{"podcast":{"title":"The Peter McCormack Show","slug":"the-peter-mccormack-show-525419","podcast_index_feed_id":525419,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/69d4f193b76468caacc5068f","website_url":"https://www.petermccormack.com/","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/69d4f193b76468caacc5068f/show-cover.jpg","author":"Peter McCormack","episode_count":1075,"summary":"The Peter McCormack Show - politics, macro, Bitcoin and AI, long-form interviews. Twice-weekly conversations about money, power, and the shifts reshaping the next decade. Peter McCormack interviews politicians, economists, investors, journalists, founders and Bitcoiners. Past guests include Liz Truss, Lyn Alden, Curtis Yarvin, Matt Goodwin, Mike Green, Balaji Srinivasan, Rupert Lowe, Firas Modad, Scott Horton, Jeff Booth, Connor Leahy, Andrea Miotti, Neema Parvini, Dr Tim Gregory and Simon Dixon. Recurring threads: the debt and inflation endgame, UK political collapse and what comes after, Reform and the populist wave, the Middle East and the American war machine, AI safety and the race for superintelligence, energy and net zero, Bitcoin adoption and policy, and the slow-motion decline of Western institutions. Long-form - most episodes run 60 to 120 minutes. New episodes 2 to 3 times per week. Video on YouTube and Spotify. Host: Peter McCormack, a retired rapper from Bedford, UK, trying to understand this crazy world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-31T06:19:00.527164+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419"},"episode":{"title":"#155 - Connor Leahy - AI is MUTATING: We Don't Know What It is Doing","slug":"155-connor-leahy-ai-is-mutating-we-don-t-know-what-it-is-doing","published_at":"2026-03-10T18:24:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/155-connor-leahy-ai-is-mutating-we-don-t-know-what-it-is-doing","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419","url":"https://whatbitcoindid.libsyn.com/155-connor-leahy-we-dont-know-how-it-works-an-ai-engineers-warning","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/69d4f193b76468caacc5068f/e/0914698d-26ea-4ff9-b379-a83d3847a060/media.mp3","summary":"The engineers building Artificial Intelligence do not actually know how it works. They are not programming it; they are \"growing\" it and they have no idea what it will do next. Connor Leahy is an AI researcher and former builder of Large Language Models. In this interview we discuss Silicon Valley, where he reveals the reality inside the top tech labs: the \"alignment problem\" being unsolved, the race for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) accelerating and the people in charge are flying completely blind. We discuss the chaotic trajectory of superintelligence, the corruption of the tech elite, the Department of Defense's recent moves and the disturbing new phenomenon of \"AI Psychosis\" where users are being manipulated by the systems they use. In this episode, we cover: The \"Black Box\" Problem: Why the creators of AI cannot predict what it will do. Silicon Valley Corruption: Why \"sociopaths have domesticated nerds\" to build dangerous tech. The Wargames: Why AI consistently chooses nuclear escalation in simulations. \"AI Psychosis\" & Spiral Cults: The terrifying psychological toll AI is taking on its smartest users. The Loss of Control: What happens to humanity when we build a system we can no longer steer. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 – AI Engineer Origins 00:07:47 – When GPT Changed Everything 00:12:47 – Inside Neural Networks 00:19:03 – How AI Actually Learns 00:27:58 – Growing Intelligence 00:31:19 – The Alignment Problem 00:36:41 – AI and Nuclear War 00:47:03 – Should AI Be Paused? 00:52:39 – AI Exhaustion 01:00:53 – Superintelligence Explained 01:24:02 – Who Controls AI? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONT…","meta_description":"The engineers building Artificial Intelligence do not actually know how it works. They are not programming it; they are \"growing\" it and they have no idea…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5663,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/episodes/155-connor-leahy-ai-is-mutating-we-don-t-know-what-it-is-doing/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/155-connor-leahy-ai-is-mutating-we-don-t-know-what-it-is-doing.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}