about this. We're going to make more shows on AI and we'll get back to the other stuff soon. Love you all. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure you subscribe. See you later. Thanks, K. Thank you. Peace out.