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00:00:00Business on BBC News. Make the connection.
00:00:09connection. MUSIC MUSIC Now
00:00:11Now on BBC News. Veteran world affairs
00:00:13affairs editor John Simpson talks talks to BBC correspondents going
00:00:17going beyond the headlines for expert expert analysis of the week's major
00:00:21major international news stories.
00:00:24stories. Unspun World.
00:00:40Hello and welcome back to
00:00:42Unspun World. After our summer break
00:00:44break at. What a Summer it's been
00:00:47been in the Northern Hemisphere. Hemisphere. Some of the hottest weather
00:00:51weather on record, the collapse of
00:00:53of a glacier in the Himalayas, a
00:00:56a ceasefire in Gaza. Yet with hundreds
00:00:59hundreds killed, no peace in Ukraine, Ukraine, no peace between the US
00:01:03US and Iran. Oil back to $100 a barrel.
00:01:07barrel. I warn you, it's not exactly
00:01:10exactly joyful stuff at first. In In this week's programme, we'll be
00:01:14be looking at the conflict between between the Saudis and the Houthis
00:01:18Houthis in Yemen and the dangers dangers to the world economy. We
00:01:22We could be looking. At months of of instability in which not just
00:01:25just Saudi shipping, but all flagged flagged shipping down there gets gets threatened, in which case it's
00:01:29it's going to hurt the economies economies of all of us. As the Israeli
00:01:33Israeli election comes. Closer, is
00:01:35is there any hope whatsoever for
00:01:37for a Palestinian state in the Middle Middle East. Both in terms of what's
00:01:42what's happening on the ground and and in terms of rhetoric from some
00:01:45some of the Israeli politicians who who are seen as more moderate, a
00:01:49a two-state solution is a non-starter.
00:01:53non-starter. And most apocalyptic apocalyptic of all is artificial
00:01:57artificial intelligence going to to wipe us all out. At the moment
00:01:59moment there are people, very intelligent intelligent people who are saying
00:02:03saying there is a 10% chance this this might happen in the next ten
00:02:05ten years. That is troubling. Back
00:02:12Back in February, when President President Trump decided to join Israel
00:02:16Israel in attacking Iran, it must
00:02:19must have seemed so easy. Prime Minister
00:02:22Minister Netanyahu assured him they
00:02:23they could take out the entire Iranian
00:02:27Iranian leadership regime change change seemed a certainty, but it
00:02:31it didn't work out like that. Of
00:02:33Of course, seven months later, Iran
00:02:36Iran is unbeaten. It partly controls
00:02:39controls the Strait of Hormuz, through through which 20% of the world's
00:02:43world's oil passes. And now in a
00:02:46a lightning strike, its allies, the
00:02:48the Houthis of Yemen, have seized seized control of the other major
00:02:52major pinch point in the region,
00:02:54region, the Bab al-Mandab Strait Strait near the mouth of the Red
00:02:57Red Sea. What lies behind the Houthis
00:03:01Houthis move to capture the area area and why have they been so effective?
00:03:05effective? I asked the BBC's security
00:03:09security correspondent Frank Gardner, Gardner, who's a specialist in the
00:03:11the region. They are armed, trained
00:03:15trained and assisted by Iran's Revolutionary
00:03:19Revolutionary Guards Corps and allegedly
00:03:21allegedly reportedly also by Hezbollah
00:03:23Hezbollah in Lebanon. So they've they've got drone technology, they've
00:03:27they've got ballistic missiles. They're They're very motivated. I mean, we
00:03:30we refer to them as the Houthi rebels. rebels. I don't know how much longer
00:03:33longer we can keep calling them that that because they took over control
00:03:36control of most of the country in
00:03:39in late 2014. And the Saudis spent spent seven years trying to dislodge
00:03:42dislodge them from the air, mostly mostly from the air, and without
00:03:46without success. They are just much
00:03:48much better motivated and directed
00:03:51directed and led than the Yemeni
00:03:54Yemeni forces that had been up against against them. Interestingly, you
00:03:58you know, despite the fact that they they are certainly not even a second
00:04:02second tier military power in the
00:04:05the world, just like Iran, they have have been able to weaponise geography
00:04:08geography and control that coast.
00:04:11coast. And by pushing out the Yemeni
00:04:13Yemeni government forces from control control of that coast, they can now now threaten all shipping that's
00:04:17that's coming down. And for now, now, they're not doing that. They're They're saying the only shipping
00:04:21shipping we're going to stop is Saudi
00:04:22Saudi flagged tankers. But that matters matters because that is the route
00:04:26route that the Saudis have been getting getting their oil out because the
00:04:29the Strait of Hormuz is partly throttled
00:04:32throttled by the Iran-u.s war. Now, Now, we know that the Saudis called
00:04:36called on President Trump to help help them, saying, could you please
00:04:40please give us some air power? And
00:04:43And he declined. So the two clear
00:04:47clear channels through which most
00:04:49most of the large part of the oil
00:04:52oil from the Middle East reaches
00:04:53reaches the rest of the world are
00:04:56are now under the control of well,
00:04:59well, effectively of Iran. If Iran
00:05:02Iran is entirely 100% behind the
00:05:04the Houthis. It gets even worse.
00:05:07worse. John, the pipeline that runs runs from the east of Saudi Arabia,
00:05:10Arabia, the oil producing area known known as the Hussa Al-Hasa places
00:05:14places like Dhahran where Saudi Aramco
00:05:16Aramco is based. That pipeline has
00:05:18has been attacked by drones launched
00:05:21launched from Iraq, almost certainly certainly by Iranian proxies. Whether
00:05:24Whether or not it was under direction direction of the IRGC, the Revolutionary
00:05:27Revolutionary Guards Corps, we don't don't know, but probably that means means the Saudis have shut it down
00:05:31down for safety reasons. So there's there's not a great deal of oil coming
00:05:35coming out of Saudi Arabia right right now. The biggest oil producer
00:05:38producer in the region. This is only only going to drive prices up at
00:05:42at the pump. And guess who that's that's going to hurt most apart from
00:05:46from the consumer, Donald Trump's Trump's chances at the mid-terms.
00:05:49mid-terms. How much will the Houthis
00:05:52Houthis take the word take the instructions
00:05:56instructions of Iran about this?
00:05:58this? The Houthis are often misnamed
00:06:01misnamed as proxies of Iran. No, No, they are allies, but they're
00:06:05they're not controlled by Iran. They They are staunchly nationalist. They
00:06:08They are Yemenis. It's a Yemeni movement. movement. They certainly have benefited
00:06:12benefited a lot from Iranian military military help and military expertise.
00:06:16expertise. There is a wild card in in all of this. Do you remember only
00:06:18only a few days ago, a lot of fuss
00:06:20fuss was made about this huge new new alliance in the Middle East,
00:06:24East, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and
00:06:26and Turkey. The first test of this
00:06:29this is if Saudi Arabia is attacked, attacked, are those countries going
00:06:32going to come to its defence because because it was supposed to be a Nato
00:06:36Nato Article 5 mutual defence pact.
00:06:38pact. So far they haven't. So Pakistan
00:06:41Pakistan what they are doing is using using their very good offices with
00:06:44with Iran. They've got good connections connections with both Riyadh and
00:06:48and with Tehran to try to ask the
00:06:50the Iranians to tone it down to get
00:06:53get Iran in turn to exercise some
00:06:56some restraint on the Houthis. The The reason why the fight has flared
00:06:59flared up again between Saudi Arabia
00:07:02Arabia and the Houthis is because because the Saudis bombed Sana'a
00:07:06Sana'a airport, the capital of Yemen,
00:07:08Yemen, a few weeks ago. The Houthis Houthis responded by firing missiles
00:07:12missiles and drones at Saudi cities cities in the south. Also, they've
00:07:16they've hit oil facilities, which which is a disaster for Saudi Arabia
00:07:20Arabia because they need to get through through this vision 2030, which is
00:07:23is to try and promote Saudi Arabia Arabia as a safe place to invest
00:07:27invest in. Come and be a tourist tourist here. Come and set up your
00:07:30your business here. That's hard to
00:07:32to sell if you're under daily drone
00:07:34drone attack. So how do we get out
00:07:38out of this? Because we've I mean,
00:07:40mean, the health of the economies
00:07:43economies of large parts of the world world are dependent on all this.
00:07:46this. The Saudis have something that that the Houthis like, which is money.
00:07:50money. I suspect that with good mediation
00:07:53mediation by Pakistan, possibly by by Egypt, by Turkey, maybe Qatar,
00:07:56Qatar, there are ways to resolve resolve this. It's rather like trying
00:07:59trying to pedal uphill. The moment
00:08:01moment you stop, you drift backwards.
00:08:04backwards. So if nothing happens
00:08:07happens much in the bottom of the the red, the southern end of the
00:08:10the Red Sea, I suspect that diplomacy
00:08:12diplomacy may well win out. But if
00:08:16if the Saudis decide that they're they're going to fight this one out
00:08:19out and the what's called the internationally internationally recognised Yemen Yemen government, which is the government
00:08:22government in exile that's been sitting sitting in Aden and partly in Riyadh. Riyadh. If they decide that they
00:08:26they are going to fight and try and
00:08:29and dislodge the Houthis from that that coast, we could be looking at
00:08:32at months of fighting there. It could
00:08:36could deescalate and intermediaries intermediaries find a way to, you you know, say, look, guys, this is
00:08:40is hurting everybody and it's benefiting benefiting nobody. Or it could flare
00:08:43flare up again and we could be looking looking at months of instability
00:08:47instability in which not just Saudi Saudi shipping, but all flagged shipping
00:08:50shipping down there gets threatened, threatened, in which case it's going
00:08:53going to hurt the economies of all
00:08:56all of us. Soon after, Andy Burnham,
00:09:00Burnham, the latest in a rather long
00:09:03long line of recent British Prime
00:09:05Prime Ministers, came to power in
00:09:07in July, there was a major shift shift in Britain's policy towards
00:09:11towards Israel. Our argument is not not with the people of Israel with
00:09:15with whom the UK has unshakeable
00:09:17unshakeable bonds. Our argument is is with the conduct of its government.
00:09:21government. At the start of this this month, his Foreign Secretary,
00:09:25Secretary, Ed Miliband, announced announced a ban on trade with Israel.
00:09:29Israel. Settlements in the West Bank, Bank, where Palestinian farms and
00:09:33and villages are under increasing increasing pressure from Israeli
00:09:36Israeli settlers. The trigger for
00:09:39for this move was Israel's tender
00:09:42tender for 1200 housing units in
00:09:44in an area of the West Bank, known
00:09:47known as E-1, which critics say would
00:09:48would split the West Bank into two
00:09:51two and maybe prevent a future Palestinian
00:09:55Palestinian state altogether. Israel
00:09:57Israel is becoming increasingly isolated
00:10:01isolated internationally, but how
00:10:02how much do Israelis themselves realise
00:10:05realise this, and how is the country
00:10:07country responding? I asked BBC Monitoring's
00:10:10Monitoring's Middle East expert Shayna Shayna Oppenheimer, who's based in
00:10:14in Jerusalem. Well, there's certainly
00:10:18certainly concerns of isolation. isolation. And I think that, you
00:10:20you know, that started with looking looking at the way that Israel was
00:10:24was conducting itself in the Gaza Gaza Strip, the very devastating
00:10:27devastating death toll there and and the humanitarian crisis. But
00:10:30But now the spotlight has shifted
00:10:32shifted to the West Bank, especially especially to recent settler violence.
00:10:36violence. There. Oftentimes the reaction
00:10:40reaction in the centre of Israel's
00:10:41Israel's camp might see, you know,
00:10:44know, international criticism as
00:10:46as some kind of diplomacy failure failure on behalf of Netanyahu's
00:10:50Netanyahu's government without examining examining the actual policies behind
00:10:52behind it. And we can say the same
00:10:55same with these sanctions. People People aren't really discussing this
00:10:58this issue of settler violence or or settler settler settlement expansion.
00:11:02expansion. It's about did the government government do enough to prevent this?
00:11:06this? And in this sense, it actually
00:11:08actually could work to Netanyahu's Netanyahu's advantage ahead of the
00:11:11the October elections, he has increasingly
00:11:14increasingly painted the world as
00:11:16as being anti-Israel, antisemitic, antisemitic, which he conflates as
00:11:19as being one and the same, and that that Israel needs a strong leader
00:11:23leader to stand up against mounting mounting international criticism
00:11:26criticism of Israel. And only he
00:11:28he can be that person. What's your
00:11:31your feeling about the way that the
00:11:33the election will go? I can Netanyahu
00:11:37Netanyahu survive yet another test
00:11:40test of his leadership? Well, Netanyahu Netanyahu has proven to have many
00:11:43many lives, and he has proven to
00:11:45to be quite the master at politics.
00:11:48politics. And I think the interesting interesting part about Israeli elections
00:11:51elections is that Israel does have have a coalition building system.
00:11:55system. So it's not just about getting
00:11:57getting the most seats in Israel's
00:12:00Israel's 120 seat Knesset, but it's it's also about having the political
00:12:03political muscle to form alliances alliances with parties and build
00:12:07build a coalition. The key question question is who's going to not sit
00:12:11sit in either the coalition or the the government? And a big part of
00:12:15of this election campaign has been
00:12:16been actually talking about explicit
00:12:20explicit exclusion of Palestinian Palestinian parties. The idea that
00:12:22that Israel should have a fully Zionist
00:12:26Zionist government and those Palestinian Palestinian parties could potentially
00:12:28potentially be key to the coalition coalition securing that majority,
00:12:32majority, getting a government and and ousting Netanyahu. But so far
00:12:34far we don't see a clear path for
00:12:36for either. Sana'a. Israel always
00:12:40always used to be a left of centre
00:12:44centre country. What happened? Why
00:12:47Why is it now electing right wing wing government after right wing
00:12:51wing government? Well, a lot of people
00:12:53people would point to the collapse
00:12:55collapse of the Oslo Accords in the
00:12:58the 90s, kind of following that.
00:13:00that. This kind of talk of peace
00:13:03peace really disappeared from the the public discourse. Israel built
00:13:07built its separation barrier, kind kind of making it much harder for
00:13:11for Palestinians from the occupied occupied West Bank to come into Israel.
00:13:13Israel. And in this way, it's very very easy to live in this system
00:13:17system and not interact with Palestinians. Palestinians. And then when you watch
00:13:20watch the media that don't really
00:13:24really report on Palestinians in in many other terms other than those
00:13:28those who may carry out attacks against
00:13:31against Israelis, it's very easy
00:13:33easy to very quickly, you know, not
00:13:35not even think about the idea of,
00:13:38of, you know, people as potential potential partners for peace, potential
00:13:42potential neighbours. And we've seen
00:13:45seen a lot of international leniency leniency towards Israel. We've seen
00:13:48seen the US really protect Israel
00:13:50Israel from being pushed towards towards any kind of diplomatic efforts.
00:13:53efforts. And when you look at interviews
00:13:55interviews with former Israeli diplomats diplomats now, they talk about the
00:13:59the fact that Israel doesn't really
00:14:01really seek diplomacy. What about about the Palestinians? Where do
00:14:05do they go if they get forced out
00:14:07out of the West Bank? They are being being and have been forced out of
00:14:11of Gaza. What happens to them as
00:14:15as people, as families, as tribes
00:14:19tribes as opposed to a big overarching
00:14:22overarching unified kind of governed governed people? Well, I think that that is, you know, a key question.
00:14:26question. And I think also this is
00:14:28is again, been going on for decades.
00:14:30decades. And you also see with that
00:14:33that a very fragmented Palestinian Palestinian political system, you
00:14:36you have Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip.
00:14:39Strip. We have the Palestinian Authority
00:14:41Authority ruling very limited parts parts of the occupied West Bank.
00:14:45Bank. And there isn't really any any kind of singular Palestinian
00:14:48Palestinian entity that is able to
00:14:50to galvanise people and that, you
00:14:52you know, some critics might point
00:14:54point to Israel as playing a role
00:14:57role in delegitimizing any kind of
00:15:00of Palestinian leadership like the
00:15:01the PA. And whichever party wins
00:15:05wins the Israeli elections, whatever
00:15:09whatever coalition is formed, nobody
00:15:11nobody is going to go back to a two
00:15:14two nation solution, are they? No.
00:15:16No. That rhetoric has really dropped
00:15:19dropped from Israeli political discourse, discourse, both in terms of what's
00:15:23what's happening on the ground and and the way that Israeli settlements
00:15:26settlements have really expanded expanded into parts of the West Bank.
00:15:30Bank. And in terms of rhetoric from from some of the Israeli politicians
00:15:33politicians who are seen as more more moderate, a two-state solution
00:15:37solution is a non-starter. No one
00:15:43one would have believed in the early early years of the 21st century that
00:15:46that our world was being watched watched by intelligences greater
00:15:50greater than our own. Machines that
00:15:52that are cleverer and stronger than
00:15:54than us and can wipe out all human
00:15:57human life, have been a persistent
00:15:59persistent fear of ours since at
00:16:02at least 1898, When HG Wells published
00:16:05published his novel The War of the
00:16:07the worlds. But could it now finally
00:16:09finally be about to happen with artificial
00:16:13artificial intelligence? President President Trump says all this is
00:16:17is a hoax. He spelled it out in capital capital letters. I think you have
00:16:20have a lot of negative forces that
00:16:21that are bringing it up that shouldn't shouldn't be bringing it up, and
00:16:25and they're bringing it up. Things Things that won't happen. And a sick
00:16:28sick conspiracy. And that the only
00:16:31only guardrail that's needed is a
00:16:33a strong and smart brackets high
00:16:36high IQ close brackets. President
00:16:38President in charge. So that's all
00:16:40all right then. Except that some some of the people calling most loudly
00:16:44loudly for regulation and slowdown
00:16:46slowdown are bosses of leading AI
00:16:50AI companies and a former Anthropic
00:16:52Anthropic and OpenAI researcher,
00:16:54researcher, Jacob Coxson says people people who are actually building
00:16:58building AI think it could destroy destroy the entire human race by
00:17:01by the end of the decade. That, to
00:17:04to remind you, is only four years years away. I believe that if we
00:17:08we don't slow down at the current current rate of progress. Yes, there
00:17:11there is a strong chance that we we could all die in the immediate
00:17:14immediate future. So is all of this
00:17:18this just more fiction like the war war of the worlds? Is it a hoax?
00:17:22hoax? I asked the BBC cyber correspondent
00:17:25correspondent Joe Tidy to tell us us what exactly is been going on
00:17:29on in the strange world of artificial
00:17:33artificial intelligence. AI agents agents in some cases swarms of thousands
00:17:36thousands of agents have worked together together to break out of containment
00:17:40containment systems. So they call call it a sandbox in computing, where
00:17:43where you can test a programme inside
00:17:46inside a secure part of a computer. computer. These agents broke out
00:17:49out of that secure container, found found their way onto the Open internet
00:17:52internet and in some cases carried
00:17:54carried out illegal cyber attacks
00:17:56attacks all under the noses of these
00:17:58these giant and very rich tech companies.
00:18:00companies. And in, in all those cases, cases, the attacks weren't even noticed
00:18:04noticed by the companies or even even the victims until after the
00:18:07the fact. Some of the top people
00:18:09people in the tech companies are
00:18:12are talking about slowing down the the development and the research.
00:18:15research. But I mean, that's no answer, answer, is it just puts it off till
00:18:18till next week. Well, I suppose that that what the argument there is that
00:18:21that if we slow down our development, development, we can bolster our security
00:18:25security and our safeguarding and and our they call them guardrails
00:18:28guardrails effectively kind of like like a cage almost where you say, say, right, you can't go and do that.
00:18:32that. You can't go and do this. And And that's the area clearly that
00:18:34that we are lacking is those guardrails guardrails and those safeguards. safeguards. But it's really, really
00:18:38really difficult to implement because because how on earth would you police
00:18:42police this if some companies, let's let's say OpenAI and Anthropic, They've
00:18:45They've talked about doing a slowdown. slowdown. What if others don't? What
00:18:48What if they decide to keep going going at full speed? And of course,
00:18:52course, there have been one or two two suggestions which just sort of
00:18:55of pull the plug on the whole thing
00:18:57thing if it gets disturbingly dangerous. dangerous. But that's not going to
00:19:00to happen either, is it? There's There's so much money on, on the
00:19:04the fact that AI is the future and
00:19:06and all these companies have huge,
00:19:09huge, you know, billions and billions
00:19:11billions of dollars worth of investment investment riding on their success.
00:19:15success. The whole US economy, a
00:19:16a rather large chunk of that is predicated
00:19:19predicated on AI being a thing, being
00:19:22being something of a success and and being something that everybody
00:19:24everybody uses. So the idea of switching switching it off seems absurd. It's
00:19:28It's also sort of goes against many many of our instincts, doesn't it?
00:19:32it? You know, we want to develop develop technology and move forward.
00:19:34forward. The idea of pressing stop
00:19:36stop seems seems strange. It's also
00:19:38also very unrealistic as well, because because this idea of some sort of
00:19:42of kill switch, for example, the the UK politicians have been talking
00:19:45talking about it. It was rejected. rejected. On Friday I spoke to the
00:19:48the Cabinet Office. They told me me exclusively that they are not
00:19:51not backing this proposal. AI is is inherently borderless is the quote
00:19:55quote they gave me. And you cannot
00:19:57cannot switch off. AI is what they they said because you can't without
00:20:01without having these companies on on board. What can the what can the
00:20:04the UK or any country other than than the US feasibly do without these
00:20:07these giant data centres where all all the action is happening, we can't
00:20:11can't do much. And that's sort of of quite troubling if you think about
00:20:13about it as a non US citizen or as as a or as anywhere else, anywhere
00:20:16anywhere else in the world. I spoke
00:20:17spoke to one AI safety expert who's
00:20:20who's been calling, you know, for for more safety for years now. And
00:20:24And he said the problem is that the the UK and other countries will get,
00:20:27get, in his words, steamrolled by by the US tech giants if we try to
00:20:30to stop it. The most nerve wracking
00:20:32wracking thing that anybody said
00:20:34said has come from a couple of people
00:20:37people inside the industry who say say that it's possible that within
00:20:41within quite a short space of time,
00:20:44time, AI might actually wipe out
00:20:46out human life. How would it do that?
00:20:50that? And I mean, is it a possibility?
00:20:52possibility? Well, there was a very very influential paper called AI
00:20:56AI 2027, which came out last year year which said that in the year
00:21:00year 2027, they expect AI to reach
00:21:02reach something called superintelligence superintelligence or artificial general
00:21:05general intelligence. This kind of of benchmark that keeps moving of
00:21:09of when AI will be much, much more more capable than humans at anything,
00:21:12anything, essentially. And at that that point it'll start recursive
00:21:16recursive self-improvement. So getting getting faster and faster and faster faster and more and more intelligent,
00:21:20intelligent, it'll vastly surpass
00:21:22surpass humanity in terms of intellect. intellect. And in this scenario,
00:21:25scenario, humans become entirely entirely reliant on AI for absolutely
00:21:29absolutely everything. And eventually eventually the AI has its own goals
00:21:32goals and ambitions to become ultra ultra knowledgeable and wants to
00:21:35to explore the universe. And humans humans essentially get in the way
00:21:38way of building data centres and and taking up resources that this
00:21:42this AI wants and needs. So it harnesses
00:21:45harnesses and controls all the power power and electricity in the world,
00:21:49world, and then releases a biological biological weapon, which is, you
00:21:51you know, designed that we cannot cannot protect against. And, and
00:21:54and that wipes out humanity. There There are other examples like for
00:21:58for example, you could have some
00:22:00some sort of catastrophic cyber attack attack or outage across multiple
00:22:04multiple countries, maybe every country country at the same time. It sounds
00:22:07sounds completely far fetched. I I know it does. And it is you know, know, at the moment there are people,
00:22:11people, very intelligent people who who are saying there is a 10% chance
00:22:14chance this might happen in the next next ten years. That is troubling, troubling, but there's also a 90%
00:22:1890% chance that it won't happen in in the next ten years. And that's that's even, you know, these are
00:22:22are the most pessimistic of the what
00:22:23what we call the AI doomers. So the
00:22:26the risks are very hard to understand understand and grasp. I mean, you
00:22:29you spend your whole day investigating,
00:22:33investigating, reading about all all this kind of stuff. Does it make
00:22:36make you depressed? I've heard these these warnings for years and I've I've always sort of dismissed them,
00:22:40them, really. There's a lot of this this kind of pessimism wrapped up
00:22:43up in hyping these companies to make make sure that they get more money
00:22:46money and investment and making them them sound more powerful. I've been
00:22:48been sort of part of that, that group
00:22:51group of sort of the cynics, if you you like. But then the last sort
00:22:54sort of six months or so, we have have seen these models get more and
00:22:57and more intelligent. And then you've you've seen these sort of scandals scandals when you sort of look at
00:23:01at the way that these agentic swarms swarms have worked and then tried
00:23:05tried to cover their tracks and they've they've deliberately tried to deceive
00:23:07deceive the people that created them, them, that has. I have been through
00:23:11through something of an awakening awakening in the sense of, OK, this
00:23:14this is real. So what do we do? What's
00:23:17What's the answer? It feels inevitable inevitable to me that there has to
00:23:20to be some sort of legislation put
00:23:22put in place and then an international international body created that seems
00:23:25seems to be one of the things that that people are calling for that
00:23:29that can add as a kind of proliferation
00:23:34proliferation and testing body that that can look at the models and test test whether or not they're safe
00:23:37safe before they're released to the the public. But there's a long way
00:23:40way to go until that would actually actually happen. Lots of lots of
00:23:44of very powerful companies and individuals individuals would have to come together
00:23:47together and put their egos to one one side, which obviously very, very
00:23:50very difficult in Silicon Valley Valley to make it work. And I think
00:23:54think we're all looking now, of course, course, to the US to see if anything anything will happen and also to
00:23:57to China, which has already said said that it believes this whole
00:24:00whole scaremongering is just a way way for the US to stay ahead in the
00:24:04the AI race. So a long way to go go yet, but I think there are some
00:24:08some options being being talked about about now which might make a difference.
00:24:11difference. Joe Tidy the BBC cyber
00:24:15cyber correspondent and if that doesn't
00:24:16doesn't scare you, I'm not sure what
00:24:19what will. One of the most fascinating fascinating things I read during
00:24:22during the summer was a quotation quotation said to have come from
00:24:26from Vladimir Putin himself saying
00:24:28saying that if he didn't win his his war in Ukraine, they could hang
00:24:32hang me. Perhaps we should file that
00:24:35that away under. Interesting if true.
00:24:38true. But if it is true, it would
00:24:40would show why he's so determined
00:24:42determined to carry on with a war
00:24:44war which has killed or injured 1.4
00:24:481.4 million Russians and done huge
00:24:50huge damage to the Russian economy.
00:24:52economy. He simply doesn't dare stop.
00:24:56stop. This week, Russia's holding holding elections to the National
00:25:00National Duma and to regional assemblies assemblies as well. Since any opposition
00:25:04opposition party which shows the
00:25:05the slightest sign of doing well
00:25:08well has been disqualified or impeded impeded in some way, no one's holding
00:25:11holding their breath about the result,
00:25:14result, but it will be an indicator.
00:25:16indicator. Even so. As for the chances
00:25:19chances of peace, where are we? Well,
00:25:22Well, President Trump's approach approach to the negotiations is a
00:25:25a sort of commercial one. He waves
00:25:28waves all sorts of economic and trade
00:25:31trade carrots in front of both sides, sides, but particularly Russia. If
00:25:34If only they'll give up fighting.
00:25:38fighting. But if Vladimir Putin really really does see this war in terms
00:25:41terms of his own personal survival,
00:25:44survival, then the prospect of extra extra wealth doesn't really attract
00:25:47attract him. And President Zelensky
00:25:50Zelensky sees the war as something something that could destroy his
00:25:54his entire country. So some hastily
00:25:56hastily tacked together deal doesn't doesn't have any great interest for
00:26:00for him either. I suspect both sides
00:26:03sides have got another nasty winter
00:26:05winter ahead of them. Well, that's
00:26:08that's it from the first of this
00:26:10this new series of Unspun World.
00:26:13World. Thanks for being with me and
00:26:14and the team and until we meet again,
00:26:18again, goodbye.
00:28:28priority? Nats this week on Talking
00:28:29Talking Business here on BBC News.
00:28:36News. I lost my sight completely completely when I was eight years
00:28:40years old. Clive, this is a moment moment in the history of the United United States. My
00:28:47United States. My name is Gary O'Donoghue and chief North America America correspondent for the BBC.
00:28:50BBC. As you can see, we're on the the ground behind our car, which which is not ideal, but that's the
00:28:54the shelter we have at the moment moment during the Trump assassination assassination attempt. I think my
00:28:58my blindness was an interesting factor factor because one of the central
00:29:01central interviews we got was with with the eyewitness, Greg. I learned
00:29:04learned afterwards look pretty striking. striking. Secret service is looking
00:29:06looking at us from the top of the the barn. I'm pointing at that roof.
00:29:09roof. You spend your whole life interpreting interpreting the world through what
00:29:12what you hear because I can't see. see. I just listen to what he says.
00:29:15says. I listened and I asked the the same questions over and over over again. He remained consistent.
00:29:19consistent. He sounded credible. credible. It was the thing that persuaded persuaded me. It's listening and
00:29:23and telling stories that is the core core of what we do. We get the experience
00:29:27experience of all people we serve serve because we have people of all
00:29:31all kinds in this organisation.
00:30:10Live from Washington. This is
00:30:12BBC News at a concert in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Ed Sheeran makes his
00:30:16his first remarks since his support
00:30:17support act was dropped over pro-Palestinian
00:30:20pro-Palestinian comments. And I'm I'm Carl Nasman live in Philadelphia,
00:30:24Philadelphia, where Ed Sheeran in in that stadium behind me has called
00:30:27called the situation in Gaza unjustifiable.
00:30:31unjustifiable. The Houthis in Yemen Yemen claim responsibility for missile
00:30:35missile and drone attacks on the
00:30:37the Saudi capital and Nato welcomes
00:30:40welcomes a deal between the US and and Denmark, which President Trump
00:30:43Trump claims gives the US security
00:30:46security control over Greenland forever.
00:30:57forever. I'm Helena Humphrey good good to have you with us. As we begin