2073 (2024) Movie Script
1
GHOST: I hope
someone finds this.
No one said or did
anything to stop them.
It's too late for me.
(melancholic music)
I was alone.
It may not be too late for you.
(dramatic music)
(inferno raging)
(flames crackling)
(wind blowing)
(high tempo music)
(waves churning)
(suspenseful music fades in)
(drones buzzing)
(cameras whirring)
(metal hooves clopping)
(drones buzzing loudly)
(sticks beating)
(people screaming)
(soldier screams inaudibly)
Come on!
(cameras whirring)
MAN: America's changed,
you understand that?
I think to create the perfect
union of democracy
has been a struggle...
(man screaming)
(men struggling)
RECORDED VOICE: Dear passengers,
people who behave disorderly
in public areas
will be punished according
to regulations,
and their behaviour
will be recorded.
To avoid any negative record
of personal credit,
please follow
the relevant regulations.
(uplifting music)
(dramatic music fades in)
(men chatting)
So, whatever else happens now,
it's all in a day's work.
(cacophony of birds singing)
(trains whooshing)
(clacking)
(wind whooshing)
(eerie background sounds)
(suspenseful music)
GHOST: I can still
remember my grandma.
(sighs)
I used to help her out.
My grandma used
to say her memories
were slipping through
her fingers like sand.
She said, we didn't know it,
but that was
happening to all of us too.
She said soon,
there'd be no past, no history.
She said it was the truth,
and she didn't care who heard.
Then one day, they came for her,
and she was gone.
(winding)
That stabbed to the heart of me,
it silenced me.
I never spoke again.
I ran.
I'm still running.
(explosions)
My life's turned into
one of those sci-fi comics
I used to read.
I live off-grid.
My place is in Shoes,
on the lower ground.
(rumbling, banging)
There are others here.
Survivors.
Renegades.
(men chatting)
MAN: Know what I'm saying?
Anyone know why I'm saying this?
GHOST: There's
a tunnel up to Fragrances,
where the old entrance was.
(muffled shouting)
It's one of the six ways
up to the surface.
(rumbling, whistling)
(tin rattling)
(indistinct chatter)
(dramatic music)
(men chattering)
Hey, Ghost.
Going up?
Stay safe.
I met this guy, Jack,
dumpster-diving one night.
It was me who got him in here.
Hey, I've found an old picture
you might like.
GHOST: He's got these goofy,
p uppy dog eyes.
I'll show it to you later.
GHOST: He's an AI.
Stay safe.
GHOST: He listens
and watches everything.
(ominous music)
You can't trust anyone anymore.
When you glean up
on the surface, after curfew,
you have to be quick.
You avoid the dogs,
you dodge the street militia.
(bullet clinks)
(ominous music intensifies)
(gunfire)
ANNOUNCEMENT: Move north,
destruction area north.
This is now a civil disturbance.
Failure to do so could result
in arrest and the use of force,
including riot
patrol agents and...
GHOST: People
thought the world would end.
(shouting)
But the world goes on.
(sirens blaring)
(Taser zapping)
It's us who will end.
(police sirens)
ANNOUNCEMENT: ...must leave
the area immediately.
Failure to comply with this
order may subject you to arrest
and may subject you to the use
of riot patrol agents
or impact weapons.
This is the police department.
You are violating
state imposed curfew.
Go home or you will be arrested.
(sirens blaring)
(loud clanking)
GHOST: Gleaning
is how we get by.
We pick over the leftovers,
the broken, the rejected...
anything we can use.
Thanks, Ghost. I love it!
GHOST: Those puppy dog eyes.
I love this hat.
(men shouting)
(eerie music)
I have no mercy
or compassion in me
for a society
that will crush people,
and then penalise them for not
being able to stand up
under the weight.
(rewind whirring)
How did we get here?
How did we let this happen?
(rioting)
In the late 1980s, early 1990s,
you were in a moment of
democratic triumph.
We're now in
a democratic recession,
and it's endemic
in Eastern Europe,
in Western Europe,
in the United States, India,
the Philippines.
This is a new age of impunity.
Some countries are actually
just going back to the age
of elite power.
The financial system is rocked
to its foundation,
as top Wall Street
institutions...
If you have an economic crisis,
and/or a refugee crisis,
these demagogues rise.
They're promising to protect
you from a threat
that doesn't exist.
You have an incredibly dishonest
right-wing media,
who pushes disinformation.
(high tempo music)
Hate and fear are being sown
online across the world,
spreading lies paid for with
illegal cash. It's subversion.
(protestors shouting)
What Putin saw, is, he's like,
"Holy shit,
I can hack this system,
and then control global
capitalism, and politics."
There are
transnational oligarchs
funding dark money think-tanks
and fake institutions.
Americans for prosperity.
Renowned Washington
think-tank, the Cato Institute.
The Institute
of Economic Affairs.
They're lobby shops, set up
to influence politics
on behalf of ideological
billionaires and big business.
It's disrupting democracy.
Social media has enabled
the rise of these populist
authoritarian-style leaders.
We will root out
the communists, Marxists,
fascists and
the radical left thugs
that live like vermin within
the confines of our country.
We will make
America great again.
So, you would say that white
supremacist tied publications
meet a rigorous standard
for fact-checking?
REPORTER: Facebook's site has
been used to incite violence
against Rohingya
refugees in Myanmar.
Mr Modi has driven Muslims of
this country to the wall.
I have a particular
responsibility,
it is to end the free movement
of people once and for all.
(applause)
REPORTER: Europe is
in the heat of a battle
about the future of democracy,
and Hungary is
now the front line.
It's not just Putin and Orbn,
there's an alliance
of dictatorships.
(explosion)
There's no subtlety
in Netanyahu's ambition to claim
all of the Palestinian state.
There's a global
effort by people in power
to stay in power.
They care more about maintaining
power for their clique,
than a broader
sense of common good.
(ominous music)
(gunshot)
REPORTER: The volume of killing
here is quite extraordinary.
In the 80 or so days
that Duterte has been in power,
there's now been an average of
somewhere between 35 and 40
police killings of drug-pushers
and drug users every day.
So no qualms
about killing killers?
I'm a journalist. This is my
37th year as a journalist.
What's the role of journalism?
Journalism, the mission:
holding power to account,
public and private.
As President, you now also
defend the constitution.
-Yes.
-You break the law,
you threaten to break the law.
You said you had
killed a year ago, right?
You told me that,
and yet you now have the task of
keeping the rule of law
and you said you would do
that also. How do you...?
When Duterte took office,
our institutions crumbled.
He became the most powerful
person within six months.
We continue doing our reporting.
(high tempo music)
(rioters shouting)
On the worst
day of the violence,
when murder and
looting were taking place
all across the city, we saw
policemen just standing by,
watching what was happening
but doing
nothing to try to stop it.
When you look back
over the last months,
you've been
the leader of this state
through a very difficult period,
do you think
there's anything that
you should have
done differently?
Yes, one area where
I was very, very weak,
and that was how
to handle the media.
RANA AYYUB:
He doesn't like criticism,
he's self-obsessed,
he's a megalomaniac,
and I say that all the time.
My name is Rana Ayyub.
I'm a global opinions writer
with the Washington Post,
I'm an investigative journalist.
I write stuff which
the government does not like.
Mr. Modi is going from strength
to strength.
He's become
a leader of anti-Muslim
bigots across the country.
I spoke about the fact that
here is a man
who's an authoritarian,
whose only politics is his
prejudice of Muslims,
whose only politics is
persecution of Muslims,
and if this man comes to power,
he is going to repeat that,
and that's
exactly what has transpired
since Modi came
to power in 2014.
(screaming)
(glass smashing)
I believe that I'm standing up
for just bearing witness.
I don't even
want to do anything.
I don't want to
be anybody's hero.
I don't want to
be put on a pedestal.
I just wanted to speak my truth.
(high tempo music)
(police sirens blaring)
Nigel, Nigel, this way!
Nigel!
They know this referendum
is too close to call,
and are
stepping up the intensity
with just a week
to go till polling day.
When ISIS say they will use
the migrant crisis
to flood the continent
with their Jihadi terrorists,
they probably mean it.
Now, this is
a once-in- a-lifetime chance
for us to take back control
of our immigration system.
The majority of
people in this country
are suffering as a result of
our membership of
the European Union.
If people feel that voting
doesn't change anything,
then violence is the next step.
(shouting)
(siren wailing)
What I and other journalists
have uncovered
is that multiple crimes took
place during the referendum.
It was the biggest
electoral fraud
in Britain for 100 years.
I'm a journalist.
I kind of came into
investigative journalism
accidentally,
when I was a feature writer.
This is what they were posting
on Facebook,
paid for with illegal cash.
How do you hold
power to account?
That's all I'm trying to
figure out is like
what are the different
mechanisms for holding
power to account?
Because the old
ways don't work any more.
We have no idea
who saw what ads,
or even who placed the ads,
or how much money was spent,
or even what
nationality they were.
When I stumbled into this story,
it was really like the scales
falling away from my eyes,
and when I understood
so much is actually
controlled beyond the naked eye.
If you're interested,
what I'd like to do
is set up something,
and I'll fund it somehow,
that I think...and I think
you're the perfect guy,
we help knit together
this populist
nationalist movement
throughout the world,
'cause guys in
Egypt are coming to me,
the Modi's guys in India,
Duterte, you know, and we get
Orbn, and we are somehow,
some sort of
convening authority.
It's a global revolt.
(high intensity music)
The game-changer
was the weaponisation
of social media.
I got 90 hate messages per hour.
That's when I began to realise,
this is really different.
These tech
companies enabled a real shift,
because exponential lies
literally came at us so fast
that our human
capacity to absorb
and fight back was gone.
(messages pinging)
8.5 million tweets were directed
against me,
in which the language is so
similar, Jihadi, burqa-clad,
ISIS sex slave, you
know, terrorist sympathiser.
CAROLE CADWALLADR: I personally
got really targeted.
There was this systemic
harassment going on online.
It became overwhelming.
The weaponisation
of social media
was quickly followed by
the weaponisation of the law.
REPORTER: A prominent critic of
Philippine President,
Rodrigo Duterte,
has been arrested.
Maria Ressa is CEO
and Executive Editor
for the online
news site, Rappler.
REPORTER: Journalist Rana Ayyub,
who's been a fierce critic
of the government
led by Prime Minister Modi,
has been named in
a charge sheet filed
by the Enforcement Directorate
over alleged money-laundering.
REPORTER:
Carol Cadwalladr, as a result
of your reporting on Brexit,
you have been sued by a British
businessman.
RANA AYYUB: This boys' club
reads each other's manuals,
okay, what have we done?
Minorities
silenced, media silenced,
dissenters arrested, killed.
Social media,
we have co-opted them.
Information
technology, we have used them.
They all follow
the same play book.
Now it fits, now it fits how you
make journalists and critics
and activists
enemies of the state.
If you don't have facts,
you can't have truth.
Without truth, you can't
have trust.
If you don't have
any of these three,
you don't have a shared reality.
You can't solve any...
like let alone
existential problems
like climate change,
you can't solve any problem.
You cannot have democracy.
(clanging)
Isn't this a science fiction
movie? (laughs)
(rumbling)
(ominous music)
(winding/whirring)
GHOST: Grandma read newspapers,
watched TV news non-stop.
She recorded everything,
said she was
keeping the receipts.
I didn't
understand, I was too young.
News disappeared,
just like Grandma.
(clanging)
Nobody noticed or cared.
(water drips)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Name?
Where were you born?
(eerie music)
Where in New San Francisco
have you visited?
(rumbling)
(women chatting)
(whirring/winding)
GHOST: Every day I pass the same
people on my way up.
The girl
who used to sing is gone.
It's like one by one
they're turning into ghosts,
or grains of sand.
(rustling)
(unclear voices, shouting)
(rustling)
(water splashing)
GHOST: There was one place...
a secret place my grandma
used to take me to.
When I was small,
I thought this was where people
came to pray.
(melancholic violin music)
It was a place where you
could read books.
There was special writing too,
about things you couldn't see,
where you could meet people
and not be
afraid they'd rat you out
to the authorities.
It's where my grandma left me
everything she'd saved.
All the memories...
and all
the recordings she'd made.
Her receipts from her life,
and from a long
time before, too.
I can feel people all around me.
My parents are here...
and my grandma too.
It's our memory
they want to wipe out,
language, culture,
and history.
And people connecting,
people protesting.
This is why
they came for Grandma.
They said it's wrong.
They said it's a crime.
and I know one day
they'll come for me, too.
(treacherous music)
(drone buzzing)
The event wasn't just one thing.
It was a slow creep.
Places we used to
visit got taken over,
walls got built,
access was denied.
When you're desperate,
just surviving,
you can't see
what's been taken away.
(wind blowing)
You can't fight back.
(engines rumbling)
(rocks crashing)
(foreboding music)
(children chattering)
(simmering)
(crunching)
(children chattering)
ANNOUNCEMENT: Illegal border
crossing is forbidden.
You will face criminal charges.
(static electricity)
(digital beeping)
GHOST: My grandma used to tell
me how when she was a girl,
she played with
other kids in the park.
(motor whirring)
And one by one,
they stopped showing up.
Some of them got sucked into
screen images.
Some of them got suicidal.
(tense music)
Others vanished.
(high tempo music)
(people chattering)
(cutlery clinking)
(clanking)
(rustling)
(radio chatter)
(drone buzzing)
(lens whirring)
(beeping, whirring)
(static electricity)
(suspenseful music)
REPORTER: You're looking at
the World Trade Center,
we understand
that a plane has crashed
into the World Trade Center.
We don't know
anything more than that.
(threatening music)
(dramatic music)
(ominous music)
REPORTER: The Uyghurs have many
of the same complaints
as the Tibetans.
They say they're
discriminated against,
that they're not allowed to
practise their religion
and culture freely.
And they're afraid to speak
in public, especially now.
One man said to me,
"You talk today,
and tomorrow
your whole family disappears."
(suspenseful music)
REPORTER: Human
rights campaigners say
that over a million people
have been interned
in concentration camps
in the far west
province of Xinjiang.
It's probably
the largest internment
of an ethnic or
religious minority
since the Holocaust.
(loud street chatter)
(scooter buzzing)
We're on the precipice
of probably
the biggest revolution
that the world has gone through
in modern times.
China is the blueprint,
because this
technology is for sale.
(treacherous music)
Israeli soldiers use
facial recognition software
to take photos of Palestinians,
in order to scan their faces
into this Wolf Pack database.
It's the latest component,
really, of a system of total
surveillance of
the Palestinian population.
(ominous music)
(drone buzzing)
Israel have
found a way to control
millions and
millions of Palestinians
through surveillance technology,
through weapons, through drones.
(explosion)
A myriad of
surveillance and repression,
and Israel says, if you want to
have good relations with us,
we'll sell
you this amazing technology,
so you can also surveil
your dissidents and critics.
(sirens blaring)
(woman screams)
(explosion)
Technology's
integrated into warfare,
and there are algorithms that
help guide military strategy
that offer death and destruction
among civilians.
You're removing people
from the decision-making,
so you don't
even have any capacity
to bring
a perspective on whether or not
we should drop a 2000-pound bomb
on a refugee camp.
(ominous music)
(cameras whirring)
(robot whirring)
The way in which we communicate
and live is changing.
The possibilities for what
people in positions
of power can do,
and the way that they can
intrude into our lives,
into our relationships,
has all changed.
Because we have this
totalitarian architecture
around us, you only need
a change of government,
or change of circumstances,
before it's used
in a totalitarian way,
when it's too late.
(gunshot)
(muffled loudspeaker)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Names of
relatives and associates?
What groups or organisations
do you connect with?
Do you have contact with any
illegals in America?
(distant rumbling, clanging)
(pages turning)
(rumbling)
GHOST: I believe
there will be a clash
between those who want freedom,
justice and equality,
and those who want systems
of exploitation.
(curtain rings drag along pole)
Do you have a teapot?
Do you mind?
Water?
(water pouring)
(gas stove hissing)
(teapot clangs)
(water pouring)
Greek mountain tea.
My secret store.
Hmm.
I'm surprised
it still has any scent left.
Perhaps there's
still someone out there
collecting it from the hills.
Perhaps there's
still hills out there.
Perhaps there's a Greece,
a Japan...
if they're not
both under the sea.
Hmm.
(futuristic music)
"There is no better teacher
than adversity."
Every defeat, every heartbreak,
every loss
contains its own seed.
They killed the guy that
said it, but it's still true.
(slurping)
Hmm, that's right.
(treacherous music)
Somebody has to win.
(sniffs)
(slurping)
GHOST: She used to be
a professor of history,
until AI decided what she taught
was obscene and criminal.
That's when she came down
to live with us.
This was
the last time I saw her,
she vanished soon after.
Happens all the time.
That's how I know
she was a true friend,
someone I could trust.
But it's too
late now, she's gone.
(rumbling, static)
(sirens blaring)
Welcome.
(applause)
Wow.
You purchased Twitter with...
...to do something for charity.
There's a new set of kings
that nobody voted for,
and they have
more money and power
than any corporation ever has.
REPORTER: Tesla boss, Elon Musk,
is now the richest
person in the world,
with a net
worth of $185 billion.
REPORTER: Facebook's got
$46 billion in cash.
The cashflow's somewhere
around $10.5/11 billion.
REPORTER: Google's parent
company, Alphabet, surged,
for the full year revenue
rose to nearly $75 billion.
That now makes Alphabet
the world's
most valuable company,
ahead of Apple.
REPORTER: I just
want to jump in with
some Amazon numbers:
revenue, $89 billion.
They are
powerful not simply because
they have all
the money and the wealth,
but because they've amassed
all of the information.
Age, gender,
ethnicity, religion,
what car you drive,
what products
you purchase in shops,
what churches you attend,
how you see the world,
what actually drives you.
How open you are
to new experiences,
whether you prefer
order and habits
and planning in your life,
how social you are,
how much you tend to worry.
Big data is an understanding
of your personality,
because it's personality that
drives behaviour,
and behaviour obviously
influences how you vote.
These technology companies
have become behaviour-
modification systems
for sale to the highest bidder.
(high tempo music)
We are worth more
when we are dead slabs
of predictable human behaviour,
than when we are
as living, breathing
informed
citizens of a democracy.
We are worth more
when we are addicted,
outraged, distracted, polarised
and disinformed,
than if we are
living, breathing,
free humans and citizens.
Technology domesticates us
into the new kind of human.
The last time human beings
were commodified,
it was the age
of industrialisation,
and it was labour,
and when labour was commodified,
we had sweatshops,
we had factory lines,
we had child labour,
we had exploitation
of our physical bodies.
Now what's commodified is not
our physical bodies,
it's our attention.
So what are
they going to do next?
(futuristic music)
(dramatic music)
In 2017, a new AI
engine got invented.
These things are generative,
large language,
multimodal models.
(computer generated speech)
These models treat absolutely
everything as language.
(high tempo music)
Everything human beings do
runs on top of language:
our laws,
the idea of a nation state,
friendships and relationships.
And just like AI can now transit
between human languages,
you can translate
between almost anything.
Images can be
treated as language.
Sound becomes a language.
(synth sound)
DNA is just
another kind of language.
This becomes the total decoding
and synthesising of reality.
These models
are so sophisticated
that they can actually
autonomously generate
anything that you might think
is unique to human creativity,
or human intelligence.
It is a massive
cybersecurity issue,
it's a national security issue.
It is a potent threat for
geopolitics, election hacking,
because anybody's identity can
be assumed and appropriated.
There's
absolutely no guard rails,
no laws,
nothing that prevents
the tech from gambling on this
without any consequences.
The longer nation states do not
use their power
to regulate
artificial intelligence,
the more data and power it gets,
which usurps
the powers of nation states.
This is right up front,
changing our lives.
(high tempo music continues)
Every worker has
a scanner at all times
that basically tracks
exactly where you're at.
What they're doing
is they're producing
this massive data
that they are using
to be able to analyse
the entire workforce.
We're not
treated as human beings,
we're not even
treated as robots.
We're treated as
part of the data stream.
We are now solving problems
with machine learning
and artificial intelligence
that were in
the realm of science fiction
for the last several decades.
There will come a point where
no job is needed,
the AI will be
able to do everything.
(drone buzzing)
So how do we build a society
where it's not just the owners
of all the machines,
and they own all the wealth,
and then all the rest of us
are kind of serfs?
(jet humming)
The wealthy getting wealthier,
the poorer getting poorer,
AI will exacerbate that,
and that, I think,
will tear society apart,
because the rich
will have just too much,
and those who are have nots
will have very little way
of digging themselves
out of the hole.
What we're looking at
is a paradigm change
in human communication,
even human evolution.
The key question is,
who controls the machines?
I am the reason OpenAI exists.
Perhaps the most important
foundational technology
of our time,
artificial intelligence.
Basically, there's no
institution in the world
that cannot be improved
with machine learning.
(dramatic music)
If we continue giving our money
to these
technology corporations,
these people will have
more power and wealth
than the entire world.
And that's what the most
alarming thing is.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome on stage,
Peter Thiel.
(applause)
From a libertarian perspective,
the western governments are not
working that well,
there are all these things,
they're not very competent.
MAX CHAFKIN: Peter Thiel,
the most influential venture
capitalist in Silicon Valley.
And as a libertarian,
I'm always sort of
anti-government, anti the state,
but there's also been
an extraordinary decline of
competence of the US government.
He is ultra-libertarian.
I mean, it's like a real bring
down the system ethos.
Our system only
works with growth.
If you try to have
a zero growth society,
it would represent a tremendous
break from our past.
MAX CHAFKIN: Billionaires should
be allowed to pay less in taxes.
Businesses should be allowed
increasing freedom,
you know,
bordering on the freedom
to kind of run the world.
Corporations are underrated,
because so many of these
other institutions do not work.
It's one of the things
that's endlessly frustrating
to a lot of the very successful
people in Silicon Valley.
MAX CHAFKIN: He's not just this
singular figure,
he's somebody whose ideas
have proliferated.
Following Thiel
is sort of this path
through the history
of Silicon Valley.
It's obviously
very dysfunctional
to have mass homelessness,
it's very dysfunctional
to have no law and order.
But if you think of it as
a sort of inefficient
redistributionist strategy,
there's a lot of it that has
a certain weird perverse logic.
In San Francisco,
where I lived for 15 years,
the homeless people
were in the lower parts of town.
They didn't climb up the hills.
The value of the houses
on the hills went up way more
than the value of the houses
on the flat parts went down.
And so you have to think of
the homeless people as like
this feature to
increase the value
of the higher-end
real estate in the city.
(typeface clacking)
Peter Thiel owns
this company, Palantir,
a Silicon Valley
big data company,
which has got its claws
into the British government,
and it's infiltrating
itself into the NHS.
Concordance wants to fix
the fragmented
healthcare supply chain.
This new health service will be
organised on a national scale,
as a public responsibility.
And so everyone will pay for it,
and everyone
will benefit from it.
When you're ill, you won't have
to pay for it.
What we have in the NHS
is an entire
nation's medical history,
from cradle to the grave.
That is a vast data set,
at an individual level,
and then at a nationwide level.
So, if you want to do anything
with healthcare and big data,
it is a massive asset.
REPORTER: US tech firm,
Palantir Technologies,
has won the biggest IT contract
in the history of NHS England.
The company have been awarded
a 330 million deal
to provide AI software to bring
together the data of patients.
It's really, really important
people are transparent with
what ultimately is our data.
The first funding
that Palantir ever got
was actually the venture capital
arm of the CIA.
And up until very recently,
all of its customers
were the government.
This includes
the Department of Justice,
Department of Defence,
Department of Homeland Security,
immigration,
customs enforcement.
The idea
that a company like that,
a company
involved in surveillance,
in counter-terrorism,
in border enforcement,
has any place in
the NHS is ridiculous.
He's ahead of the curve,
and I want to thank you,
you're a very special guy.
CORI CRIDER: Peter Thiel is a
perfect example
of a libertarian tech bro,
who believes
that what we really need
is to get away from
the reins of the state,
and just set up some kind of
free-for-all system
where the billionaire bermensch
can live
unfettered by other people.
We have to save this planet,
and we shouldn't
give up a future
for our grandchildren's
grandchildren, of dynamism
and growth - we can have both.
Manufactured worlds,
rotated to create artificial
gravity with centrifugal force.
These are very large structures,
miles on end,
and they hold a million people
or more each.
High-speed transport,
agricultural areas.
Some of them would
be more recreational.
You could have a recreational
one that keeps a zero G,
so that you can go flying.
These are ideal climates,
these are
shirt-sleeve environments.
People are going
to want to live here.
Techno-libertarians
are really hoping for
some kind of a techno-monarchy,
where this group
of elite tech bros
creates the blockchain
and the algorithms
that automate our reality
under their benevolent
programming, God-like wisdom.
(dramatic music)
(rockets blasting)
(rumbling)
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: It's survival
of the richest,
because they're preparing for
a civilisation threatening
catastrophe in
their lifetime, the event,
the thermonuclear war,
the electromagnetic pulse,
the climate
catastrophe, the pandemic,
the economic revolution,
whatever it is that makes life
for them unliveable.
So, they're running around
trying to make toys
that somehow fix things,
like underground bunkers,
and rocket ships.
(cheering)
I want to thank
every Amazon employee
and every Amazon customer,
because you guys
paid for all of this.
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: It's always an
end justifies the means journey,
towards their better place.
And externalising a tremendous
amount of horror
onto whoever isn't on board
their particular thesis.
(rumbling, ominous music)
(waves lapping)
(wind howling)
(children laughing)
(birds singing)
(bees buzzing)
(birds singing)
(ominous music)
(explosion)
(fire raging)
(rockets launching)
(explosion)
(mournful music)
(shouting, screaming)
(explosions)
No, baby, oh no!
(thunder crashing)
(uptempo music)
(waves rushing)
(woman screams)
(roads crashing)
GHOST: Could this world and
my life have been different
if I'd have done something,
stood up, fought back?
What difference
could I make on my own?
(electronic
whirring, static crackling)
(trunks snapping)
(trees crashing)
(dramatic music)
(flames crackling)
We're running faster and faster
through the woods,
increasingly blind, with less
steering and control.
Things are going faster
and faster and faster.
We no longer have
a grip on time itself.
There are
geological natural changes,
there are social changes
and there are
technological changes,
and I think mostly we don't feel
that we're in the driving seat.
We feel that these
forces are driving us.
(car rumbling)
Oh my God, oh my God.
Oh my God, oh my God.
Oh my God.
My God.
My God, please
stop, please! Oh my God.
Oh my God! Please, please!
Please get me
out of here. Please.
Please.
Oh. Oh.
(wind howling)
Oh my God.
(rumbling)
(sombre music)
We have known
for quite some time
that climate change acts
as a threat multiplier
for all dimensions of society,
and now we have
our world on fire.
We're losing lives. We've got
infrastructure buckling.
We should be accelerating into
the energy transition now.
(woman shouting)
We are truly in
a climate emergency.
It's here and now,
it's not in the future.
(fire crackling)
We have faced a lot of bad stuff
in the past,
wars and famines and genocides,
but this is
bigger than any of that.
If we allow dictators,
billionaires and private
corporations much more power,
they will allow the planetary
scale trashing of ecosystems.
And we will see the collapse of
almost all life on earth.
Our duty, as people who care
about other people,
is to oppose those who don't
care about anyone
except themselves.
Because if we do nothing,
we face mass extinction.
(fire crackling)
(gunshots)
(buzzing)
(whooshing, crashing)
(people screaming)
(rockets firing)
(screams) Get out!
(heavy breathing)
(clanging, rumbling)
(whirring)
(melancholic piano music)
(black bin bag rustling)
(high tempo music)
(contents crashing onto floor)
(sudden thump)
(sinister music)
GHOST: This is it.
they've come for me.
It's my turn.
(heavy thump)
(metallic clanking)
(heavy breathing)
(footsteps receding)
(door clangs shut)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Name?
Where were you born?
Where in New San Francisco
have you visited?
Names of
relatives and associates?
(electronic beeping)
What groups or organisations
do you connect with?
What is two plus two?
Which books have you read?
Have you ever
participated in a protest?
(sombre music)
Do you pray?
Would you like to self-confess
your crimes?
(gunshot)
(crowds shouting)
I really feel like
we're already living
in a science fiction world,
and in this world,
individual will is gone.
That's the reality
we're already living in.
(high tempo music)
(shouting)
(sticks beating)
This year,
72 percent of the world
is under authoritarian rule.
They crush democratic
institutions from within.
They don't stay
in their countries.
They then ally globally,
and that's where we begin to see
the power shifts.
Time is ticking.
If we do not act when we can,
we will lose free will.
That's the tipping point.
Are we going to
fall off the cliff?
Will democracy
survive, will fascism win?
(dramatic music)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Welcome to
your de-extremification
and re-education.
Do you have contact with any
illegals in the Americas?
Have you ever signed a petition?
What are
your religious practices?
Who are your contacts abroad?
What has changed in your mind?
Where is your tracking device?
Do you have contact with anyone
who has been re-educated?
What are you going to do
when you are released?
What is two plus two?
The answer is five.
What is two plus two?
Incorrect.
What is two plus two?
GHOST: I hope
someone finds this.
No one said or did
anything to stop them.
It's too late for me.
(melancholic music)
I was alone.
It may not be too late for you.
(dramatic music)
(inferno raging)
(flames crackling)
(wind blowing)
(high tempo music)
(waves churning)
(suspenseful music fades in)
(drones buzzing)
(cameras whirring)
(metal hooves clopping)
(drones buzzing loudly)
(sticks beating)
(people screaming)
(soldier screams inaudibly)
Come on!
(cameras whirring)
MAN: America's changed,
you understand that?
I think to create the perfect
union of democracy
has been a struggle...
(man screaming)
(men struggling)
RECORDED VOICE: Dear passengers,
people who behave disorderly
in public areas
will be punished according
to regulations,
and their behaviour
will be recorded.
To avoid any negative record
of personal credit,
please follow
the relevant regulations.
(uplifting music)
(dramatic music fades in)
(men chatting)
So, whatever else happens now,
it's all in a day's work.
(cacophony of birds singing)
(trains whooshing)
(clacking)
(wind whooshing)
(eerie background sounds)
(suspenseful music)
GHOST: I can still
remember my grandma.
(sighs)
I used to help her out.
My grandma used
to say her memories
were slipping through
her fingers like sand.
She said, we didn't know it,
but that was
happening to all of us too.
She said soon,
there'd be no past, no history.
She said it was the truth,
and she didn't care who heard.
Then one day, they came for her,
and she was gone.
(winding)
That stabbed to the heart of me,
it silenced me.
I never spoke again.
I ran.
I'm still running.
(explosions)
My life's turned into
one of those sci-fi comics
I used to read.
I live off-grid.
My place is in Shoes,
on the lower ground.
(rumbling, banging)
There are others here.
Survivors.
Renegades.
(men chatting)
MAN: Know what I'm saying?
Anyone know why I'm saying this?
GHOST: There's
a tunnel up to Fragrances,
where the old entrance was.
(muffled shouting)
It's one of the six ways
up to the surface.
(rumbling, whistling)
(tin rattling)
(indistinct chatter)
(dramatic music)
(men chattering)
Hey, Ghost.
Going up?
Stay safe.
I met this guy, Jack,
dumpster-diving one night.
It was me who got him in here.
Hey, I've found an old picture
you might like.
GHOST: He's got these goofy,
p uppy dog eyes.
I'll show it to you later.
GHOST: He's an AI.
Stay safe.
GHOST: He listens
and watches everything.
(ominous music)
You can't trust anyone anymore.
When you glean up
on the surface, after curfew,
you have to be quick.
You avoid the dogs,
you dodge the street militia.
(bullet clinks)
(ominous music intensifies)
(gunfire)
ANNOUNCEMENT: Move north,
destruction area north.
This is now a civil disturbance.
Failure to do so could result
in arrest and the use of force,
including riot
patrol agents and...
GHOST: People
thought the world would end.
(shouting)
But the world goes on.
(sirens blaring)
(Taser zapping)
It's us who will end.
(police sirens)
ANNOUNCEMENT: ...must leave
the area immediately.
Failure to comply with this
order may subject you to arrest
and may subject you to the use
of riot patrol agents
or impact weapons.
This is the police department.
You are violating
state imposed curfew.
Go home or you will be arrested.
(sirens blaring)
(loud clanking)
GHOST: Gleaning
is how we get by.
We pick over the leftovers,
the broken, the rejected...
anything we can use.
Thanks, Ghost. I love it!
GHOST: Those puppy dog eyes.
I love this hat.
(men shouting)
(eerie music)
I have no mercy
or compassion in me
for a society
that will crush people,
and then penalise them for not
being able to stand up
under the weight.
(rewind whirring)
How did we get here?
How did we let this happen?
(rioting)
In the late 1980s, early 1990s,
you were in a moment of
democratic triumph.
We're now in
a democratic recession,
and it's endemic
in Eastern Europe,
in Western Europe,
in the United States, India,
the Philippines.
This is a new age of impunity.
Some countries are actually
just going back to the age
of elite power.
The financial system is rocked
to its foundation,
as top Wall Street
institutions...
If you have an economic crisis,
and/or a refugee crisis,
these demagogues rise.
They're promising to protect
you from a threat
that doesn't exist.
You have an incredibly dishonest
right-wing media,
who pushes disinformation.
(high tempo music)
Hate and fear are being sown
online across the world,
spreading lies paid for with
illegal cash. It's subversion.
(protestors shouting)
What Putin saw, is, he's like,
"Holy shit,
I can hack this system,
and then control global
capitalism, and politics."
There are
transnational oligarchs
funding dark money think-tanks
and fake institutions.
Americans for prosperity.
Renowned Washington
think-tank, the Cato Institute.
The Institute
of Economic Affairs.
They're lobby shops, set up
to influence politics
on behalf of ideological
billionaires and big business.
It's disrupting democracy.
Social media has enabled
the rise of these populist
authoritarian-style leaders.
We will root out
the communists, Marxists,
fascists and
the radical left thugs
that live like vermin within
the confines of our country.
We will make
America great again.
So, you would say that white
supremacist tied publications
meet a rigorous standard
for fact-checking?
REPORTER: Facebook's site has
been used to incite violence
against Rohingya
refugees in Myanmar.
Mr Modi has driven Muslims of
this country to the wall.
I have a particular
responsibility,
it is to end the free movement
of people once and for all.
(applause)
REPORTER: Europe is
in the heat of a battle
about the future of democracy,
and Hungary is
now the front line.
It's not just Putin and Orbn,
there's an alliance
of dictatorships.
(explosion)
There's no subtlety
in Netanyahu's ambition to claim
all of the Palestinian state.
There's a global
effort by people in power
to stay in power.
They care more about maintaining
power for their clique,
than a broader
sense of common good.
(ominous music)
(gunshot)
REPORTER: The volume of killing
here is quite extraordinary.
In the 80 or so days
that Duterte has been in power,
there's now been an average of
somewhere between 35 and 40
police killings of drug-pushers
and drug users every day.
So no qualms
about killing killers?
I'm a journalist. This is my
37th year as a journalist.
What's the role of journalism?
Journalism, the mission:
holding power to account,
public and private.
As President, you now also
defend the constitution.
-Yes.
-You break the law,
you threaten to break the law.
You said you had
killed a year ago, right?
You told me that,
and yet you now have the task of
keeping the rule of law
and you said you would do
that also. How do you...?
When Duterte took office,
our institutions crumbled.
He became the most powerful
person within six months.
We continue doing our reporting.
(high tempo music)
(rioters shouting)
On the worst
day of the violence,
when murder and
looting were taking place
all across the city, we saw
policemen just standing by,
watching what was happening
but doing
nothing to try to stop it.
When you look back
over the last months,
you've been
the leader of this state
through a very difficult period,
do you think
there's anything that
you should have
done differently?
Yes, one area where
I was very, very weak,
and that was how
to handle the media.
RANA AYYUB:
He doesn't like criticism,
he's self-obsessed,
he's a megalomaniac,
and I say that all the time.
My name is Rana Ayyub.
I'm a global opinions writer
with the Washington Post,
I'm an investigative journalist.
I write stuff which
the government does not like.
Mr. Modi is going from strength
to strength.
He's become
a leader of anti-Muslim
bigots across the country.
I spoke about the fact that
here is a man
who's an authoritarian,
whose only politics is his
prejudice of Muslims,
whose only politics is
persecution of Muslims,
and if this man comes to power,
he is going to repeat that,
and that's
exactly what has transpired
since Modi came
to power in 2014.
(screaming)
(glass smashing)
I believe that I'm standing up
for just bearing witness.
I don't even
want to do anything.
I don't want to
be anybody's hero.
I don't want to
be put on a pedestal.
I just wanted to speak my truth.
(high tempo music)
(police sirens blaring)
Nigel, Nigel, this way!
Nigel!
They know this referendum
is too close to call,
and are
stepping up the intensity
with just a week
to go till polling day.
When ISIS say they will use
the migrant crisis
to flood the continent
with their Jihadi terrorists,
they probably mean it.
Now, this is
a once-in- a-lifetime chance
for us to take back control
of our immigration system.
The majority of
people in this country
are suffering as a result of
our membership of
the European Union.
If people feel that voting
doesn't change anything,
then violence is the next step.
(shouting)
(siren wailing)
What I and other journalists
have uncovered
is that multiple crimes took
place during the referendum.
It was the biggest
electoral fraud
in Britain for 100 years.
I'm a journalist.
I kind of came into
investigative journalism
accidentally,
when I was a feature writer.
This is what they were posting
on Facebook,
paid for with illegal cash.
How do you hold
power to account?
That's all I'm trying to
figure out is like
what are the different
mechanisms for holding
power to account?
Because the old
ways don't work any more.
We have no idea
who saw what ads,
or even who placed the ads,
or how much money was spent,
or even what
nationality they were.
When I stumbled into this story,
it was really like the scales
falling away from my eyes,
and when I understood
so much is actually
controlled beyond the naked eye.
If you're interested,
what I'd like to do
is set up something,
and I'll fund it somehow,
that I think...and I think
you're the perfect guy,
we help knit together
this populist
nationalist movement
throughout the world,
'cause guys in
Egypt are coming to me,
the Modi's guys in India,
Duterte, you know, and we get
Orbn, and we are somehow,
some sort of
convening authority.
It's a global revolt.
(high intensity music)
The game-changer
was the weaponisation
of social media.
I got 90 hate messages per hour.
That's when I began to realise,
this is really different.
These tech
companies enabled a real shift,
because exponential lies
literally came at us so fast
that our human
capacity to absorb
and fight back was gone.
(messages pinging)
8.5 million tweets were directed
against me,
in which the language is so
similar, Jihadi, burqa-clad,
ISIS sex slave, you
know, terrorist sympathiser.
CAROLE CADWALLADR: I personally
got really targeted.
There was this systemic
harassment going on online.
It became overwhelming.
The weaponisation
of social media
was quickly followed by
the weaponisation of the law.
REPORTER: A prominent critic of
Philippine President,
Rodrigo Duterte,
has been arrested.
Maria Ressa is CEO
and Executive Editor
for the online
news site, Rappler.
REPORTER: Journalist Rana Ayyub,
who's been a fierce critic
of the government
led by Prime Minister Modi,
has been named in
a charge sheet filed
by the Enforcement Directorate
over alleged money-laundering.
REPORTER:
Carol Cadwalladr, as a result
of your reporting on Brexit,
you have been sued by a British
businessman.
RANA AYYUB: This boys' club
reads each other's manuals,
okay, what have we done?
Minorities
silenced, media silenced,
dissenters arrested, killed.
Social media,
we have co-opted them.
Information
technology, we have used them.
They all follow
the same play book.
Now it fits, now it fits how you
make journalists and critics
and activists
enemies of the state.
If you don't have facts,
you can't have truth.
Without truth, you can't
have trust.
If you don't have
any of these three,
you don't have a shared reality.
You can't solve any...
like let alone
existential problems
like climate change,
you can't solve any problem.
You cannot have democracy.
(clanging)
Isn't this a science fiction
movie? (laughs)
(rumbling)
(ominous music)
(winding/whirring)
GHOST: Grandma read newspapers,
watched TV news non-stop.
She recorded everything,
said she was
keeping the receipts.
I didn't
understand, I was too young.
News disappeared,
just like Grandma.
(clanging)
Nobody noticed or cared.
(water drips)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Name?
Where were you born?
(eerie music)
Where in New San Francisco
have you visited?
(rumbling)
(women chatting)
(whirring/winding)
GHOST: Every day I pass the same
people on my way up.
The girl
who used to sing is gone.
It's like one by one
they're turning into ghosts,
or grains of sand.
(rustling)
(unclear voices, shouting)
(rustling)
(water splashing)
GHOST: There was one place...
a secret place my grandma
used to take me to.
When I was small,
I thought this was where people
came to pray.
(melancholic violin music)
It was a place where you
could read books.
There was special writing too,
about things you couldn't see,
where you could meet people
and not be
afraid they'd rat you out
to the authorities.
It's where my grandma left me
everything she'd saved.
All the memories...
and all
the recordings she'd made.
Her receipts from her life,
and from a long
time before, too.
I can feel people all around me.
My parents are here...
and my grandma too.
It's our memory
they want to wipe out,
language, culture,
and history.
And people connecting,
people protesting.
This is why
they came for Grandma.
They said it's wrong.
They said it's a crime.
and I know one day
they'll come for me, too.
(treacherous music)
(drone buzzing)
The event wasn't just one thing.
It was a slow creep.
Places we used to
visit got taken over,
walls got built,
access was denied.
When you're desperate,
just surviving,
you can't see
what's been taken away.
(wind blowing)
You can't fight back.
(engines rumbling)
(rocks crashing)
(foreboding music)
(children chattering)
(simmering)
(crunching)
(children chattering)
ANNOUNCEMENT: Illegal border
crossing is forbidden.
You will face criminal charges.
(static electricity)
(digital beeping)
GHOST: My grandma used to tell
me how when she was a girl,
she played with
other kids in the park.
(motor whirring)
And one by one,
they stopped showing up.
Some of them got sucked into
screen images.
Some of them got suicidal.
(tense music)
Others vanished.
(high tempo music)
(people chattering)
(cutlery clinking)
(clanking)
(rustling)
(radio chatter)
(drone buzzing)
(lens whirring)
(beeping, whirring)
(static electricity)
(suspenseful music)
REPORTER: You're looking at
the World Trade Center,
we understand
that a plane has crashed
into the World Trade Center.
We don't know
anything more than that.
(threatening music)
(dramatic music)
(ominous music)
REPORTER: The Uyghurs have many
of the same complaints
as the Tibetans.
They say they're
discriminated against,
that they're not allowed to
practise their religion
and culture freely.
And they're afraid to speak
in public, especially now.
One man said to me,
"You talk today,
and tomorrow
your whole family disappears."
(suspenseful music)
REPORTER: Human
rights campaigners say
that over a million people
have been interned
in concentration camps
in the far west
province of Xinjiang.
It's probably
the largest internment
of an ethnic or
religious minority
since the Holocaust.
(loud street chatter)
(scooter buzzing)
We're on the precipice
of probably
the biggest revolution
that the world has gone through
in modern times.
China is the blueprint,
because this
technology is for sale.
(treacherous music)
Israeli soldiers use
facial recognition software
to take photos of Palestinians,
in order to scan their faces
into this Wolf Pack database.
It's the latest component,
really, of a system of total
surveillance of
the Palestinian population.
(ominous music)
(drone buzzing)
Israel have
found a way to control
millions and
millions of Palestinians
through surveillance technology,
through weapons, through drones.
(explosion)
A myriad of
surveillance and repression,
and Israel says, if you want to
have good relations with us,
we'll sell
you this amazing technology,
so you can also surveil
your dissidents and critics.
(sirens blaring)
(woman screams)
(explosion)
Technology's
integrated into warfare,
and there are algorithms that
help guide military strategy
that offer death and destruction
among civilians.
You're removing people
from the decision-making,
so you don't
even have any capacity
to bring
a perspective on whether or not
we should drop a 2000-pound bomb
on a refugee camp.
(ominous music)
(cameras whirring)
(robot whirring)
The way in which we communicate
and live is changing.
The possibilities for what
people in positions
of power can do,
and the way that they can
intrude into our lives,
into our relationships,
has all changed.
Because we have this
totalitarian architecture
around us, you only need
a change of government,
or change of circumstances,
before it's used
in a totalitarian way,
when it's too late.
(gunshot)
(muffled loudspeaker)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Names of
relatives and associates?
What groups or organisations
do you connect with?
Do you have contact with any
illegals in America?
(distant rumbling, clanging)
(pages turning)
(rumbling)
GHOST: I believe
there will be a clash
between those who want freedom,
justice and equality,
and those who want systems
of exploitation.
(curtain rings drag along pole)
Do you have a teapot?
Do you mind?
Water?
(water pouring)
(gas stove hissing)
(teapot clangs)
(water pouring)
Greek mountain tea.
My secret store.
Hmm.
I'm surprised
it still has any scent left.
Perhaps there's
still someone out there
collecting it from the hills.
Perhaps there's
still hills out there.
Perhaps there's a Greece,
a Japan...
if they're not
both under the sea.
Hmm.
(futuristic music)
"There is no better teacher
than adversity."
Every defeat, every heartbreak,
every loss
contains its own seed.
They killed the guy that
said it, but it's still true.
(slurping)
Hmm, that's right.
(treacherous music)
Somebody has to win.
(sniffs)
(slurping)
GHOST: She used to be
a professor of history,
until AI decided what she taught
was obscene and criminal.
That's when she came down
to live with us.
This was
the last time I saw her,
she vanished soon after.
Happens all the time.
That's how I know
she was a true friend,
someone I could trust.
But it's too
late now, she's gone.
(rumbling, static)
(sirens blaring)
Welcome.
(applause)
Wow.
You purchased Twitter with...
...to do something for charity.
There's a new set of kings
that nobody voted for,
and they have
more money and power
than any corporation ever has.
REPORTER: Tesla boss, Elon Musk,
is now the richest
person in the world,
with a net
worth of $185 billion.
REPORTER: Facebook's got
$46 billion in cash.
The cashflow's somewhere
around $10.5/11 billion.
REPORTER: Google's parent
company, Alphabet, surged,
for the full year revenue
rose to nearly $75 billion.
That now makes Alphabet
the world's
most valuable company,
ahead of Apple.
REPORTER: I just
want to jump in with
some Amazon numbers:
revenue, $89 billion.
They are
powerful not simply because
they have all
the money and the wealth,
but because they've amassed
all of the information.
Age, gender,
ethnicity, religion,
what car you drive,
what products
you purchase in shops,
what churches you attend,
how you see the world,
what actually drives you.
How open you are
to new experiences,
whether you prefer
order and habits
and planning in your life,
how social you are,
how much you tend to worry.
Big data is an understanding
of your personality,
because it's personality that
drives behaviour,
and behaviour obviously
influences how you vote.
These technology companies
have become behaviour-
modification systems
for sale to the highest bidder.
(high tempo music)
We are worth more
when we are dead slabs
of predictable human behaviour,
than when we are
as living, breathing
informed
citizens of a democracy.
We are worth more
when we are addicted,
outraged, distracted, polarised
and disinformed,
than if we are
living, breathing,
free humans and citizens.
Technology domesticates us
into the new kind of human.
The last time human beings
were commodified,
it was the age
of industrialisation,
and it was labour,
and when labour was commodified,
we had sweatshops,
we had factory lines,
we had child labour,
we had exploitation
of our physical bodies.
Now what's commodified is not
our physical bodies,
it's our attention.
So what are
they going to do next?
(futuristic music)
(dramatic music)
In 2017, a new AI
engine got invented.
These things are generative,
large language,
multimodal models.
(computer generated speech)
These models treat absolutely
everything as language.
(high tempo music)
Everything human beings do
runs on top of language:
our laws,
the idea of a nation state,
friendships and relationships.
And just like AI can now transit
between human languages,
you can translate
between almost anything.
Images can be
treated as language.
Sound becomes a language.
(synth sound)
DNA is just
another kind of language.
This becomes the total decoding
and synthesising of reality.
These models
are so sophisticated
that they can actually
autonomously generate
anything that you might think
is unique to human creativity,
or human intelligence.
It is a massive
cybersecurity issue,
it's a national security issue.
It is a potent threat for
geopolitics, election hacking,
because anybody's identity can
be assumed and appropriated.
There's
absolutely no guard rails,
no laws,
nothing that prevents
the tech from gambling on this
without any consequences.
The longer nation states do not
use their power
to regulate
artificial intelligence,
the more data and power it gets,
which usurps
the powers of nation states.
This is right up front,
changing our lives.
(high tempo music continues)
Every worker has
a scanner at all times
that basically tracks
exactly where you're at.
What they're doing
is they're producing
this massive data
that they are using
to be able to analyse
the entire workforce.
We're not
treated as human beings,
we're not even
treated as robots.
We're treated as
part of the data stream.
We are now solving problems
with machine learning
and artificial intelligence
that were in
the realm of science fiction
for the last several decades.
There will come a point where
no job is needed,
the AI will be
able to do everything.
(drone buzzing)
So how do we build a society
where it's not just the owners
of all the machines,
and they own all the wealth,
and then all the rest of us
are kind of serfs?
(jet humming)
The wealthy getting wealthier,
the poorer getting poorer,
AI will exacerbate that,
and that, I think,
will tear society apart,
because the rich
will have just too much,
and those who are have nots
will have very little way
of digging themselves
out of the hole.
What we're looking at
is a paradigm change
in human communication,
even human evolution.
The key question is,
who controls the machines?
I am the reason OpenAI exists.
Perhaps the most important
foundational technology
of our time,
artificial intelligence.
Basically, there's no
institution in the world
that cannot be improved
with machine learning.
(dramatic music)
If we continue giving our money
to these
technology corporations,
these people will have
more power and wealth
than the entire world.
And that's what the most
alarming thing is.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome on stage,
Peter Thiel.
(applause)
From a libertarian perspective,
the western governments are not
working that well,
there are all these things,
they're not very competent.
MAX CHAFKIN: Peter Thiel,
the most influential venture
capitalist in Silicon Valley.
And as a libertarian,
I'm always sort of
anti-government, anti the state,
but there's also been
an extraordinary decline of
competence of the US government.
He is ultra-libertarian.
I mean, it's like a real bring
down the system ethos.
Our system only
works with growth.
If you try to have
a zero growth society,
it would represent a tremendous
break from our past.
MAX CHAFKIN: Billionaires should
be allowed to pay less in taxes.
Businesses should be allowed
increasing freedom,
you know,
bordering on the freedom
to kind of run the world.
Corporations are underrated,
because so many of these
other institutions do not work.
It's one of the things
that's endlessly frustrating
to a lot of the very successful
people in Silicon Valley.
MAX CHAFKIN: He's not just this
singular figure,
he's somebody whose ideas
have proliferated.
Following Thiel
is sort of this path
through the history
of Silicon Valley.
It's obviously
very dysfunctional
to have mass homelessness,
it's very dysfunctional
to have no law and order.
But if you think of it as
a sort of inefficient
redistributionist strategy,
there's a lot of it that has
a certain weird perverse logic.
In San Francisco,
where I lived for 15 years,
the homeless people
were in the lower parts of town.
They didn't climb up the hills.
The value of the houses
on the hills went up way more
than the value of the houses
on the flat parts went down.
And so you have to think of
the homeless people as like
this feature to
increase the value
of the higher-end
real estate in the city.
(typeface clacking)
Peter Thiel owns
this company, Palantir,
a Silicon Valley
big data company,
which has got its claws
into the British government,
and it's infiltrating
itself into the NHS.
Concordance wants to fix
the fragmented
healthcare supply chain.
This new health service will be
organised on a national scale,
as a public responsibility.
And so everyone will pay for it,
and everyone
will benefit from it.
When you're ill, you won't have
to pay for it.
What we have in the NHS
is an entire
nation's medical history,
from cradle to the grave.
That is a vast data set,
at an individual level,
and then at a nationwide level.
So, if you want to do anything
with healthcare and big data,
it is a massive asset.
REPORTER: US tech firm,
Palantir Technologies,
has won the biggest IT contract
in the history of NHS England.
The company have been awarded
a 330 million deal
to provide AI software to bring
together the data of patients.
It's really, really important
people are transparent with
what ultimately is our data.
The first funding
that Palantir ever got
was actually the venture capital
arm of the CIA.
And up until very recently,
all of its customers
were the government.
This includes
the Department of Justice,
Department of Defence,
Department of Homeland Security,
immigration,
customs enforcement.
The idea
that a company like that,
a company
involved in surveillance,
in counter-terrorism,
in border enforcement,
has any place in
the NHS is ridiculous.
He's ahead of the curve,
and I want to thank you,
you're a very special guy.
CORI CRIDER: Peter Thiel is a
perfect example
of a libertarian tech bro,
who believes
that what we really need
is to get away from
the reins of the state,
and just set up some kind of
free-for-all system
where the billionaire bermensch
can live
unfettered by other people.
We have to save this planet,
and we shouldn't
give up a future
for our grandchildren's
grandchildren, of dynamism
and growth - we can have both.
Manufactured worlds,
rotated to create artificial
gravity with centrifugal force.
These are very large structures,
miles on end,
and they hold a million people
or more each.
High-speed transport,
agricultural areas.
Some of them would
be more recreational.
You could have a recreational
one that keeps a zero G,
so that you can go flying.
These are ideal climates,
these are
shirt-sleeve environments.
People are going
to want to live here.
Techno-libertarians
are really hoping for
some kind of a techno-monarchy,
where this group
of elite tech bros
creates the blockchain
and the algorithms
that automate our reality
under their benevolent
programming, God-like wisdom.
(dramatic music)
(rockets blasting)
(rumbling)
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: It's survival
of the richest,
because they're preparing for
a civilisation threatening
catastrophe in
their lifetime, the event,
the thermonuclear war,
the electromagnetic pulse,
the climate
catastrophe, the pandemic,
the economic revolution,
whatever it is that makes life
for them unliveable.
So, they're running around
trying to make toys
that somehow fix things,
like underground bunkers,
and rocket ships.
(cheering)
I want to thank
every Amazon employee
and every Amazon customer,
because you guys
paid for all of this.
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: It's always an
end justifies the means journey,
towards their better place.
And externalising a tremendous
amount of horror
onto whoever isn't on board
their particular thesis.
(rumbling, ominous music)
(waves lapping)
(wind howling)
(children laughing)
(birds singing)
(bees buzzing)
(birds singing)
(ominous music)
(explosion)
(fire raging)
(rockets launching)
(explosion)
(mournful music)
(shouting, screaming)
(explosions)
No, baby, oh no!
(thunder crashing)
(uptempo music)
(waves rushing)
(woman screams)
(roads crashing)
GHOST: Could this world and
my life have been different
if I'd have done something,
stood up, fought back?
What difference
could I make on my own?
(electronic
whirring, static crackling)
(trunks snapping)
(trees crashing)
(dramatic music)
(flames crackling)
We're running faster and faster
through the woods,
increasingly blind, with less
steering and control.
Things are going faster
and faster and faster.
We no longer have
a grip on time itself.
There are
geological natural changes,
there are social changes
and there are
technological changes,
and I think mostly we don't feel
that we're in the driving seat.
We feel that these
forces are driving us.
(car rumbling)
Oh my God, oh my God.
Oh my God, oh my God.
Oh my God.
My God.
My God, please
stop, please! Oh my God.
Oh my God! Please, please!
Please get me
out of here. Please.
Please.
Oh. Oh.
(wind howling)
Oh my God.
(rumbling)
(sombre music)
We have known
for quite some time
that climate change acts
as a threat multiplier
for all dimensions of society,
and now we have
our world on fire.
We're losing lives. We've got
infrastructure buckling.
We should be accelerating into
the energy transition now.
(woman shouting)
We are truly in
a climate emergency.
It's here and now,
it's not in the future.
(fire crackling)
We have faced a lot of bad stuff
in the past,
wars and famines and genocides,
but this is
bigger than any of that.
If we allow dictators,
billionaires and private
corporations much more power,
they will allow the planetary
scale trashing of ecosystems.
And we will see the collapse of
almost all life on earth.
Our duty, as people who care
about other people,
is to oppose those who don't
care about anyone
except themselves.
Because if we do nothing,
we face mass extinction.
(fire crackling)
(gunshots)
(buzzing)
(whooshing, crashing)
(people screaming)
(rockets firing)
(screams) Get out!
(heavy breathing)
(clanging, rumbling)
(whirring)
(melancholic piano music)
(black bin bag rustling)
(high tempo music)
(contents crashing onto floor)
(sudden thump)
(sinister music)
GHOST: This is it.
they've come for me.
It's my turn.
(heavy thump)
(metallic clanking)
(heavy breathing)
(footsteps receding)
(door clangs shut)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Name?
Where were you born?
Where in New San Francisco
have you visited?
Names of
relatives and associates?
(electronic beeping)
What groups or organisations
do you connect with?
What is two plus two?
Which books have you read?
Have you ever
participated in a protest?
(sombre music)
Do you pray?
Would you like to self-confess
your crimes?
(gunshot)
(crowds shouting)
I really feel like
we're already living
in a science fiction world,
and in this world,
individual will is gone.
That's the reality
we're already living in.
(high tempo music)
(shouting)
(sticks beating)
This year,
72 percent of the world
is under authoritarian rule.
They crush democratic
institutions from within.
They don't stay
in their countries.
They then ally globally,
and that's where we begin to see
the power shifts.
Time is ticking.
If we do not act when we can,
we will lose free will.
That's the tipping point.
Are we going to
fall off the cliff?
Will democracy
survive, will fascism win?
(dramatic music)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Welcome to
your de-extremification
and re-education.
Do you have contact with any
illegals in the Americas?
Have you ever signed a petition?
What are
your religious practices?
Who are your contacts abroad?
What has changed in your mind?
Where is your tracking device?
Do you have contact with anyone
who has been re-educated?
What are you going to do
when you are released?
What is two plus two?
The answer is five.
What is two plus two?
Incorrect.
What is two plus two?