Albo meets Trump, Putin finally cops it and superintelligence hits the headlines

What a week! And some of it was actually good news! Justin and Dave pull apart the latest events, starting with PM Anthony Albanese’s all-consuming meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House. After all the jangled nerves, it went rather well, but what does the critical minerals deal mean in geopolitical terms? Is AUKUS really safe? And just what did Navy Secretary John Phelan mean about clarifying ambiguities in the trilateral agreement?

 

Justin and Dave discuss Trump’s confidence that Chinese leader Xi Jinping won’t move against Taiwan any time soon, the upcoming meeting between the two leaders on the side of APEC in Seoul, and the much-welcomed new sanctions an increasingly impatient Trump has slapped on an infuriatingly recalcitrant Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

 

Finally, they discuss Dave’s favourite story of the week: an open letter calling for a pause on the development of superintelligent AI, the pros and cons of the movement, and the surprising signatories.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Stop the world. Welcome to STOP THE WORLD.
I'm David Rowe. And I'm Justin betting.
So today we are going to talk toeach other.
Justin and I are going to rant about the issues of the week.
It's been a huge week in news, Justin.
We've had the Anthony Albanese, Donald Trump meeting, of course,

(00:22):
dominating the headlines, understandably here in the
United States. But we've had some other
interesting developments as well.
I mean, a few things out of that.
You know, obviously there's a critical minerals deal.
There is the, you know, Trump's commentary around around Xi
Jinping in Taiwan and, and of course, orcas.
And that that affirmation of orcas that came up.
And some other big news that's broken overnight is Trump has

(00:45):
finally, thankfully put some fresh sanctions on Russia, on
Russian energy in response to its recalcitrance over Ukraine.
And then we're going to get ontoanother story of the, you know,
a favourite story of the week that might not have got as much
attention, attention as we thinkit deserves.
So that'll be the the flow of the morning and it's just going
to be a very free flowing, frankconversation.

(01:07):
We may agree on some things and disagree on others, but that's
that's where the fun starts. So let's talk about the Trump
Albanese meeting first. I think we'll dispense with the
with the commentary around KevinRudd's, you know, performance
and, and Donald Trump's reactionto him.
I think that's been covered. Every sensible person seems to
agree that that basically Rudd has done a good job here.

(01:29):
If you look at the outcomes rather than the the process and
the optic. But let's talk a little bit
about the critical minerals dealfirst.
That was the big concrete thing.Seems like a great agreement
obviously in Australia's interests.
You know, the key point being that it will start to erode and

(01:50):
hopefully be the beginning of breaking China's monopoly and
stranglehold over critical minerals and rare earths, which
it has demonstrated repeatedly. And you can tell us a little bit
about the history of that. It's willingness to weaponize
that and use it as a tool of economic coercion against other
countries, a range of countries.That's a really important step.
So just give me your thoughts onthe critical minerals deal

(02:12):
first. Yeah, Dave, I, I think while
Orcas got obviously a lot of thecoverage, the critical minerals
deal is significant, absolutely in both countries.
National interest, in my view, it's really putting substance
for the first time on a topic that we've known for years is

(02:33):
vital to our national interests.You can go back to Trump's first
term where he was engaging with then Prime Minister Turnbull on
critical minerals. In 2018, they signed what they
referred to as a critical minerals alliance.
So we've known for a long time that it's that it's important
that alliance, that agreement, that engagement was also

(02:54):
premised on the concerns around China's monopoly around rare
earth exports and and processing.
We have a situation where the reality is Australia has a huge
amount of natural resources, butwe don't do the processing, we
don't do the exporting. And so we have all given China,

(03:17):
unfortunately, the opportunity to create a monopoly, and then
they have gained leverage and then they show that they can use
it. The frankly, if the country that
had such a monopoly was Japan orour European partners, it
wouldn't matter so much and we wouldn't have to put these
billions of dollars that we're putting into trying to get

(03:38):
ourselves out of this problem. But it's not one of our allies
or strategic partners. It's our strategic adversary who
just happens to be our largest trading partner.
And to give a sense of how Chinahas used its control over rare
earths, we don't have to just look in the last couple of weeks

(04:00):
where they have imposed themselves on the entire world
by saying they were going to restrict the exports of rare
earth elements and restrict or ban equipment that is used to
process rare earths. If you go back to 2010, in a
dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands,

(04:21):
China's response was not just tomaturely, bilaterally engage on
the disputed island, but was to economically coerce Japan by by
banning the exports of rare earths against Japan.
Japan, to its credit, took Chinato the WTO and four years later,
in 2014, the WTO issued A rulingagainst China.

(04:43):
So they've got history. So that's why why is it
important that we do this now, Dave?
We are a long way behind. It is going to take years to get
ourselves out of it, but the only way we're going to get
ourselves out of it is by governments like Australia and
the US coming together. Combining what our natural and

(05:05):
national expertise is in terms of what we have to offer here,
in terms of resources, the American capabilities, the
American finances, as well as importantly what the the
statement also said, referred tonot just bilaterally, but Japan,
Korea, Yeah, European Union, very, very important.
Yeah. And one of the cautionary
responses that's been fairly widespread, not a criticism, but

(05:29):
at least the injection of caution has been that, you know,
this is a, this is a small step towards a, you know, a big,
solving a big problem that it's going to take a really long time
for this to take effect. There was the Reserve Bank of
Australia research paper that was reported widely yesterday.
I'm quoting for the from the Australian Financial Review here

(05:51):
that says quoting the RBA research paper.
While it is possible that demandfor critical minerals could grow
rapidly, supply is largely fixedin the short run because it
takes a long time to develop mines.
It can take critical mineral projects more than 10 years to
go from the exploration to the production stage, though this
time period can vary by mineral and price incentives.

(06:12):
So you know, obviously, you know, yeah, this is, this is not
going to solve the problem overnight.
I mean, my very strong view is that doing nothing is clearly
not an option. We cannot allow an indefinite
future in which a strategic adversary or rival has such a
stranglehold over something thatis so important.

(06:33):
I mean, you mentioned going backto 2018.
I mean, critical minerals and rare earths have only become
more important to almost everything that we do now.
I mean, they were a relatively niche topic back then, seven
years ago. Today you hear about them, you
read about them every single dayand for very, very good reason.
And we have been working on thisfor a while across the board

(06:54):
among allies. You know, Madeleine King, some
kudos to her as a resources minister, put out a critical
mineral strategy several years ago.
I mean, do we wish that these things were moving faster?
Do we wish that, you know, this was on a larger scale?
Of course, some of the, the strategic investments from the
the two governments here are going into existing projects, is

(07:14):
my understanding. So it's not as if we're we're,
you know, starting from the exploration stage.
It's not as if we're going to send out geologists to start
digging in the dirt and looking for a place to mine.
I mean, this is, you know, this will make it start to make a
material difference I would think fairly quickly.
Yes, it will. But the RBA report, others are
absolutely right that this is not going to suddenly sign this

(07:37):
agreement and tomorrow everything is going to be okay.
There's not going to be a monopoly that China has that
they can use against dust and the rest of the world.
We're going to have to be persistent and each time we have
looked at this before, the worldhas had has thrown curve balls
against us. If we have a look at what's

(07:57):
happened in the last few years since that initial US, Australia
agreement on critical minerals, we had COVID and of course,
COVID took all the energy from it, took top priority as we came
out of COVID, Russia invaded Ukraine, the Middle East crisis.
It is one of those things that what we're going to have to do

(08:19):
here is to show that we have thepersistence to last over the
course of the decade to regain that competitiveness that we
have. We have lost.
And it's, it's not just in this field of rare earths or critical
minerals that you use the phraseand a lot of people say, well,
you know, don't really know whatit means.
And then they particularly hear,well, rare earths are called

(08:41):
rare, but they're not even rare.So do I really need to bother in
all these fields? You know, that what where rare
earths, critical minerals, that the tech that it goes into
really vital now to, to what we do.
And in a, in a tech related field, if you go back to 2011
when Elon Musk was developing electric vehicles, you know,

(09:01):
high tech and he and Tesla were ahead of the game.
He was asked in 2011, would China be a competitor to what
you were doing? And at the time he said no.
Of course, now 15 years on from from that, Chinese companies
like BYD are selling more cars, more electric vehicles than

(09:22):
Tesla. And the the Tesla vehicles are
using Chinese batteries. So we need to be mindful that
China looks at this. They would have looked at what
Musk was doing with electric vehicles in 2011 and saying
we're going to spend the next decade working on our own
capabilities. And it's not just electric
vehicles, whether it be solar panels or drones, whatever it

(09:44):
is, social media, the work they put into TikTok, China, you have
to respect what the Chinese system does because they're
willing to say, if it doesn't work overnight, it doesn't
matter. We're going to persist and we're
going to change course where we need to.
We're going to dominate these fields that we know are relevant
for society and security. And so we've got to show that if

(10:06):
something doesn't happen overnight, then we don't say,
well, we tried and we've got we've got to persist for years
this. Is a really good point, so let's
see. It's good stuff.
We need more of it and let's stick with it.
Let's let's follow it through successive elected governments
as well. Let's not, let's not change
course with with. Governments and this is a great
start, money, you know the 8.5 US billion dollars worth, that's
what is needed. So there is substance here.

(10:29):
It's not just an agreement, but we have to be willing to do it
over. Years.
Great. OK, Orcas.
So John Phelan, the Navy secretary, got everyone's ears
pricking out when he referred tosome ambiguities in the in the
existing AUCUS agreement. Obviously, everyone was very
pleased and relieved at Donald Trump's general backing of

(10:50):
AUCUS. He's clearly in with it.
That's great. Wonderful to have that signal
and that reassurance. In terms of the review being
carried out by Elbridge Colbury,the Colby, the Under Secretary.
Phelan, I suppose, clarified in that he's looking to clarify
ambiguities. So everyone's wondering what
that refers to. What are your thoughts on that?

(11:13):
It it's, I think it's a really interesting question.
It's ambiguous in itself, Dave, because he didn't explain it.
And really interestingly, as soon as he said it, the
president responded saying, you're fixing it.
So everybody was able to move on.
Clearly it's not fatal to the partnership.

(11:35):
As you said, President Trump, the entire American system
supports August, which is great news.
We can we can now move on from. I think what was too much of a
fixation of is the partnership going to continue?
I don't think there was ever really a, a, a, a realistic, a

(11:58):
likelihood that the US are goingto say we're not going to work
with the Australia and the UK here.
But interestingly, when the Prime Minister, when our Prime
Minister was asked after the meeting, what did the secretary
of Navy mean by ambiguities? Is it an issue?
The Prime Minister sought to downplay it And, and the Prime

(12:18):
Minister and Australia might know what's in the Pentagon
review. So when he seeks to downplay it,
maybe that's a message that saysit's it's not an issue.
But the fact that the secretary of Navy, who was the only person
to speak in that meeting other than the two leaders, President
Trump and Anthony and Prime Minister Albanese, I think it

(12:42):
means there's something there. It's something there at least
that the Navy wants to be addressed.
So what is it? Well, it's clearly not
terminating the partnership that's going on full steam
ahead. As Trump said, some people have
said, well, is it to do with what has come up previously
about maybe some Americans want to retain operational control

(13:06):
over the Virginia's that are going to be sold to Australia?
I think that's unlikely because it's, it is we are purchasing
those, those Virginias, but there's clearly something there.
So what could it be? Well, it could very well be
related to for example, the certification process in in

(13:31):
which the in service submarines that we're getting need to be
certified before they're transferred.
So it's not a new product, it's not a a commercial transaction
that we're ordinarily used to. This is about the transfer of an
in service submarine. So the US side need to be
satisfied that they've done everything at their end, always

(13:52):
question marks about their submarine industrial base, how
ready they are. I think importantly, it's not
just about how ready the Americans are to transfer the
ship. It may very well be about
Australia's readiness and preparation for receiving the
the submarine, the boat. So there there may be some
things that the US Navy need to be feel need to be addressed.

(14:14):
This is, this is interesting. So I mean to me and, and, and
look, I'm, I'm not a, I'm not anOrcas expert, but I, I mean, I
follow it as much as I can. But you know, the, the, the
outstanding risk to me still seems to be the output of US
Virginia's in terms of stage 2 of, of the caucus agreement.
They're currently at whatever itis 1.3 and they need to get to
2.3. I forget the exact numbers, but
everyone's relatively familiar with there's a shortfall that is

(14:37):
not inconsiderable. So I mean, is an equivalent risk
that Australia is not ready to receive them as opposed to the U
SS risk of not being able to actually deliver them.
I, I, I haven't really thought about it that way.
I mean, obviously some work is being put into Henderson and
there was in the announcement from, from the PM and the, and

(14:59):
the Minister for Defence a few weeks ago to that effect.
But I mean, do you mean that that is generally seemed to be a
a risk in itself? Yeah, I, I, I think it, it's, I
think both have to be satisfied and which is why a lot of work
is going into our shipyards. Obviously Sterling here is very

(15:19):
important, but it's not the onlything, the only shipyard area
that the US will be focused on. They will be looking to ensure
that Australia comprehensively is able to dock these ships,
operate these ships from a shipyard perspective, also from
a personnel perspective. So are they looking to make sure

(15:41):
that we have a certain number ofpersonnel who are trained to be
able to crew and maintain these these boats, which are the crown
jewels of the American military?So there may be a range of those
issues that are probably more relevant at this stage for the
Navy than they are for for politicians.

(16:03):
Yep, I've got to say, I'm feeling feeling handed.
It handled it fairly well, I thought.
I mean, he's I'm glad he was paying attention.
We've all been in those meetingswhere we zone out and the
biggest person in the room suddenly turns to us and says,
what do you think? And I've I've been caught out
plenty of times. The, the, I suppose the other
thing that, that I think is important here is that I do
think there is a, there is a, a fixation that whether it be

(16:28):
journalists or think tanks, commentators have on changes to
agreements or changes to timelines.
I think that we we should reallyget into a practise and a a
discussion where if, if something happens that that
requires change, if there are delays, if there's timeliness

(16:51):
issues, if, if there's somethinghappens in global events to
impact something that we thoughtwas going to happen in 2021 or
2023. I think there should be
willingness to say we want our own government, we want the
orcas governments to be explaining why we might need to

(17:13):
shift something. Sure, technology might change.
That requires A slight shift. That's why the partnership is,
is so important. I think we want to be able to
incentivize change where it's needed rather than to say if you
change something that you've signed years ago, if you change
anything at all, we're going to report that or regard that as a

(17:35):
failure. And there might be failures.
But I think in any, this is a huge endeavour, generational
endeavour and it's a complex pathway involves rotation of of
US and UK submarines. That might be where the
ambiguities are. It involves the transfer of
Virginia's and then it involves the design and development of
SSN orcas. There's a lot happening here.

(17:58):
I think we should be willing to understand that some things
might. There might be obstacles that
come up, but we're working together to push through them.
I think that's OK. So, so I mean that's, that's a
very reasonable point. I guess it raises the question
though of, I mean has anything changed since the original
agreement was signed that would require the clarification of

(18:18):
ambiguities? Matthew Knott in the City
Morning Herald in The Age is reporting that that one of the
ambiguities might be about continued access of US and UK
submarines to HMAS, Sterling andWA.
If that is the case now, it might just be a routine kind of
clarification. The US and the UK want to know

(18:39):
that they will have continued access to rotate through there
that all three countries agree that a greater rather than a
lesser ongoing presence into theinto the 30s and 40s of all
three nations boats is is betterfor the Indo Pacific all round.
But might it point to some accumulated concern that the US

(19:06):
and UK are going to need to be there in a heavier presence for
longer than might have been envisaged when the agreement was
originally signed? Either because the US is
realising we might not have enough Virginias or the
Australians and the US together are realising Australia might
not have the capacity, the personnel, the training, the,

(19:26):
you know, the just general ability to to actually take the
Virginias on in the 1930s, 1930swhere we could go backwards in
time. 100 years if we had a timemachine.
But the twenty 30s. So I mean, I guess that. 30s
aren't like the. Like the 1930s exactly.
But, well, plenty of made the. Comparison the the the answer is
yes. I, I, I think for us though,

(19:50):
what, what we need to be actually wanting the Orcas
partners to do is to have this conversation regularly, ongoing
really no matter what exact lines are in the agreement.
If if there is something happensthat means that Australia's
shipyards are not at a point where the Americans want, well,

(20:14):
let's have that have that discussion, but not have it as
well that, that there is a delaythere.
Therefore, we are failing and we, we, we have to acknowledge
defeat. We want the three countries to
say right here is here's what we've said.
We're going to transfer, we're going to transfer the Virginias
2032 by by memory from 2032. But we also want them to say

(20:39):
let's ensure that we are having such a regular conversation that
if we need to, we might shift our rotational arrangements that
we didn't quite envisage when the arrangement was first
announced in 21 or the pathway was signed in 2023.
So I think like with any bilateral arrangement, any

(21:00):
business arrangement, I think what, what the public should
actually be asking of the three governments is don't wait until
2032 and say, oh, are we ready or not?
Either from AUS submarine industrial base or an Australian
perspective or from a British perspective, because all three
countries have actually said we,we've got known issues within

(21:21):
our submarine industrial base and our defence industrial base.
It's remembering the reason thatorcas has come together.
We acknowledged our vulnerabilities leading into
2021 to say that the the military and tech rise of China,
including their own uplift in their Navy, meant that we needed

(21:41):
to be greater than the sum of our parts.
We needed the partnership to come together and that it wasn't
simply to give Australia access to submarines.
It was because the Americans andthe Brits said we we all need to
uplift and we can do so Better Together.
More conversations, even if theyresult in some change.
The partnership here is actuallyimportant.

(22:01):
To give an example, without the partnership that the three
defence departments probably wouldn't have identified as
greatly as they have all the obstacles or restrictions to
information sharing and text sharing.
You know, it is, it is unheralded really, but they have
already done a lot of work to both identify and to loosen the

(22:22):
restrictions so that that the three countries are able to talk
more, share more. That is a good thing.
OK, good. All right.
The third really interesting element out of the Trump
Albanese meeting was Trump's comments on Taiwan.
He was very confident that between the the majesty of the

(22:43):
US military and it's and it's strength and it's deterrent
effect and his personal ability to persuade Xi Jinping between
those two things, XI would not consider moving against Taiwan
during this term of of Trump's administration, which goes
through to 2028. What did you make of those

(23:05):
comments? Do?
Did they sound overly complacent?
Did they sound as if he is he has a an unhealthily rosy
picture of China's intentions. What do you think?
I, I think the, the, the view that some commentators have
expressed that Trump saying thatPresident Xi didn't want to

(23:30):
invade Taiwan showed a view thatTrump thought China was benign
or that China wasn't a threat. I think that's an incorrect
reading. I think that wherever Trump is,
and he happened to be there in the context of the Australian
meeting, the meeting with the Australian Prime Minister, but

(23:50):
this was not a message to the Australian Prime Minister or the
journalist to ask the question. In my view.
This was him talking directly toPresident Xi, saying not on my
watch, because as you said, he linked it directly with the
might and power of U.S. military.
If, if Trump didn't think there was a threat at all, why would
he have to refer to the deterrent effect of the US

(24:16):
military? Unquestionably, Trump sees China
as a threat. What I think he is saying in his
own way, he's always negotiating, he's always
messaging. He is saying that he does not
want President Xi to think that invading militarily.

(24:36):
And of course, everyone is saying that.
President Xi has said before that by 2027, not in, but by
2027, the PLA needs to be ready.Trump is saying, not on my
watch. And I think it is important to
point out that my view and and alot of analysts agree that

(24:56):
China, the President Xi doesn't want to have to militarily
invade Taiwan. What President XI's ideal
outcome is to take over Taiwan without having to fire a shot
just through political warfare, hybrid warfare.
And so I think when you talk about, when you mention is a

(25:16):
complacency, I think that the the greater problem here is not
that are we seeing a president in President Trump, AUS
president who doesn't think China is a threat.
I don't think that's right at all.
I think it is the greatest threat that we have is that we
say the only red line we have isa military invasion, because

(25:39):
what will be happening in the meantime, what is happening
already is that China is using its hybrid political warfare to
undermine both Taiwan's willpower, Taiwan's democratic
systems, and the rest of us, so that we wake up one day and the
takeover has happened without the military.

(26:00):
And so that's why we need to do everything we can to actually
say to President Xi, the only way you will take over,
unilaterally take over Taiwan isby force.
That's the only way you're goingto do it.
Simultaneously, we need need to deter him from thinking he can
use that force. So that's the, that's the the
game, that's the the mission that I think we are, we are in.

(26:23):
So that's definitely one area ofconcern, I think.
I think you raise a good point there that that the, you know,
the, the below the red line activity could be one source of
worry. I got to say, another source of
worry for me is just Trump's utter confidence in his own
ability to control other people,other leaders, other events

(26:45):
around the world. Clearly, he, he feels this way
about Xi Jinping. He talks about their
relationship. You know, he talks about, well,
he, he indicates that the, the, the, the charm, the friendship,
that, that, that side of the relationship he has with Xi
Jinping, but also the, you know,the, the, the, the intimidating

(27:05):
nature of the, of US power. I suppose I worry that, that
there is some overconfidence there.
I mean, this is part of Trump's entire political persona, right?
I have this magic ability to, todo deals to shape reality around
me. Now, he has proven remarkably

(27:27):
adept at that in many ways. I mean, the obvious flaw and
we'll get to Russia and Ukraine in a moment is his, you know,
his, his complete blind spot with Vladimir Putin.
He's he's just been convinced that he could persuade Putin
through the force of his personality to to to make a
reasonable agreement on Ukraine.That hasn't happened.

(27:47):
So that is that right there. That is a demonstration that
Trumps judgement about his own abilities is not always perfect.
I guess my worry here is that hemight be making the same mistake
with with Xi Jinping in Taiwan. We will find out a little bit
more about this in is it next week.
I think when Trump and XI are expected to sit down in in Seoul

(28:08):
at at APEC, they will have a discussion about the broad
relationship. I think Trump has indicated that
he expects Taiwan to be part of that conversation.
Obviously he also expects trade,investment, the economic
relationship to be part of it. I think probably Trump sceptics
and and national security, I hate the term Hawks quite

(28:34):
understandably worried that there could be some trade offs
made there. What do you expect out of that
conversation? And what I mean, what are your
thoughts, I guess on the points that I've just made?
Yeah, I, I agree. I, I, I think we've just seen
this week the bilateral meeting between President Trump and
Anthony Albanese, of course, exceptionally important for

(28:55):
Australia. This meeting I think on the 30th
at APEC, as you say, between President Trump and President Xi
has such a global impact. It is not just about US, China,
it depending on what, if anything, they agree it will
have an impact on the world. And So what we don't want to see

(29:19):
is exactly what you said, we don't want to see any potential
for a trade agreement to impact security in any way.
So there are there are a number of things to be looking at where
the agreement goes beyond how many soybeans are going to be
exported and imported. If, if that agreement has

(29:42):
implications for security, whether it be of Taiwan or the
South China Sea or frankly around issues like TikTok and
the restrictions and exports on advanced chips.
Those are the areas of of concern.
I, I think what's interesting, Dave, for me in all this is that

(30:05):
this question of President Trump's style, I agree with you.
You've referred to it as, you know, his, his personal
projection of power. I think, unfortunately, Trump
can often flatter those people, those leaders he sees as

(30:26):
adversaries, and he can treat almost with a wire brush his his
allies and friends. I don't like that.
I don't like that. I think there should be a
greater separation between adversaries and allies.
The bot here is that it doesn't mean that there aren't

(30:47):
adversaries and allies. The orcas deal with Australia
shows the relationship with an ally.
So what we have to also look at is beyond the power, the
personal power of Trump, where'sthe US system here?
And you would ordinarily expect the Intel community, the

(31:08):
Pentagon, like it is in Australia in terms of the Intel
community or Department of Defence to have a particular
view about China's military and tech rise.
That's people expect that, as you say, people say, oh, well,
you're just a China hawk. I think what's really telling,
really instructive is look at the US Treasury Secretary

(31:28):
Besant's commentary and and judgement and assessment on
China. He has said through the course
of the week, in response to the way that China is coercing the
world in relation to tech companies and rare earth
exports, that China has taken a bazooka to, it's not a bazooka
to the US, it's a bazooka to theworld.

(31:49):
So that's the Treasury Secretaryand it is, there is a, a, a
element of real importance when the economic agencies and the
Intel agencies or the defence agencies are so aligned.
And in what is a hugely polarised US system, the, the,
the pacing threat element of China is one of the only

(32:12):
elements that binds the US system across all sectors.
So I think that is, that is an important one.
The system there is clearly saying we know we've got a we've
got a problem and, and in in a way the leading to these
meetings, whether it be the Albanese meeting with Trump or
Trump's meeting with XI, in a way we're seeing why we need to
treat this so seriously that we are in the lead up.

(32:36):
China has been bullying and tempting towards the Dutch
government over a company calledan Xperia.
They have released flares. The aircraft released flares in
front of an Australian P8 in theSouth China Sea.
They which? Apparently was heading into
Chinese. That's right.
For all our faults, yeah, they have continued to bully the UK

(32:59):
in relation to while the spy case has been going on in
relation to what is known as themega embassy and have made it
very clear that if the UK doesn't give China what they
want with an embassy in London, that the China that China will
punish the UK. And of course then we've seen in
the last week, China till the entire world that we are so

(33:20):
confident and powerful on our production, processing, the
export of rare earths that we'regoing to harm you all unless you
all fall into line. This is all the context that
leads into the President Trump, President Xi meeting.
So we all want to see calmness. We want to see stability.
We don't want to see the economic coercion.

(33:41):
We don't want to see military intimidation.
But what we need to focus on is not simply saying in response to
economic coercion, in response to military intimidation, or we
better give Beijing what it wants so that we can have
stability. Because if we give Beijing what
what they want, they'll just take it, they'll bank it, and
they'll continue to intimidate. So this is where the rest of us

(34:02):
need to look to President Trump to say, right, we, we all trade
with China. Australia trades with China.
Prime Minister Albany Albanese went on a six day trip to China
dominated by trade and investment.
So we appreciate that America and China should be looking at
trade. What we can't afford to have is
that meeting on trade, investment, compromise, security

(34:25):
and sovereignty. Yeah.
OK, well, let's let's desperately hope that that's the
case. All right, big news yesterday
and overnight our time in Australia.
Trump has has thankfully put newsanctions on Russia on 2 oil
companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. Now this follows the
cancellation of the meeting between Trump and Putin that was

(34:48):
planned in Budapest. Or is it Budapest?
I don't know. I always sound, I feel
pretentious pronouncing things, even if it's the correct
pronunciation. Budapest.
And now. So that came after Rubio's phone
call with Sergei Lavrov. This is interesting.
I reckon Rubio got off the call with Lavrov and said, Mr.

(35:10):
President, there is no point in having this meeting.
I've just spoken to Lavrov. They are not budging an inch.
You will be wasting your time ifyou sit down with Putin and in
fact, you will just be giving him a, a gift.
So, I mean, that's just my complete speculation.
But if so, I think it's a, it's a reassuring show of, of
influence from Rubio because I mean, clearly Trump likes, likes

(35:31):
these sorts of meetings. He likes talking to Putin.
He likes sitting down with Putin.
And it's it's a it's a great sign of progress.
If Trump has said, look at that,I'm not sitting down with
Vladimir again. And in fact, you know, he said
something to the effect that, you know, I have these
conversations with Vladimir. They're great conversations.
And then nothing comes of it. Thank God.

(35:51):
He's he he's he's woken up to that.
Putin responded overnight, quote, this is an unfriendly act
towards Russia. Good.
And it doesn't strengthen relations between Russia and the
United States. Good that only that only just
began to get restored restored, he said.

(36:12):
So I mean, clearly every time Putin, every time Trump sits
down with Putin, things go backwards.
That's that's my view. Putin went on to say no self
respecting country and no self respecting people ever decide
anything under pressure. Well, you know, Ukraine could
obviously take the same position.
But look, basically as long as this is enforced properly
because Russia's shadow fleets are still, you know, working at

(36:36):
A at a great pace. And the previous the Biden era
sanctions against the other big Russian oil companies, I think
there were two that were sanctioned.
They had some effect, although the, you know, the gaps still
allowed Russia to to trade oil. And obviously they've still got
the gas exports as well. But if you look at the fact that

(37:00):
I mean, crude experts, crude exports, well oil and gas make
up 1/4 of Russia's federal budget.
There are signs that China and India already may move away from
Russian oil imports. There's a piece in the Financial
Times overnight indicating that and 80% of Russia's crude

(37:23):
exports go to China and India. So, you know, we could actually
see some significant shifts here.
Now Russia experts are saying, well, look, you know, Putin is
very, very resilient on these questions.
For him, Ukraine is existential.This is not fundamentally going
to change his position on Ukraine.

(37:44):
I find that to be defeatist and fatalistic.
My view is, look, this is this imposes a real cost, this kind
of stuff on Russia. They might deny it.
They might say we'll be fine. You know, we can, we can manage.
But their economy is already struggling.
You know, they've shifted to a war economy that takes a
productive activity away from civil, you know, things that

(38:07):
actually provide for ordinary people's day to day well being.
I reckon you just keep on takingthis paint off and that will
start to have an effect. So I think it's crazy to say,
OK, this isn't going to help. I think it does all add up and
it's got to be done. Let's put some more pressure.

(38:27):
I would love to see some long range missiles provided to to
Ukraine, the Tomahawks. Putin again put a very, very
stark warning on the table saying, you know, consequences
will be, I forget the exact phrase that he used, something
like severe and and perhaps startling.
And I'm not sure that we can be startled in this day and age.

(38:48):
But look, my view is best news I've heard in a long time.
Well, the critical minerals dealwas great too.
But the in terms of Russia and Ukraine, this is this is just a
fantastic bit of progress. I would love to see some more,
some more supplies to Ukraine tohelp it.
But really, let's continue the pressure on Russia and and then
drag Putin to the negotiating table once that pressure is in

(39:10):
place. I completely agree.
And I, I think that the fact that Putin has made such a
statement, I think he's telling in itself.
I, I think that while Putin feltthat he could manage the
situation to his benefit, keep pushing back any sense of a
ceasefire, which of course he isthe one who isn't, hasn't been

(39:34):
agreeing to. I think where he feels his best
work is done is behind the scenes where he feels similarly,
we're talking about people who have a sense of their ability to
convince people to do things that might not might not be in
their own best interests and arein his interests.
He's happy for that to happen. So the fact that he has come out

(39:57):
very defensively saying this is an unfriendly act, I think.
To me that does suggest a sense that this decision by President
Trump informed by, as you said, the conversation that Secretary
Rubio had with Lavrov, I think that is the was the exact right

(40:18):
decision. And as much as Putin statement
says you don't act from positionof being under pressure, I mean,
that's just wholly wrong. Unfortunately, we, you know,
democracies know it better than any that that we unfortunately
do act when we're under pressure.
We shouldn't, we shouldn't act as much as we we do when we're
under pressure totally. But weeklies there and whether

(40:41):
it be Russia or Iran, I mean, let's have a look at Iran over
the last 18 months. They've had to take certain
actions that they don't like because of all the pressure that
they're under. And that happens around the
world. So I agree with you, all of
these sanctions, are they stopping Russia's war effort?
No, but do they all add up? The answer is yes.

(41:04):
And as you say, if, if India, ifparticularly China, who is the
main enabler of Russia, if they have to pay back a bit because
of the sanctions, then that is really going to, to hurt Putin.
So I, I do think that this is good news.
As you say, I'm an area that I'm, I'm a little bit worried

(41:26):
about, I suppose, Dave, is that we still can't as the West, the
traditional W, as the NATO and NATO plus partners, we still
can't seem to coordinate as wellas we should to put the extra
pressure on Putin. Because as you say, some
excellent news in terms of no meeting between Trump and Putin,

(41:48):
sanctions on these two Russian oil firms from the US,
significant stuff that will havean impact on the likes of China
being able to purchase Russian oil.
All very, very good. But simultaneously overnight.
The second part, which is good is that we have had also, I

(42:09):
think the 19th round of EU sanctions against Russia.
They have been able to put sanctions on areas like crypto
that will impact what Russia is is doing.
And I think this 19th round fromthe EU directly targets some
Chinese entities that are involved, which is excellent as

(42:32):
well. We should have been doing this
long ago. But simultaneously there was a
meeting at the EU meeting they didn't reach the EU didn't reach
agreement on what I think they should have reached agreement
on, which was to use, which was to agree to a proposal coming
out of the European Commission to use frozen Russian assets to

(42:54):
help fund Ukraine's economy and war effort.
Why is that a big deal? Well, what, what we again would
be saying, just as you said about why it's important for the
US to show Russia that the US isin this for, for Ukraine in a
long haul, this would be the European Union both supporting

(43:15):
Ukraine, but also saying to Russia that there we can last
for years here. Because it's my understanding is
there's something like 140 billion EUR worth of assets
largely housed in Belgium. They, they, they, they host the

(43:39):
financial institution that's responsible for these frozen
assets. And my understanding what has
happened overnight is that whileI think the overwhelming
majority of EU members wanted toagree to the use of the assets
for Ukraine, Belgium was the holdout, fearing, as I

(44:03):
understand it, legal consequences that if someone
took them to court to say, well,now Belgium, you have to pay
back the $140 billion. I don't really, I must say I'm
confused by it because who is itgoing to be, Russia who takes
the EU to or Belgium to, to court?

(44:25):
I think that we should be in a position where we, the EU,
should be willing to take that risk.
If it's if it's purely Belgium holding out, well, I think
hopefully the European countrieswill talk to Belgium.
If Belgium is asking to the other EU members to share any
form of risk to spread the financial risk, I think they

(44:48):
should be willing to do that as well.
I think it's been pushed to the back to the European Commission
to come up with such a proposal.What it means though is it's
then it's unlikely be discussed again by the EU until December.
It means that the assets probably won't be released at
the earliest until sometime in 2026.
What we need to see is a clear statement from the EU that says,

(45:10):
yes, we're going to use these Russian frozen Russian assets
against you, Russia against you,Putin, which will mean that
we're saying to you that Ukraineand the EU can last for years
when you can't. Nothing would make me happier
and I I completely agree. If it comes down to it, the the
the the rest of the EU members should come up with some sort of

(45:32):
indemnity mechanism that that ensures that Belgium is covered.
Yeah, in the as as you say, you're a lawyer, I'm not.
But the the unlikely circumstance that that Russia or
some Russian citizen sues to gettheir money back for their
bloody yachts or their their large houses in Knightsbridge or
whatever, what whatever the the investments are that are all

(45:52):
funnelled through through Brussels.
It's exactly right conscious time and you know, we've covered
the issues that have really had a lot of the media airplay this
week and and we'll continue to do so, particularly as we look
forward to to APEC. But I think also useful, as

(46:13):
you've alluded to, to maybe address simultaneously topics
that haven't been covered as much and what happened.
What appear to be some of your favourite topics, Dave?
I'm so glad you asked Justin. I the the the story that really
caught my eye this week was the the new statement from a

(46:33):
collection of AI experts, but a surprising number of other high
profile public figures. So this is all done through the
future of life Institute, which very interesting sort of AI
safety organisation originally funded by Elon Musk,
interestingly enough, set up by a primarily by a Swedish
physicist turned AI expert called Max Tegmark.

(46:55):
Brilliant guy wrote a book called Life 3.0.
It's a few years old now, but ifyou haven't read it and you're
interested in AI, strongly recommended.
But anyway, this is a there havebeen a few statements like this
that that the FOL has tended to coordinate the latest one.
I'm just going to read it out. We call for a prohibition on the
development of super intelligence not lifted before.

(47:16):
There is one broad scientific consensus that it will be done
safely and controllably and two strong public buy in.
So these statements, comparable statements have been made
before. They're generally considered
well described as pause letters.So calling for pause in the

(47:37):
development of frontier AI development, either general
intelligence or in this case super intelligence.
Now a lot of the usual suspects have I I, I don't mean that
pejoratively because I these these are these are all heroes
of mine. But you know, Yoshua Bengio,
Stuart Russell, Jeff Hinton, etcetera have all signed it that

(47:59):
you know, they're the big names in, in both in AI and AI safety.
Yoshua Bengio, do you know the Canadian AI AI expert?
He's actually and one of the so called godfathers in machine
learning. He is the most sighted
researcher on the planet in any.Field.
I did not know that. There you go.
Now, so they all signed it, but the the collection of other

(48:22):
celebrities who they got is really quite staggering.
So Steve Bannon was one that took me by surprise.
Harry and Megan or Megan, Megan,the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
I think it is they I'm not sure whether that helps the cause or
not. But anyway, Glenn Beck the the
right wing media guy in the US, Stephen Fry will I am the the

(48:49):
Black Eyed Peas singer Kate Bush.
That one really got me over the line.
Personally, I'm a huge, huge fanof Kate Bush.
This is a this is an embarrassing admission, but
Wuthering Heights, you know, herfirst huge hit, is one of my
favourite all time songs. It's the one if I get drunk and
go to bed. If I go to bed a little bit

(49:10):
under the influence, I almost always put on my noise
cancelling headphones and listento Wuthering Heights.
Kate Bush wrote it when she was 19, which is extraordinary.
And it was the the album that itwas off was the 1st UK number
one album that had been entirelywritten by a woman.
Kate Bush is a is a is a absolute glass ceiling
shatterer. I'm I, I'm sure that the viewers
are enjoying learning a little bit more about your interests as

(49:32):
well, Dev. Anyway, she's also got expert
excellent judgement on artificial intelligence and the
associated risks. A few other signatories who are
worth mentioning. Roman Yampolsky, who we will we
will have as a speaker at the Sydney Dialogue in December.
Very much looking forward to hosting Roman Conner Lee, good
friend of Asbys, came to last year's Sydney Dialogue and has
been on our podcast a couple of times.

(49:53):
Dan Hendricks, one of the world's leading AI safety
researchers, who is coming on the podcast in the next week or
two. So I'm very much looking forward
to interviewing Dan now. So the first question, Justin,
do you have a view on these calls for pauses?
Well, let's let's reverse it because this is Will and truly
your field. You have a level of expertise

(50:14):
here that not many do. I mean that that is an eclectic
bunch and that is convincing itself when people across the
spectrum of whether it be politics or any sector, when
they come together, that is powerful in itself.
But what's what's your view of the statements?

(50:34):
OK, so in what what what tears me a little bit is that people I
respect on both sides land very differently on these sorts of
pause letters. I and I I, I, I fully understand
both sides of the argument. So it actually sparked a really
interesting debate on X between some big names in, in AI, Dean
Ball, who largely wrote the Trump administration's AI action

(51:00):
plan. Very smart, very thoughtful,
very nice guy. He got quite stuck into it.
He, he, I mean, his point where he made a number of points 1 is
that it's impossible to implement.
Second, he's he's completely against the sort of
centralization of control over these sorts of things.

(51:22):
I mean, his the The upshot of his objection was, and I quote,
I reject all efforts to centralised power in this way,
and I reject blobby statements with no path to productive
realisation in policy. Now, this prompted a strong
response from people like Max Tegmark Scott Scott Alexander,
the founder of a of a blog called called.

(51:44):
I'm blanking on the name Slate Codex.
I think it's called Star, Star Codec Slate.
It's some wacky name like that, but one of the foremost blog
sites for for AI discussions. So Scott came back pretty hard
saying you could say the same thing about, you know, calls for
abolition back in the day. So the abolition of slavery that
started with very, very broad statements that got signatories

(52:10):
behind it basically saying let'sabolish slavery right now.
People, you know, slaveholders and pro slavery people back then
could easily have said, well, I mean, it's, you know, half our
economies built on this, you know, how do you just how do you
implement this? Why do you make sort of blobby,
you know, high handed statementsthat aren't practical to

(52:31):
implement? So I guess where I ultimately
come down, I completely understand the arguments that
what we're going to if what, what happens if we enforce?
I mean, there are no, I mean, look there, I think there are
some Chinese names on this, but it's not as if the Chinese
Communist Party has signed up tothis statement.
I, I global governance is an extremely difficult thing right

(52:52):
now. So I completely understand those
people who say, you know, let's say we enforce it against
ourselves. And then China continues merrily
developing its way towards superintelligence.
We are simply we are simply retarding our own ability whilst
not having no effect on China. And I do.
I mean if somebody is going to build super intelligence, I

(53:13):
would rather it were the United States than China.
That said, I completely sympathise with the those who
fear that the development is super intelligent and it's
destructive potential is the bigger risk here.
It doesn't matter who destroys the human race, whether it's the
United States or China, but if we continue racing for
commercial or strategic reasons towards super intelligence, we

(53:36):
create this very significant risk.
And most of the big lab leaders all themselves are on the record
having acknowledged that that racing towards super
intelligence does create some kind of risk.
They have different numbers thatthey put on at 10 percent, 20%,
etcetera, etcetera. Do you really want to gamble
with a 10% risk of rendering humanity extinct?

(53:57):
So I guess where I come down on it ultimately is that
centralization is a necessary way to harness this kind of
power. You might have to monopolise
this in the hands of some kind of global entity that might well

(54:18):
be the only way to control it. And going to Scott Alexander's
point, AI don't think this is really supposed to solve the
problem. This is starting the discussion
towards solving the problem. So that's where I come down on
support for this kind of statement with a with a strong

(54:39):
understanding of the objections to it.
Yeah, you're very convincing andlistening to you does impact my
initial. My initial response to the pause
statement was that it's just notpractical or implementable.

(55:01):
So why are they doing it if the why is to ensure that the
conversation happens? Brilliant.
We absolutely can't just sleepwalk into this, but we
can't just doom scroll ourselvesinto it and then wake up one day
and it's here and we've got no, we're not prepared for it.
So having the conversation, we've got to though, I think do

(55:25):
two things at once. We've got to have the
conversation while recognising that a, the idea, in my view,
the idea of a global pause on this research.
I don't understand that the, the, the reference to something
like slavery, the OR any other policy like that.

(55:56):
There's a difference between where a national government or a
government has control versus a situation where a combination of
commercial entities and foreign governments have as much control
as as you do. So we've got to be careful, in

(56:19):
my view, not to impose on ourselves such a level of not
just principle, because the principle important, but such a
level of ideology on ourselves that we're not going to do
something that has no impact on whether others continue.
So, so your point around China, I, I think what we've seen this
year that surprised many people didn't surprise our researchers

(56:42):
here at at ASPY. But the the revelation of
DeepSeek to show how far along China is with their own research
and development into AI as an example, shows that that we
can't stop ourselves and think that the rest of the world are
going to stop along with this. It's going to it's going to

(57:04):
happen. So how do we do two things at
once? How do we engage in the
conversation, ensure that governments and commercial
entities are working together? But crucially, I think what we
need to be able to do is to say like we do in other fields, what
can happen, what what can be done versus what should be done.

(57:29):
I still think we we can't limit ourselves only to knowing what
should be done and saying we know ethically we only want to
get to here. So that's all we're going to try
for. We have to be through
partnerships, through orcas, through other mechanisms,
through government, private and public sector arrangements.
We have to actually know what the what the potential is to be

(57:53):
able to mitigate it, to be able to prevent the worst and also
unfortunately to be prepared forit.
It's a little bit like weapons, You know, if you have a look at
nuclear weapons, you know, the the reality is that while you
have the US and Russia having had a long standing nuclear arms

(58:15):
agreement, China doesn't has notwanted to sign up to anything
that they are actually increasing their number of
nuclear weapons. So that's why for those people
who argue of only the US would lead the way by riding
themselves in nuclear weapons, wouldn't the world be safer?
The world actually less safe, Dave, if the US got rid of its
nuclear weapons because they wouldn't be that deterrent on

(58:38):
the likes of China and others. So this is a case where the
same. If we believe that some bad
things can happen, the the the answer, unfortunately, is not
that we should just put our own pens down and say we're not
going to work on it because others we'll continue working on
it. Yeah.
So the nuclear weapons analogy is probably the best one there

(58:59):
is. One of the problems with AI,
with advanced AI, I think, is that people naturally grasp for
analogies. Understandably, you always try
to look for something, an example of where something has
or hasn't worked in the past, inorder to try and get some kind
of frame of reference for this for this future thing.
One of the problems is that almost nothing is analogous to
to an idea like super intelligent.

(59:20):
Basically no historical analogy really works.
As a decent comparison, nuclear weapons are probably the best 1.
And I suppose leaving aside what's happened more recently,
you know, both with China's nuclear weapons expansion and
also Russia gradually pulling out of of aspects of non
proliferation, at least with nuclear weapons that, you know,

(59:41):
the two then superpowers did actually manage to come up with
some some agreements that that started to curb their
development. So, so I guess that is a, you
know, on on the upside, on the optimistic side, there is
actually something useful there.But I think the slavery one, or
for that matter, so Dean Ball again.

(01:00:04):
I have enormous respect for the guy, but he he made the
comparison of planes. One of his points was if how do
you even know if super intelligence is safe until
you've actually built it? And he said, like, it's a bit
like you couldn't decide whethera plane was safe until you built

(01:00:24):
and tested it right? Now that said, you know, Oval
Wright nearly died in a plane crash within a few years of the
first successful Kitty Hawk testflight.
And in fact, his his, his copilot, Thomas Selfridge, did
die in the same plane crash. So, you know, those are
individuals. Do you really want to run that

(01:00:46):
experiment again, potentially with the fate of humanity?
You don't want those sorts of odds where the continued
existence of life on Earth is what's at stake.
So I think, you know, whether it's slavery or, you know,
flying planes or even nuclear weapons, one of the issues that
we face is that we don't actually have a lot of useful
historical analogies for something like this.

(01:01:07):
So no, I think that's right. These are really, really big,
important and fascinating questions.
I think there are. There are and arguments on both.
Sides very quickly read out the the first statement again
throughout the view of the second one being that they want
a level of public awareness and trust, but the the first, the
first of their two points read that out.
Again, actually well, broad scientific consensus that it

(01:01:29):
will be done safely and controllably.
Yeah. So in an ideal world, having
broad scientific consensus that will be done safely is
wonderful. But the issue is what does broad
scientific it's tough. It is tough.
So I, I, I think that the answerhere here is when they say
pause, what we can't take that to mean, in my view, is that we

(01:01:51):
stop everything. We put pens down while the likes
of China and companies that don't care about anything other
than their own profits continue.We have to be able to bring
everyone together and we have totreat this as both an
opportunity but also a threat tohumankind.
And so we have to have governments and companies come

(01:02:13):
together to say, how are we going to manage the development,
the, the inevitable development wherever it takes us.
We're not going to win when whennone of us are going to stop the
technological development. You know, it's a little bit like
Terminator Dave, you can, you can think you've stopped
judgement day, but then you're going to have to continue
stopping judgement day. So here we, we need to be in a

(01:02:35):
position to be able to say what do we want to prevent happening?
But we actually know we need to know what is possible possible
to do that. And that means that we have to
work together. Not a pause, that means a ban on
on research, but a pause or coming together to say we're
going to do this in a, in an ethical way.

(01:02:57):
And then we're going to be the ones who hit the the target 1st.
Just as the Americans got to nuclear weapons first, it's
meant that they haven't to date had a nuclear attack because of
the deterrent that they have. We need to be stealing it.
We we desperately need to maintain a comparative advantage

(01:03:21):
in this area so that as the techdevelops, we are the ones in
control and we are still deterring those adversaries or
malicious actors from using the tech in the most in the in the
worst possible way. Right.
OK, All right. Now we're at we're we're past an
hour. So we've ranted for over an
hour. Justin, congratulations.

(01:03:42):
I'm going to have the final word.
I am going to, I'm going to point the, the, the second part,
which tends to get missed a little bit is strong public buy
in. They're also calling for strong
public buy in. I think that's a really, really,
I mean, that's very, very difficult to argue with because
one of the big issues here is that there is virtually a
handful of people making the bigdecisions on this particular
issue. Frontier AI, it's a remarkably

(01:04:02):
concentrated field. I mean, the fact that Mark
Zuckerberg is paying, you know, famously $100 million salaries
to grab the the most talented engineers shows how concentrated
the, you know, the real power ishere.
So are you saying you want public buying?
Yes. Yes, yes.
I don't know how that's in what other field there's there's a
difference, I think between public awareness and governments

(01:04:24):
and companies being open with the public to ensure that they
are resilient. That's the kind of public buying
I'm thinking of. I'm, I'm thinking of getting
everyone more involved in this discussion.
But that's, I mean, that's a, that's a constant bugbear of
mind that people aren't talking about this more often.
I know that AI gets a huge amount of attention, but it's
mostly talking about whether there's a bubble or not.
It's mostly in the business field and, and then some sort

(01:04:46):
of, you know, I suppose popular cultural field as well.
But I think the the the big issues around things like AI
safety are not as widely discussed.
In your your podcast with Conalla brilliant on this for those
who haven't listened to it and go and find it and it sounds
like the next couple. Of weeks Dan Hendricks will be
will be a absolute must listen. So I'm looking forward to that

(01:05:08):
folks. Thanks for listening.
We've covered a lot and we've we're up to 65 minutes so we're
gonna go and grab a coffee, but enjoy your weekend and enjoy
listening. Thanks, Dave.
Thanks all.