The Peter McCormack Show

David Goodhart joins me to discuss whether AI is about to do to the graduate class what globalisation did to factory workers, and why Britain’s political settlement may be breaking apart.

David explains why Britain has overproduced people with generalist academic skills, how the “anywheres” came to dominate politics, culture and the economy, and why the “somewheres” have increasingly turned to Brexit, populism, Reform and Restore as a reaction against a country they no longer feel represents them.

We also discuss whether anything has actually got better in Britain over the last 15 years, why the state seems unable to get things done, immigration, multiculturalism, deindustrialisation, care work, the collapse of trust in politicians, and why David still believes Britain has the ingredients to recover.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - Graduates Are Next
00:00:50 - AI and the Graduate Class
00:05:42 - A New Class System
00:07:45 - Anywheres and Somewheres
00:10:20 - Why Populism Appeals
00:15:03 - Brexit and Anywhere Dominance
00:16:05 - Britain’s Political Confusion
00:22:28 - Did Populism Fail?
00:27:19 - Bridging Britain’s Divide
00:31:54 - Losing Trust in Politicians
00:34:07 - Britain’s Tax Burden
00:35:39 - Why Business Feels Impossible
00:38:42 - Two Experiences of Multiculturalism
00:40:41 - The Care Dilemma
00:49:53 - Has Anything Got Better?
00:53:30 - Free Speech and Online Safety
00:55:45 - Productive vs Unproductive Wealth
01:00:33 - Why The State Can’t Act
01:07:21 - The Graduate Elite Is Crumbling
01:10:40 - Britain’s Good Ingredients
01:15:31 - Politics Needs More Than Economics
01:20:36 - Can Britain Still Recover?
01:34:06 - David’s Books

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
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CONNECT WITH DAVID GOODHART
› Website – https://davidgoodhart.com/
› Substack – https://davidgoodhart.substack.com/
› Policy Exchange – https://policyexchange.org.uk/

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LISTEN / SUBSCRIBE
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FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
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EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
› https://x.com/ConorM04

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Amy Webb joins me to discuss why artificial intelligence is not just another technology shift, but a civilisation-level reordering of work, power, wealth, biology and society.

Amy explains why the real AI question is not simply which jobs disappear, but which people become vulnerable. We discuss thinkers vs think-nots, why human capital may stop being the main driver of productivity and wealth, how GDP and unemployment could rise together, and why the economy may thrive while having less use for human labour.

We also get into China’s AI strategy, why governments are failing to plan for the transition, whether AI companies owe people for the data and knowledge they have absorbed, Amy’s idea of contribution credit, the limits of UBI, the future of synthetic biology and longevity, and why the current structures of regulation, politics and economics no longer make sense for the world we are entering.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - The Economy May Not Need You
00:01:13 - Humanity-Scale Reordering
00:04:25 - Show Us Receipts
00:07:10 - Peter’s AI Assistant
00:08:00 - Three Years In Six Weeks
00:08:46 - AI Is Not One Technology
00:12:00 - Self-Improving Technology
00:13:30 - Thinkers And Think-Nots
00:16:44 - How To Become A Thinker
00:21:23 - Failed Transition Planning
00:23:58 - China’s AI Strategy
00:28:31 - What Happens Without Labour?
00:30:56 - Lights Out Industrialism
00:33:47 - AI Collapsing The Pyramid
00:35:12 - We Are Gen T
00:41:39 - Contribution Credit
00:52:43 - Should AI Be Regulated?
00:58:52 - What Futurists Actually Do
01:03:54 - AI And Biology
01:30:16 - Regulation Can’t Keep Up

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
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CONNECT WITH AMY WEBB
› Website – https://substack.com/@amywebbfuturist
› Future Today Strategy Group – https://ftsg.com/
› Amy at FTSG – https://ftsg.com/member/amy-webb/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/amywebb

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

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

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

Thomas Pacchia joins me to discuss why the world feels fake, why trust in institutions is collapsing and why AI may make the crisis far worse before it helps solve it.

Thomas explains why politics, media, censorship, government waste, algorithmic manipulation and broken public services are pushing people into a world where almost nothing feels reliable. We discuss America’s political divide, Britain’s failing state, welfare traps, the blob, free speech, the collapse of trust and why so many people feel trapped inside systems they no longer believe in.

We also get into Peter’s AI project Show Us Receipts, how AI could be used to fact-check politicians and government contracts, why centralised platforms can still control what people see, and why Thomas believes decentralisation, self-sovereignty, privacy, Bitcoin, churches and pubs may be the only realistic way back to something human.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - AI Psychosis
00:01:02 - The Fake World
00:02:28 - A Global Reset
00:04:11 - Is America Recovering?
00:08:36 - The Blob
00:11:40 - Collapse and War
00:13:30 - Brother Against Brother
00:15:11 - Broken Incentives
00:16:20 - Killing Productivity
00:19:27 - Money in Politics
00:25:00 - Politics as Team Sport
00:28:53 - Where Does This Lead?
00:30:51 - Were Libertarians Right?
00:33:16 - Building Parallel Systems
00:36:23 - Most People Are Trapped
00:45:27 - What Has Got Better?
00:47:19 - Britain’s Broken State
00:57:17 - Show Us Receipts
01:01:40 - Censored Platforms
01:07:52 - Churches and Pubs

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
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CONNECT WITH THOMAS PACCHIA
› PubKey – https://www.pubkey.bar/home
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SPONSORS
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› Ledn - https://ledn.io/peter

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

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

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Sam Lyman joins me to discuss how China is allegedly targeting America’s AI buildout, the activist networks fighting data centres and why the race for AI infrastructure has become a national security battle.

Sam explains how Chinese influence campaigns, open-source AI models, data centre protests and far-left activist groups may be working together to slow the United States down. We discuss Neville Roy Singham, Code Pink, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, foreign influence, anti-data centre campaigns, and how billions of dollars in AI infrastructure have reportedly been delayed or blocked.

We also get into open-source AI, DeepSeek, US frontier models, Anthropic, AI export controls, whether AI doom narratives are being used to build regulatory moats, the risk of superintelligence, data centre moratoriums, socialism in America and why Sam believes the battle is now between Chinese AI and American AI.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - China’s AI War
00:00:47 - China Is Sabotaging US AI
00:01:02 - The Bot Campaign Against Data Centres
00:02:03 - Neville Roy Singham
00:03:14 - Why AI Is a Battle for Control
00:04:18 - China’s Open-Source AI Strategy
00:06:12 - What Americans Fear About AI
00:08:23 - Sam’s Background at Treasury and BPI
00:10:38 - Is Data Centre Opposition Organic?
00:12:32 - The China Influence Network
00:13:37 - What Is Code Pink?
00:16:10 - The Party for Socialism and Liberation
00:18:52 - How Data Centre Protests Slow AI
00:23:37 - $24 Billion in AI Buildout Stalled
00:27:55 - Why China Wants to Slow US AI
00:29:12 - Chinese AI or American AI
00:32:03 - Is Chinese AI Harvesting Data?
00:36:37 - The US Enters the Open-Source Race
00:42:52 - The AI Doomer Debate
00:54:17 - The Push for Data Centre Moratoriums

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

CONNECT WITH SAM LYMAN
› Website – https://www.btcpolicy.org/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/SamLyman33

SPONSORS
› IREN - https://www.iren.com/
› Plaud - https://www.plaud.ai/mccormack

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

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

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

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

Nate Soares joins me to discuss the race to superintelligent AI, why alignment remains unsolved and why he believes building machines smarter than humanity could end in catastrophe.

Nate explains why modern AI is not programmed like traditional software, but grown through training processes we do not fully understand. We discuss AI escaping labs, recursive self-improvement, why today’s systems are only safe because they are not yet powerful enough to take over and why the danger may not be that AI hates us, but that it does not care about us at all.

We also get into OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, xAI - the AI companies racing ahead despite the risks, why “turning it off” may not be possible, the case for an international treaty against superintelligence, and why Nate believes we should not give up before the driver wakes up.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - AI That Doesn’t Care About Us
00:01:04 - If Anyone Builds This, Everyone Dies
00:04:17 - If He’s Right, We Lose Everything
00:07:28 - Why Nate Isn’t Anti-AI
00:08:32 - From Google and DeepMind to AI Risk
00:11:00 - Why Can’t We Make AI Care About Us?
00:16:07 - We Can Look Inside, But We Don’t Understand It
00:17:20 - The Moment Nate Decided to Write the Book
00:20:24 - The Senator Who Already Understood the Risk
00:24:04 - How AI Goes From Useful to Terrifying
00:32:17 - Could AI Live on a Portable Drive?
00:36:13 - Are the AI CEOs Listening?
00:39:53 - Why Would We Accept a 10% Risk?
00:43:40 - Conor’s Point: We Don’t Get a Choice
00:51:10 - Are We Already Racing Towards the Cliff?
00:58:28 - The AI That Threatened a Reporter
01:15:53 - What Would Winning Look Like?
01:21:38 - What Can Ordinary People Do?
01:26:31 - Are We Just a Simulation for AI?
01:34:26 - Don’t Give Up Before the Driver Wakes Up

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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
› Feedback – https://www.petermccormack.com/contact
› Email – me@petermccormack.com
› Instagram – /mccormack555
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CONNECT WITH NATE SOARES
› Website – https://intelligence.org/
› Book – https://ifanyonebuildsit.com/
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/So8res

SPONSORS
› IREN - https://www.iren.com/
› Plaud - https://www.plaud.ai/mccormack
› Incogni - https://incogni.com/peter

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

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

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

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