
Show Notes
Dominic Cummings is one of the most polarizing figures in Britain. He's a political strategist who masterminded the main campaign for Brexit. He was also Chief Advisor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson for some of his term, including through COVID. He even had Benedict Cumberbatch play him in a movie! He's also a student of systems, having worked in or around government and civil institutions all his life, which is why I wanted to talk to him, because he's someone who has seen the depth of systemic rot pervading not just the UK, but the whole West. In this wide-ranging, no-holds-barred conversation, Igor and I hear why our governments are collapsing under their own weight, the rise of algorithm-driven politics and civil service monopolies, and the general systemic dysfunctions hollowing out the West's institutions. We also explore whether scientific and technological leadership and a whole lot of radical transparency can save us — or if we’re already past the tipping point. So if you’re craving real talk about power, governance, and what it might take to rebuild from the rubble, you'll enjoy this conversation! Chapters: 01:51 - Is Dominic competitive? 07:30 - First Interest in Politics 12:18 - Beginning of his Euroskepticism 16:50 - The current state of the British regime 23:04 - His Time in No.10 Downing Street 33:00 - Who is actually in charge? 36:38 - More COVID screwups 40:05 - The Consciousness of the System 45:15: Avoiding Future pandemics 1:01:27 - Isn't the role of the government to provide stability? 1:07:17 - The Issue of Bureaucracy 1:11:57 - Machiavelli And Escaping the Wheel 1:15:53 - Singapore 1:19:34 - Digitizing the Government? 1:22:00 - Moloch, Incentives & Political sacrifice 1:25:28 - The Media Is A Simulation of Reality 1:29:12 - How to design better social media platforms 1:31:05 - Sensemaking in the AI age 1:37:24 - UK Grooming Gangs Coverup 1:48:21 - Political Gaslighting, Freedom of Speech & 2nd Amendment 1:50:38 - Blasphemy and Islamophobia Laws in UK 1:56:10 - The Sacred Cow of Multiculturalism 2:02:22 - Core Principles To Live By 2:07:48 - Smart vs Dumb Approaches to Regulation 2:17:05 - Rapid fire Predictions Links: ♾️ Dominic’s X: https://x.com/Dominic2306 ♾️ Dominic’s Substack: https://dominiccummings.substack.com ♾️ Simulacra and Simulation: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22613.Simulacra_and_Simulation?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_6 ♾️ Moloch explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRz54V7rU4U ♾️ Brexit The Movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8425058/ ♾️ Mary Wakefield (Dominic’s wife) response to the movie: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/benedict-cumberbatch-on-playing-my-husband-dominic-cummings/ Credits: ♾️ Hosted by Liv Boeree ♾️ Produced by Luca de Vico ♾️ Intro by Perry Sinclair The Win-Win Podcast: Poker champion Liv Boeree takes to the interview chair to tease apart the complexities of one of the most fundamental parts of human nature: competition. Liv is joined by top philosophers, gamers, artists, technologists, CEOs, scientists, politicians and more to understand how competition manifests in their world, and how to change seemingly win-lose systems into. Win-Wins.Podcast links: ♾️ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWgq0OZMtwtOIyMsVM_vksqdfWcM-b68S ♾️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/03bGVUaFZmJUmEvSHNDPdI?si=64379cc23696454f ♾️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/win-win-with-liv-boeree/id1724791350 ♾️ Pocketcast: https://play.pocketcasts.com/podcasts/7f708340-d17c-013b-f46e-0acc26574db2 #winwinpodcast #systemchange #politics
More from Win-Win with Liv Boeree
Can indigenous wisdom help us navigate these modern times? Fresh perspectives are in short supply these days, and it's not often you get to interview someone who has lived most of their lives entirely outside of modern society. So when I got the opportunity to speak to Txana Tuwe - elder of the Huni Kuin tribe, from deep in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, I jumped at the chance. We discuss his life in the Amazon, his thoughts on modern technology like AI, competition, shamanic warfare and so much more. Huge thank you to him and his translator Leah for taking the time for this recording. If you'd like to learn more, and support Tuwe's Mission of protecting his corner of the Amazon rainforest, visit here: https://www.kayaweiearth.org/Chapters00:00 Intro01:35 - His Mission in America03:30 - Ancestral Wisdom and Ayahuasca07:46 - Alternative Paths to Wisdom10:48 - Ancient Technologies15:19 - Talking to Plants, Animals & Spirits17:11 - Impact of Technology in the Amazon18:56 - Deforestation Pressures24:37 - Tribal Warfare28:14 - What can be done by us?29:56 - Tuwe's Favorite Games 31:56 - Is he competitive? Shamanic Wars? Links:♾️ Support Tuwe's Mission: https://www.kayaweiearth.org/♾️ Earth Species Project: https://earthspecies.org/♾️ Huni Kuin Tribe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huni_Kuin Credits:♾️ Hosted by Liv Boeree♾️ Edited by Luca de Vico & Liv BoereeThe Win-Win Podcast:Poker champion Liv Boeree takes to the interview chair to tease apart one of the most fundamental forces shaping human behavior: competition.Liv speaks with philosophers, technologists, scientists, founders, and public thinkers to understand how seemingly win-lose systems can be redesigned into win-wins.Podcast links:♾️ Website: https://www.winwinpodcast.com/♾️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@winwinpodcast♾️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/03bGVUaFZmJUmEvSHNDPdI♾️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/win-win-with-liv-boeree/id1724791350#winwinpodcast #ayahuasca #indigenous
Advanced AI is coming. Is it time for the government to step in and regulate? Or is it better in the hands of the market and tech CEOs? Or is there a more nuanced way to think about this topic entirely? Welcome to the ANTI-DEBATE. It's debating, but with a positive-sum twist! My guests today are two of the most qualified people on either side this topic: former Trump AI advisor Dean Ball, and OpenAI researcher-turned-whistleblower Daniel Kokotajlo. Can they find a way to bridge their differences and find a synthesis that satisfies all their concerns? What are their thoughts on the Anthropic vs Department of War & Pete Hegseth feud? Can they align on alignment?
Free speech is often treated as a political issue. But what if it’s the foundational technology that makes peaceful civilization possible in the first place? I sat down with Greg Lukianoff — free speech advocate, first amendment attorney, and longtime leader of FIRE.org — to explore why freedom of expression is humanity’s ultimate win-win innovation.Greg strongly believes free speech is at risk across the globe. It's under threat from government censorship, and from the attitudes of citizens themselves, who have become increasingly intolerant of opposing views. These pressures seem to only be increasing as we enter the AI era, which allows censorship, surveillance and other oppression tools at scale. At the same time, it also offers the democratization of potentially hazardous information to violent actors, only increasing the pressures on governing authorities to clamp down even harder on speech. So how do we navigate this tension? That's what this conversation seeks to answer.Huge thanks to @TheFIREorg for collaborating with me on this episode (they were the ones who organised this live event)! Go support their important work at the link the below. Chapters: 00:00 — Intro 01:42 — Why is Free Speech a Win-Win? 05:10 — Is Free Speech At Risk in the USA? 08:41 — Charlie Kirk & The Case of Larry Bushart 11:40 — How Is Technology Changing Free Speech? 18:49 — ACLU & Institutional Capture 21:57 — AI & The First Amendment 29:40 — How To Calm The Arms Race? 33:50 — The Hidden Cost of LLM Slop 38:22 — How To Design Better Social Media Algorithms? 41:07 — UK & European Hate Speech Laws & Censorship 47:18 — J.K Rowling & Free Speech Influencers 52:20 — Can Free Speech Survive Gen Z? 59:04 — How To Talk To Skeptics Links: ♾️ Greg Lukianoff: https://www.thefire.org/people/greg-lukianoff ♾️ FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression): https://www.thefire.org ♾️ Greg’s TED Talk on Free Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noWh8SSeRCo ♾️ The Larry Bushart Case: https://www.fire.org/cases/larry-bushart-v-perry-county ♾️ The Coddling of the American Mind: https://www.thecoddling.com ♾️ Karl Popper — Conjectures and Refutations: https://archive.org/details/karl-popper-conjectures-and-refutations-the-growth-of-scientific-knowledge Credits: ♾️ Hosted by Liv Boeree ♾️ Produced by Luca de Vico ♾️ Event Production: the team at Fire.org The Win-Win Podcast: Poker champion Liv Boeree takes to the interview chair to tease apart one of the most fundamental forces shaping human behavior: competition.Liv speaks with philosophers, technologists, scientists, founders, and public thinkers to understand how seemingly win-lose systems can be redesigned into win-wins. Podcast links: ♾️ Website: https://www.winwinpodcast.com/ ♾️ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWgq0OZMtwtOIyMsVM_vksqdfWcM-b68S ♾️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/03bGVUaFZmJUmEvSHNDPdI?si=64379cc23696454f ♾️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/win-win-with-liv-boeree/id1724791350 ♾️ Pocketcast: https://play.pocketcasts.com/podcasts/7f708340-d17c-013b-f46e-0acc26574db2 #winwinpodcast #freespeech #AI
Which LLM is best at POKER? What about the social deception game Werewolf? This week I'm collaborating with @googledeepmind and @kaggle to explain their new “AI Game Arena” project, designed to test all the top LLMs at various games. The Game Arena is a massive research project to create new AI benchmarks, and understand what really makes these general-purpose AIs tick. It also helps us evaluate how far along the path to true AGI we are, NBD.So who better to speak to than Deepmind research engineer John Schultz, one of the main brains behind the project. We discuss why some LLMs are so much better than others, their internal understanding of the games (or lack of it!) and why games are a useful way to evaluate both capabilities and safety of frontier models.And friends - do please note that for the first time ever on this channel, this post is part of a paid partnership (woohoo I made it!). So while everything I said in this interview, is absolutely my own views, there are also direct financial incentives behind this particular interview.
Superintelligence is predicted to arrive within a decade. If that's true, then what comes AFTER? And how can we prepare for it?Which is why I sat down with one of the few people actively thinking about this: philosopher Will MacAskill. Will heads up Forethought, a research nonprofit focused on how to navigate the transition to a world with superintelligent AI systems. He’s also a former Oxford University professor, and a co-founder of the effective altruism movement. In this special Win-Win Live conversation, we discuss why “utopias” often fail, the growing risks of authoritarian lock-in, whether moral progress survives in a post-labor world,, and how the transition to a post-superintelligence world may be more crucial than the development AGI itself. Also, lots of chat about the sun, space and the high seas.