Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the beautiful Bly Street headquarters of the Lowy Institute. Lovely to see human beings back in the building today. This building stands on the traditional land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land and pay my respects to their elders. We're delighted today to host the launch of Red Zone, an important new book published by Black Ink and written by a long-standing non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute, Peter Hatcher. In today's Australia, apart from COVID, I would suggest there is no bigger story and no more consequential issue than our relationship with China. And this book is an important contribution to that debate, and I'm pleased that to launch it today, we have with us the 29th Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Malcolm Turnbull AC. I have known Malcolm for three decades. I met him when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young Republican. I established a branch of the Australian Republican Movement at the University of Sydney, and Malcolm invited me to join the National Committee of the Australian Republican Movement. Used to say, Malcolm, that there's never been a more exciting time to be an Australian. Well, in the early 1990s there, it certainly seemed there had never been a more exciting time to be an Australian Republican. Today, we're talking about big issues, sovereignty and independence and Australia's place in the world. This is not about the Republic, but I know Malcolm that both of us look forward to the day when Australia has a head of state who is one of us. Mr Turnbull already had a remarkable career as a barrister and a banker when he entered the parliament in 2004. He went on to serve as the Minister for Environment and the Water and the Minister for Communications, as well as the Opposition Leader before serving as Prime Minister from 2015 to 2018. Mr Turnbull played an important role, a very important role, in Australia's approach to China, so he is the perfect person to launch this book. Malcolm Turnbull, the lectern is yours. Thank you. Welcome. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Michael. It is wonderful to be back at the Lowe and with people in the room that's hope, that stays that way forever. And it's, look, congratulations, Peter. It's great to be here with you and Mindanao, your wife. Congratulations on another great book. I don't have one with me, but, yeah, there it is. Let me hold it up. I'll hold it up. Thank you, Alex. There you go. Red Zone, China's Challenge in Australia's Future. It's a very important book. And it is one that I hope will be widely read. The relationship between Australia and China is of vital importance, obviously. But it is all too often being dumbed down, boiled down, if you like, into headlines, slogans, belligerent rhetoric, mostly coming from the Beijing side, I have to say, but not exclusively. So I'm going to say a little bit about what I think are the big issues and what we can do in the future, and then I hope we will have a discussion. So I will try to be brief, but I warn you, I want to warn you that in an age of fake news and the normalisation of misinformation, the one thing that you can almost genuinely, generally be certain that a politician will mislead you on is when he or she says, I will be brief, but I will do my best. I will do my best to fight fake news on that score. Look, everyone is unhappy with the state of the relationship between Australia and China at the moment. I mean, we are in the freezer. That is a deliberate policy of the Communist Party government in China. That is the term that they routinely use. And they have put Australia in the freezer in order to intimidate Australia and to make Australia more compliant. That's it. That is basically what it is all about. It is they have taken exception to a number of things that we have said or done, in particular, as Peter describes in this book, the decision of my government to introduce foreign influence and foreign interference legislation. At the end of 2017, enacted in 2018, this was seen as being targeted at China. Well, it wasn't targeted exclusively at China, but it was a reaction to extensive Chinese foreign interference and foreign influence operations in Australia, particularly by the United Front work department. Now, there's no bones about that. And as I said in my own book, which I have to say, Peter generously quotes from, and with attribution, I might say, although plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, but I can't accuse you of that. You've been thoroughly scholarly in that regard. But for us to be shocked, surprised, horrified by Chinese espionage is pretty naive. As I say in my own book, it's like Captain Renault bursting into Rick's bar in the movie Casablanca and saying, I'm shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on here. But having said that, we all have to protect our own sovereignty. We have to stand up for our own interests.  You know, we have to always stand up for ourselves. And I have used, I've talked about standing up in speeches about China for well over a decade, well over a decade, probably two decades. And the point that I've always made is that when modern China, by which I mean communist China, was founded in 1949, Mao said on top of Tiananmen, the Chinese people have stood up, right? Well, the Australian people stand up. The Indonesian people stand up. The American people stand up. Every nation is entitled to stand up for its sovereignty. And that is all that we have done. Now, there is a tendency in Australia, I think less than it was a few years ago, but there is a tendency for Australians to blame themselves when they encounter anger from Beijing. And Peter has a very good chapter about anger from Beijing. And he basically describes how the Australian media have just reflexively played into the propaganda objectives of the Chinese Communist Party. Because they've said, when the Australian government says something or does something, they'll say, this will create anger in Beijing. This will cause anger, as though the utterly instrumental and confected reaction from Beijing is something that we should blame ourselves for. I mean, you take, well, the decision about Huawei, for example, is one that I've been criticised for in many places, praised for on others. But that was the most careful, meticulous, technical examination. I mean, we started off looking... I mean, it was an initiative of mine. I mean, as Peter describes in his book, the Australian Signals Directorate were starting to get a bit anxious about the intense technical interest I was taking in the latest developments in wireless technology. But nonetheless, the approach that we started off with, the premise we started off was, is there a way to mitigate the risk? That was, you know, my goal was to be able to have vendors from every country available in 5G here, but subject to being able to protect ourselves. How could we mitigate the risk? And a very careful, lengthy technical examination concluded that we couldn't. So the decision was not a political one. It wasn't anti-China or anti... It wasn't even anti-Wahua. It was simply an assessment of risk and how best to hedge that risk. Now, every country is entitled to do that. And China does that. Every country does that. So that was our objective, protecting our sovereignty, protecting our security and doing so in a measured, careful way, not in a political way. This is not... We have never sought. Australia has never sought to contain China or oppose China in any sort of political way. I mean, that is a theme that you obviously see in the United States, perhaps more so now than 20 years ago, but that's never been part of our thinking. So what has changed? What has changed is that China has become more aggressive, more assertive, whether it is in the South China Sea or whether it is in its industrial espionage operations or whether it is in terms of the so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy, which is absolutely and utterly counterproductive. I mean, if diplomacy's objective is to win friends and influence people, China's belligerent or aggressive, you know, diplomacy, if that's the right word for it, has only served to undermine trust elsewhere. So let me make another point about this, which is of particular importance in our region. During the Trump years, America became irascible, unpredictable, unreliable, unsettling friend and foe alike. And, you know, there wasn't one alliance that Trump didn't shake the cage of or rattle the foundations of, other than, I suppose, ANZIS, that was the only one. But everything else, NATO, Japan, South Korea and so forth, all of those alliances were threatened. Now, in that context, China had the opportunity to be the anti-Trump, to be predictable, consistent, measured, reasonable, reliable. Instead, they've gone down a line which is essentially Trumpy, you know? All of these, you know, wild allegations and threats and so forth. As Peter describes, there are 11 countries in the world that have been punished with, essentially, with trade measures by China for either saying or doing things, often meeting the Dalai Lama, which have displeased Beijing. And yet, this is the same government that says to us, after this long record of intimidation and bullying, says to us, you should trust us with Huawei that we would never, never inconceivable that we'd think about using that capability in any way to disadvantage you or undermine you or threaten you or coerce you to do our will. Well, the bottom line is, every day this sort of bullying, wolf warrior approach proceeds the case for making the decision we did about Huawei, the case we made for the foreign interference and foreign influence legislation gets stronger. So, the next question, I guess, and I'll just conclude on this point, is what are we gonna do about it? That's the thing that's got everyone scratching their heads. Let me say, I think it is clear we are in the freezer for quite a long time. That's certainly what we should assume. I don't think there is anything Australia unilaterally can or should do to change that.  It only underlines how disconnected this bullying approach is from the reality of Australian public life and politics. The only thing we can do is stand our ground, continue to stand up for our values and our interests. We should, however, be careful about the language we use and when we use it. You know, gratuitous belligerence is never helpful. And we've got to be careful, I think, always to recognize that there is a height, you've got to be artful and nuanced very often in diplomacy and international relations. So you have to be careful about what you're saying. But that does not mean that every offence that is taken or any of the offence that is taken is justified. Now, just to defend Scott Morrison and Maurice Payne on that score, it is widely said that Morrison and Payne's demand that there should be an independent inquiry into COVID, in the origins of COVID, was misguided or artless or, you know, ill-prepared, whatever. These are literally, these criticisms are footnotes to footnotes. They are not trivial, I mean, that's reasonable, but the real point about that episode was the overreaction from Beijing. I mean, if you think about it, if Morrison and Payne's call for an independent inquiry had been met with either no response, it wouldn't have, it would have sunk without trace. It would not have been reported anywhere, you know, maybe, you know, where it was first added on the Insiders program. If Beijing had said, well, we've noted that request and we certainly expect the World Health Organization to conduct an inquiry and we'll cooperate with it, it would have, you know, maybe got onto page three. What made it a story and an issue was the wild overreaction. And the sanctions, the trade sanctions, which is the best way to describe them, which followed, which of course were building on ones that had previously been imposed, have only served to strengthen resolve in Australia, to make public opinion in Australia more adverse to China than it was before. And of course, because our economy has continued to progress, notwithstanding the pandemic, has only served to remind Australian businesses they shouldn't have all their eggs in the China basket. So at some point, this utterly counterproductive foreign policy is going to have to be addressed. But given the nature of the Chinese government and the authoritarian system on which President Xi presides, that's likely to take a very long time. So our assumption should be to, excuse the cricketing metaphor, we just have to play a straight bat, stay at the wicket, not back down. It's the worst possible thing we can do. Be measured and careful in our language and look forward to a time when rationality or common sense may prevail. There have been episodes like this before. I mean, indeed, those of you that remember the speech I gave at the University of New South Wales in August, not long before I was deposed, was one which was, had no, there was literally nothing about it in substantive terms that was at odds with anything I'd said or done, but it was a very warm speech about Chinese and Australian collaboration and cooperation. And that was part of an easing of the tensions. Now, obviously my role in that came to an end because I was no longer PM. But ultimately, we've got to make sure that we don't do anything gratuitously, that's the key word, to inhibit the opportunities for an elegant dismount or an exit ramp by Beijing. Because they're the ones that have, they've gone out onto the limb of this antagonism further than anyone else. Finally, one point about boundaries of trust. All of us in our relationships trust some people more than others. You know, there are things you would tell your wife or your husband that you wouldn't tell anyone else.  We have to recognise that in our relations with China, and I think we just have to be very open and clear-eyed about this, there are some areas where we do not, will not collaborate. There are some areas where they will not allow Chinese-controlled companies to invest. Okay, some areas of technology which we won't want to have in our telecoms network, for example. And every country makes those decisions, as I was saying earlier, every country does. But the range for cooperation, climate change, I know Peter has written about this, the opportunity for cooperation in climate change and, you know, whether it's pumped hydro or solar or wind or whatever, those are massive opportunities there as there are in many others. So that the area, the scale of the opportunities for continued cooperation and engagement vastly exceeds the areas where we would put a boundary of trust and say, no, we'll just deal with the people we are closer to. So I think in that sense, perhaps the best thing we should all be doing here, whether we can influence the point of view in Beijing as another, is to focus on the positive, the glass half full, rather than the, you know, frankly, much less than the glass, half of the glass that is empty. So thank you very much, and Peter, congratulations on your book. It's an outstanding contribution. Now, Peter, right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thanks. Thank you. Terrific. Thank you very much, Malcolm, and we're pleased to have a relation of trust with you. So thank you for launching Peter's book. We'll hear more from Mr Turnbull in a minute, but first of all, let me just invite Peter Hatcher to respond. Peter is the political and international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. He's had a very distinguished career as a foreign correspondent, a political reporter, a columnist, and the author of many well-reviewed books. The media has changed a lot since Peter first joined the Institute as a non-resident fellow, but the importance of Peter's columns hasn't changed. They still drop with an almighty clang and thud. There is a lot of chatter and background noise in the current media environment, but a Hatcher column can still penetrate it, and of course, that applies even more so for a Hatcher book.  Peter. Thank you. Thanks for that very flattering introduction, Michael. I'd prefer that my columns hit with a thud than a clang. I'd rather be a thudder than a clanger, but we all have the occasional professional clangers. Thank you, everybody, for coming, Malcolm. And thank you so much for launching the book with that generous endorsement. I think publishing companies first wish is that a book launch creates news.  Your point, Malcolm, about the Beijing's instrumental use of confected anger or what the cyanologist Jeremy Barmay describes as performative anger is, of course, a very good one and absolutely correct. I do discuss that in the book, but I also do a mea culpa because at some points I was responsible for falling unwittingly into the same trap and describing, I was embarrassed to discover, in a column of mine and a headline reflecting in a column about how China will be angry or something to that effect. So I fell into the trap, too. It's a very easy one to fall into. The realm of ideology, ideas, propaganda, and language is what Xi Jinping calls the primary battleground, the primary battlefield. That's his word, battlefield, not mine. And so if that's where our great rival perceives the basic battleground, we have to be aware of that and treat it pretty seriously as well. I want to pay tribute. You might expect this from me, but I want to pay tribute to the brilliance of Xi Jinping, the dictator of modern China. The brilliance, I think there's no other word for it of his strategy to take territories in the South China Sea that were claimed by his neighbors, to take those territories in the face of a ruling against him from the International Court in the Hague, to take them decisively, to build military bases on them, and to do it without firing a shot was nothing short of brilliant. And they are today heavily armed and equipped Chinese military garrisons, military bases, in the South China Sea.  And of course, because what Beijing was using primarily or initially were fishing boats, it would have looked like the US using its navy against civilians, which would have been a shocking act and a propaganda victory for China. So it was absolutely brilliant. And the key point of the brilliance is this. The vanguard of that strategy was an apparent civilian economic activity. It was fishing. First went the fishing boats. Some of them were real fishing boats. Some of them were Chinese militia, pretending to be fishermen. They were followed by state fisheries administration boats. They were followed by coast guard boats. And finally, the Chinese navy, each in an increasing intensity of intimidatory power. So the economic activity at the forefront, the fishing, was the Trojan horse for the assertion of coercive state power that came behind. When Mahatma Gandhi launched his campaign or was going to launch his campaign to get the British Empire out of India, he said this, the British did not take India. We gave it to them. By which he meant that the first wave of the British takeover of what became its colony of India came in the form of traders and investors. It wasn't the British army. The traders and investors in the form of the East India Company. Again, it was the economic activity, legitimate civilian-based economic activity was the forerunner of coercive state power to follow. Countries don't generally expect that a trader and investor, apparently in the private sector, represents ultimately the assertion of another country's power and coercive power over you. It was Sun Tzu, of course, who said to win without fighting is the ultimate strategy. Australia was equally gulled into accepting the Trojan horse of Chinese commercial activity, thinking it was no more than that. But of course, we've discovered, to our surprise, shock and cost, that it was actually the forerunner of coercive state power. Malcolm Turnbull, as Prime Minister and the government you led, should get the credit for being the first Australian government to recognise that, to stand up, to defend Australia's sovereignty, and the Huawei decision was that decision. What appeared to be a commercial actor simply investing in Australian infrastructure was in fact a Trojan horse for the assertion of Chinese state power to potentially switch off Australia's central nervous system, which we're going to be relying on for at least a generation. If you doubt the primary priority that Beijing puts on investment and commercial activity as its essential mascot forerunner of its imperial outreach, then all you have to do is look at that list of 14 demands. Malcolm mentioned the list of demands that the Chinese Embassy presented to an Australian journalist with the view of getting it published last year. What's the number one demand on the list of Chinese... Chinese government's 14 demands against Australia? Number one is that Australia accept China's foreign investment, not try to ban or limit Chinese foreign investment into Australia. That's number one. It's about the investment. Number two is that Australia revoked the Huawei ban that Malcolm's government put in place. So it's all about the use of investment and economic activity as the primary mover, the friendly forerunner of coercive state power.  The Economist magazine a couple of weeks ago described Australia as unlucky, playing on the lucky country label that Australia's lived with since 1964. The Economist magazine said Australia was unlucky because it was subject to heavy trade sanctions from Beijing. And, well, we are subject to heavy trade sanctions from Beijing, but I wouldn't suggest that we're unlucky at all. I would suggest that luck is still with us. First, we woke up. Some countries have not, and some countries have been subdued before they woke up. Second, Australia was very fortunate that it has and had a principled opposition so that when the Turnbull government made its proposals on legislation against foreign interference and espionage, Labor supported those bills wholeheartedly. When the Turnbull government banned Huawei, Labor supported that. On every substantive decision that the coalition government has made to defend Australia's interest, Labor has been strongly principled and stood with it in defence of the national interest. And I'd point out that Penny Wong, when she conducted the Canberra launch of my book a couple of weeks ago, she launched a stinging attack on the Morrison government's rhetoric on China, but she did not attack any of its substantive policy decisions. Labor remains supportive and committed in the national interest. Australia is also lucky because we have some very high-priced rocks that the Chinese government, the Chinese steel industry, is very happy to buy from us at outrageously high prices of $230 a tonne and more. That's not going to last. It's a temporary way that Australia can overcome the effects of the trade sanctions that China is imposing at the same time. But it means that at the macro level, the Australian economy is feeling no pain from the Chinese trade sanctions. Some of the individual companies and industries, it's a different story, but at the macro level, Australia is essentially having a pain-free experience at the hands of China's sanctions. Two more reasons we're lucky. We're lucky we got Biden as president and not Trump. Biden is taking a much more unified position with US allies than Trump was capable of. And finally, we're lucky because China's overreach and aggression has alerted the whole world to its true character and its intent. From here on, Australia is going to have difficulty doing what it needs to do because for a democracy, to do the things that Australia's going to have to do now for a long time are inherently difficult. We're going to have to be sober, vigilant and competent. And democratic systems aren't given really to those priorities. We're going to have to be prepared to do it for a long time because, to quote Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping talking to his own party has said that the, to consolidate the victory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which is his catchphrase, will take quote dozens of generations, dozens of generations, not talking about years, talking about dozens, we are talking about centuries. So we're going to have to be steadfast and focused in a way that in Australia's experience we've never had to, never had to be. We're going to have to be sober on protecting one of our core interests here, which is the Chinese Australian community. There are 1.3 million Chinese Australians. They're a key asset in our country, a key part of our community. And they are also the first target of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front work department, as it tries to turn them against the Australian national interest in favour of Beijing's. That community not only needs protection, it also needs our full embrace and warmth into the Australian community and the Australian family for however long this takes. And we're going to have to be sober so that we don't get carried away and some nut jobs turn up politically and start in trying to engage racism as a political tool. We're going to have to remain really sober and make sure that we do not allow that to overtake any of our reactions or any of our politics. We're going to have to be vigilant and competent as well. We're going to have to protect our democracy and it's only when our democracy has been properly, and Michael's giving me a time signal here so I'm going to wrap up, don't worry. It's only when we've properly defended our democratic institutions that we'll be able then to confidently go forward and engage with China once we have protected our democratic institutions with some no-regrets moves. For example, we need a federal ICAC. We need federal political donations laws reformed. We need all new MPs and senators to be subject to a security check which high-level public servants have to get and there's no reason politicians shouldn't. And Michael, I'm going to test your patience just for another one minute because I'm going to finish by reading to you some of my few sentences from the acknowledgements that I've written in the book. Speaking and writing honestly about the China of Xi Jinping is not risk-free. I want to thank each member of my family for their support and fortitude in this cause. My greatest debt in all my work is to my chief collaborator, my secret weapon, my wife, Mindana. And I also want to thank... There are some members of the working news media here today. I don't count myself as working media. But I want to pay tribute to the frontline news reporters in Australia's media and worldwide who do the daily work of informing all of us about the realities of our nation and our world. Without their work, our freedoms will inevitably be drowned by deceit, ignorance and public relations. The journalists and writers who bear the greatest risks are the ones closest to Xi Jinping's grasp. China is the world's worst jailer of journalists according to the Committee to Protect Journalists 2020 report. At the time of writing, and today still, two Australian writers are in detention in China's system of political justice. The blogger Yang Hengjun was detained in 2019 and broadcaster Cheng Lei in 2020. I acknowledge their suffering, a reminder of George Orwell's insight in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Very nicely put. And I'm glad you took the extra minute, in particular, to thank Mindana, because all the authors in the room know how much of a burden one's partner takes on, and this is an achievement for both of you. So congratulations. The only reason I wanted to keep moving was that I know the audience always loves the Q&A. We have an opportunity now, so I might ask Mr Turnbull and Peter Harcher and Alex to join me on stage.  Alex will be here, and Peter on the other end. Let me just introduce briefly Alex Oliver. Alex is one of my longstanding colleagues, a highly respected researcher on issues of diplomacy and public opinion. As research director, she coordinates all of our research output, and she's a great colleague and friend of mine. So Alex Oliver, over to you. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, Peter, for giving this opportunity to talk about the most important relationship of a generation, I think, and thank you, Malcolm, for joining us. I'm going to ask the first question, if you don't mind, before I hand it over to you, the audience, because I'm intrigued when I read the book and I've read most of it in the three days since I've received my very precious copy. In the introduction, Peter, you talk about elite capture, and you say that Australia has become drunk on the Egyptian blue lotus. It's a new flower, I don't know anything about, from the Odysseus legend. And yet you say that Australia has done nothing to change its posture, which closely resembles a cow-tow and it remains willfully ignorant. And that surprised me, because much of the debate in the past few years, and particularly since the foreign influence and interference legislation, which Mr Turnbull's government pushed through now three, four years ago, nearly, has been about, you know, Australia might have been stupefied by imbibing this lotus, but that it's gone from there to being the head of the pack, the canary in the coal mine, the tip of the spear, you know, the various metaphors that you use. So what were you referring to when you talked about that Australia remaining in a cow-towel? Is that directed at corporate Australia? Who are you directing that comment to? Partly, yes. It is. Should I take 30 seconds to explain the lotus reference? Sure. So in the legend, Odysseus, after the Trojan Wars, on his way home, his ships get blown onto the land of the lotus eaters, and he sends a party ashore to look for water and food, and they don't come back.  So eventually, Odysseus follows his men, finds them in a stupa, very happily addicted to the lotus flower, and he has to drag them away from the addictive power of the lotus to remind them of who they are, what their mission is, and to get them back on the boat. And they cry and weep. They don't want to be dragged away from their sweet addiction, and he has to lash them to the benches on his boat to prevent them from trying to escape back into the land of the lotus eaters, and then they go on their way. Of course, after the lotus eaters, their next encounter is the Cyclops, but that's a different story. So yes, Australian politicians, again, credit to Malcolm and leaders before Malcolm, knew some of the threats and some of the actions that were going on in the Australian system, some of them, many of them, not obvious to the naked eye, and yet tolerated them. There was, in fact, Peter Dutton set himself in an interview for the book, where he said, as the minister, in charge of both ASIO and Australian Federal Police, he said those two agencies were taking, quote, a passive, unquote, position on Chinese interference and espionage in Australia until he replaced the heads of those two agencies and gave them a new tasking, a new briefing. So there you have the minister responsible for the agency saying they had been passive, but it was the reason that the Australian government, opposition, and society at large was passive was because of the money. There was such a huge economic benefit to Australia. So yes, you're absolutely right, Alex. Since then, you know, first the Turnbull government, but followed up by the Morrison government, has acted to defend Australia's interests, even where that was to bring down sanctions on Australia in response. Public opinion, I mean, China's apologists in Australia, one by one have fallen silent. The people who, especially the big prominent voices that were most likely and most frequently defending the Chinese government interests in Australia, and it's no secret to anybody that Paul Keating was foremost among them, Bob Carr was probably second, have fallen silent in their justifications. So a lot has changed, but Alex, yes, I was thinking about the industries that even though some of them have now learned a painful lesson about trade diversification, privately many of many business executives and managers still say the moment we get a chance we'll be back into China, having learned not very much. Can I just add something to that? Please. I don't think Peter Dutton's characterization of the heads of ASIO and the AFP, which was obviously Duncan Lewis and Andrew Colvin, I don't think that's fair. Particularly, I mean, it's obviously very much, espionage is very much, ASIO's, you know, Bailey work, particularly, but Lewis was actually very forward, you know, he was never alarmist, but he certainly was very upfront and I think appropriately aware of the espionage and foreign influence operations and alerted us to quite a bit of it. So I just, you know, I think, I just, I don't agree with that. To be honest, they only came into home affairs after home affairs were set up. So I, you know, I'm in a much better position to speak about both those agencies on that issue, frankly, than Peter was. I just wanted to, I wanted to defend those to very imminent Australian public servants. We'll have to let you take that up with Peter. Sure. The National Security Establishment is certainly alert to the issues now. I'm going to throw it open to the floor. We've got many people I know who want to ask questions. So when the microphone comes to you, please identify yourself, but of course we know many of you and please keep your comment to a question so we can get through as many as we can in 15 minutes. Paul, Kelly. My question is to Malcolm and I'm happy if Peter wants to make a contribution to it. So there are two questions, Malcolm. The first is when your government was taking these path-breaking decisions about China, the foreign interference laws, and then the Huawei decision, to what extent did you anticipate the reaction from China? So looking back, would you say that you expected retaliation of this extent or are you surprised at the extent of retaliation that Australia received from China? So that's the first question. The second question is, given that we anticipate that this is going to be a long drawn-out process with China, is it correct to say that the Australian public and the Australian business community has got to accept that there will be a greater price to pay for Australians, that there will be a greater degree of punishment imposed on this country as a result of these tensions and as a result of China's actions? And if that's the case, should the Australian government be better preparing the Australian public for that situation? Well, the first question was, was I surprised by the reaction? I was surprised by the ferocity of the reaction to the foreign interference and foreign influence legislation.  Mind you, there were some people in the Labor Party who echoed that, Christina Keneally at the time, during the Benelong Baye election.  So there, as is often the case in politics, a lot of things happening at the same time which tend to defeat on each other. But the, you know, as I said at the time and as I said to Xi Jinping directly, the proposition that anyone who's grandchild and or at least two of them call him year year being anti-Chinese or racist is just ludicrous, utterly ludicrous. And I think that was an example of the sort of, I don't think anyone in Australia thinks I'm a racist, right? You know, that's, I mean, I've been ridiculed for promoting multiculturalism and sometimes for overdoing it or criticised for that. But it was literally as though they decided, you know, they threw everything, the kitchen sink, and then, you know, dug up some of the plumbing below the floor to throw at us. It was just, it was bonkers, I thought, way over the top. So yes, I was surprised by that. Do I think trade is going to be more, yeah, it is. Paul, I think we've got to recognise we're in this for the long haul. But, you know, ultimately, ultimately I think a degree of modus vivendi will settle down because, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, Chinese steel mills are paying more for metallurgical coal now as a result of the ban on Australian metallurgical coal than they otherwise would be. They're not going to be happy about that for too long. There, and, you know, there's very good quality Australian produce, wine, beef, you know, in particular, that they're not getting, which they like. So, you know, it's, it, and has it resulted in Australia being more compliant? No, quite the contrary, you know, it's gone the other way. So, you know, this is the, the fundamental point is, this pressure play to make Australia more compliant has failed. It has been counterproductive. Now, the question is, when will that, that reality be matched by a change in strategy? That's the question we don't have an answer to. Everyone seems to assume, not for a long time. Just remember this, you know, and I just use this as a counterpoint. One of the most counterproductive long-standing foreign policies in the world, I would think, is the American embargo on Cuba. The only, you know, which of course was maintained for entirely domestic political purposes in the United States, as everyone understands, because of the Cuban expatriate population, but has enabled, essentially enabled, that communist regime to stay in power for all that time. So, you know, it's, countries big, great powers in particular are perfectly capable of having self-defeating counterproductive foreign policies for a long time. But, you know, at the end of the day, there are things that they buy from Australia, particularly I know, that they can't buy anywhere else, at least for the time being. Have we got, while you're thinking about the next question, I'm going to ask one of my own. The question which flows from that one of Paul's is that, you know, if you were in government now, Mr Turnbull, is there anything that you would do differently from the way this government is managing China policy to Paul's question about getting the public and business to accept that there will be high prices to pay? Is the price that we're paying now too high? Is it something we could have done differently? Well, I mean, look, the price, truthfully, there are the impact on those sectors that have been subject to the sanctions, to feel if that's the generic term, has been real. But it's not one that, you know, that Australian business is adaptive, you know? The barley producers have sold their barleys everywhere else. Have you noticed that Australian beef is cheaper at the butcher shop lately? Emergency? No. So, you know, the beef producers will, you know, people will adapt. I think it is going to remind all of us not to put all our eggs in one basket, which, you know, everyone says, you know, everyone's grandmother told them to do that and we generally forget it, but it's very wise. So I think overly concentrating on the Chinese market has been a mistake. It's a point I make in my book, you know, that we got, and one of the reasons I had such a focus on India and ASEAN is that we became mesmerised by China to the exclusion of the rest of the region. You know, and that was part of the theme of the Shangri-La speech I gave, you know, some time ago, which was, you know, apparently well-reviewed at the time or thought of as being an important speech, but that was really the message that we've got to... We cannot afford to look at the world as just one of hub and spokes. We've got to look at it as more of a mesh and look at our region and make sure that we are closely engaged with all of the countries in our region and not just focus on, you know, Beijing there and Washington there. But, yeah, I mean, it's... Look, you know, there isn't much alternative. We do not want to be, to China, what Finland was to the Soviet Union. So, you know, that's the bottom line. So we are an independent sovereign nation, not yet a republic, but in other words... In every other respect, utterly sovereign and entitled to...  We are entitled to say to other countries, you should respect our sovereignty as much as you want us to respect yours. And that's it. So there's not much to ask, honestly. And the alternative is, again, Peter's become a complete Hellenophile, but the alternative is that you end up jumping from Homer to Thucydides, you know, in that famous million dialogue that I know I've talked about here many times before, you know, with the great punchline, you know, 2,500 years ago or thereabouts, you know, the strong do as they will, but the weak suffer as they must. Well, that's, you know, as a middle power, we're not in favour of that. We've got to maintain the rule of law and we've got to make sure that we aren't bossed around by anybody. The evidence, we're not suffering too badly. Well, no. No, I think that's... I think that's... I think that's right. I think the... Yeah, look, I... I mean, who am I to give Xi Jinping foreign policy advice? Well, I have offered some over the years, but they had no influence at all. But... But the... But he... But really, they've overplayed their hand, I think. So... Now, I've got one, two, three questions here. I might start with you, gentlemen, here on the end. My name's Dean Palme from the Good Food Institute. So, Peter, you talked about the importance of the rhetorical, intellectual battlefield to the CCP. And it seems like one area that Australia is kind of losing that due to our own focus is on climate change. And just to focus that to one area, looking at the Pacific and from a defense perspective, we're really worried about Chinese interests in bases, fishing operations in the Pacific. And our domestic policy on climate change is really causing us damage there and our ability to influence those governments. So I was wondering how important you think that is more generally, because that influences economics as well. And what we need to do in that space in the near future. Well, I'm happy to have a word, but I think the real expert on that is sitting next to me. But broadly, you know, in a relationship that is now where all the focus is on our differences between Canberra and Beijing, we have to get to a point where we can also talk about areas of cooperation. Climate change is the primary one and the most obvious one. But there are others, and transnational crime is another example. We have to be able to find areas of cooperation with Beijing, not only in the interest of those issues themselves, but also to re-establish a dialogue and a modus vivendi with a country which is going to be in our region forever, as we are. We have to figure out a way to have a cooperative relationship as well as being able to stand our ground on red line issues. So climate change, Australia's policy has to be more active, of course, and not only in the Beijing account, but also, as you say, we've got to be able to keep our interests and engagement and friendship in the South Pacific, where the Chinese Communist Party is and will be making inroads, and we have to be particularly vigilant there. But the expert on the subject is Malcolm Turnbull. Well, thank you. Well, that's very kind. That's very flattering. These are honeyed words. But, so you've used all of them up for a long time. For the month, I think. Look. Well, that's because you're a former Prime Minister. You're a former Prime Minister, that's right. Look, yeah, there's a lot of potential for further collaboration between Australia and China on climate. You know, one of the great partnerships, really, one of the greatest transnational, international partnerships on climate, of course, is between the technology developed by Martin Green and his team at the University of New South Wales, photovoltaic cells, the technology, the PERC technology, more particularly, which was industrialized by his students, principally or initially, Sherjong Ren, in China. And, of course, that's why we have solar panels that are A, so as efficient as they are, and B, as cheap as they are, because of the massive economies of scale. So that's a great, that's a great China-Australia story. If you want to talk about a China-Australia partnership that has literally changed the world and may well save the world, it's that story of solar energy, solar power. So, that's one thing. In the Pacific, look, our position on climate is a big negative in the Pacific. I mean, I've been, obviously, I've been to Pacific Island forums. I've, you know, used to know most of the leaders in the Pacific, it's a bad look. I mean, we are more out of step on climate with the rest of the world, and in particular, our closest friends and allies, than we've ever been on any big international issue. You know, it's embarrassing.  But, that is a big negative in the Pacific. Having said that, you can be creative. So, at one point, there was, Huawei was a bit of a history to this, but Huawei were going to build a fiber-optic cable to link the Solomons, you know, to the internet. And we, you know, I pre-empted that, basically with the coral cable, which some of you be familiar with, which we've paid for with aid money, which is perfectly legitimate. And we built a, you know, fiber-optic cable that runs from Australia to the Solomons and PNG, and, you know, we're doing other things supportive of that and the Solomons. I mean, so, the reality is, we've just got to get in, and where we see developments that are not that we think could be adverse to our interests or adverse to maintaining the sovereignty of the South Pacific, then we should be prepared to step up and that will involve writing a check. I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave it there because we've run out of time. We'd like to finish on time. Sorry for those of you who wanted to ask questions. But you could just do a couple more. It's only quarter to two. Any other information from the boss here? Yeah. Okay, I'll take one from Hamish then. You've written and spoken a fair bit about the role of Maurice Payne... Sorry. You've written and spoken a fair bit about the role of Maurice Payne and maybe you'll address this in the book. I haven't got a copy of it yet. I'm interested to know from both of you who, and this might be multiple people, who is driving Australia's policy towards China currently? Prime Minister, is it bureaucrats? Could you offer a perspective on this? Well, I'd defer to Malcolm on it, except to make the prefatory comment that Australia has no China strategy. Australia has no China plan. The federal government has driven, you know, in a reactive, reflexive sort of mode where it takes ad hoc actions as the agenda and the urgency of the day seems to suggest. It's given the scale of the problem and the interest at stake, it's pretty poor. I think it's a pretty poor effort and it should be a priority. But exactly who and how that sort of ad hoc dog's breakfast of a policy approach is created, that I give you, Malcolm Turner? Yeah, that's not true. Certainly my government had a very considered China strategy. It was, you know, the subject of discussion, not at every NSC meeting, but probably every other NSC meeting at least. And it basically is one of seeking to constructively engage, to, you know, defend our national interests and our values, defend the maintenance of the rule of law in the region. And yeah, I mean, it's like it's an effort to navigate, you know, to pursue our agenda, recognising that we are dealing with a counterparty that is often, you know, pretty aggressive, you know, difficult, belligerent, what have you to pick your adjective to deal with. And the policy has absolutely been to try to turn down the volume where we can and not get into a shouting match. Now, there's a very good example, if I may say so, and Peter acknowledges this in the book. The decision about Huawei was taken, was actually formally taken, some weeks before it was announced. And we planned a very, very careful announcement strategy. Now, as it happened, the announcement ended up being in the week I was, you know, overthrown as Prime Minister, so that was entirely a coincidence.  We gave the Chinese and Beijing a head up. We gave Huawei a heads up. ZTE a heads up. We gave everyone that had an interest, a heads up, well in advance, so there were no, you know, because surprises are the things that cause people to react unpredictably sometimes. So it was absolutely no surprises. It was agreed that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister would not say anything about it at the time of the announcement. Obviously, we knew we'd be called upon to say something in the future, but the announcement was literally to be a press release from the Home Affairs Minister and the Communications Minister. Now, because Dutton had resigned, that turned out, the Home Affairs Minister turned out to be SCOMO in an acting capacity. But all the press releases, all of it was written, you know, ten days before. So it was all carefully orchestrated. And what was the reason for that? It was the reason because we wanted to make the right substantive decision. We obviously had to communicate it, but we didn't want to raise any hackles, angst, whatever. We wanted to give Beijing the opportunity to use another cricketing metaphor to let that ball, you know, go through to the keeper. You know, we wanted to give them the opportunity to not overreact. And so that's the...  I don't, you know, publish my discussions with the Prime Minister but my esteemed successor, but I can assure you that the government's position, at least officially, is the same approach. Now, there have been some outbreaks of colourful rhetoric from some individuals in the government. They are not helpful, right? So ask yourself, who is this benefit? And if you start talking in a belligerent way about foreign policy, particularly with China, in order to gratify elements of the media or your political constituency here, then you may well be falling into the same mistake that the Global Times, no doubt, falls into in China, where some of its colourful rhetoric, which clearly is counterproductive from a policy point of view, is designed to gratify public opinion back in China. So, you know, we have to be really smart about it and we have to recognise that, you know, China will seek to bully us and pressure us in a way that it wouldn't the United States. I mean, you think about it. There's a complete freeze on ministerial contacts, right? We've been in the freezer for, I don't know, maybe over a year now. The Americans, both Trump and Biden, have said the most hair-raising things about China. Do you reckon any American secretary of state, any American official that wants to pick up the phone and talk to his or her counterpart in Beijing won't have someone at the other end of the line? Of course. It's totally different. It gets back to that point about the million dialogue. That's the problem. Strong doers, they will, and the weak suffer as they must. It's like I remember one representative of a great power saying to a New Zealand representative, New Zealand minister many years ago at a conference, he said, he said, you are just a little country. We don't care what you think. Now, I won't say who those people were. You see, I'm uncharacteristically discreet today, but that's the thing. That's the thing that we've got to fight again.  Alex may make a very brief point in my own defence. I think, Malcolm, what you've described as a set of principles and an anecdote rather than a strategy, I'm yet to see any evidence from this government of a cogent China strategy, and the principles that you've outlaid, I'm sure this government is still standing by, but the fact that you were able to point to the careful announcement of the Huawei ban in stark contrast, for example, to the way that Morrison and Payne blurted out their request for an inquiry into COVID indicates an inconsistency behind which lies, therefore, no strategy. Well, I think you could say there is a strategy, but its execution is imperfect from time to time. Execution, not strategy, exactly. Well, you have been the master of discretion, Mr Turnbull, today. I'm normally the sole of indiscretion. You're more fun when you like it. We've given an absolute treat, so thank you to the Prime Minister who got us off the lotus habit, and to Peter Hart, who warns us that relapse isn't an option. You've given us some real gems. China and Australia are saving the world together. We saw the PV, I like that one. That's true. And Beijing being Trumpy, there's plenty of good expressions and words through there. Thank you very much to both of you. Congratulations, Peter, on an excellent book. Congratulations.


Hey, folks, thanks for tuning in. In this short video, I want to show folks how they can share a PowerPoint presentation over Zoom so that way they can deliver a lecture while students watch on on PowerPoint. So today we'll start by talking a little bit about how to share a screen on Zoom and then how you would work through a PowerPoint to give a lecture. Let's go ahead and get to it. So the first thing that you want to do is to go ahead and set up your Zoom meeting. There's a bunch of different ways to do that. It can be as complicated as setting it up in Canvas with the confer now program or as easy as just clicking new meeting here or scheduling a meeting. I assume that most folks will schedule directly from the app, but again whatever your process is should be fine. For the sake of this presentation, I'm just going to go ahead and create a quick meeting just by clicking new meeting going into my personal one, and so hypothetically I would have created this and sent it out and shared it with my class. So at this point I now have a live Zoom session. I have mindset up to do a couple things such as record them into the cloud automatically. However, all of those options are also available on the bar down in the bottom of the screen. So the first thing that you want to do if you're going to live broadcast a lecture with a PowerPoint presentation is to share your screen. Now it may look slightly different on your computer because I am on a computer that has two monitors and so when I click the share button it brings up all of the programs that I have open as well as the two screens that I'm connected on. I find the best thing to do is just to share the screen that you plan to project your presentation from. So in the case of me that is screen number two. So I'm going to go ahead and click it and then I'm going to press the share button here. Now Zoom is sharing my entire screen and if any students were logged into the session and were watching they would be able to to see it. Now there's a couple things that you're going to want to do to make sure you're set up before you start giving your presentation. The first thing of which is of course to go ahead and unmute this self this way that your students are able to hear you. If the microphone looks like mine does here and you can see that the audio level is fluctuating that means that I'm broadcasting audio. Also if possible it makes sense to go ahead and turn on your camera since I'm currently using my camera to record this session I can't do that but starting video is as simple as clicking on this link and then it should go ahead and broadcast. If you're having problems with your video you can always select this little drop down arrow here and see if you have a different camera incorrectly selected but it should be the webcam that's either embedded in your laptop or that's plugged into your computer. If you have those two things ready to go you're ready to go ahead and start presenting your PowerPoint presentation. This is pretty simple go ahead and open up the PowerPoint file that you want to present and put it in presentation mode just like you would if you were in your class. At this point the students will be able to see both the slide that you're sharing on your screen as well as your video which means that basically you're able to go ahead and start presenting your presentation. Now there are a couple limitations that come with this. One if you only have one monitor it's sometimes difficult to see all your students faces it will usually show up in a bar along the left when you have students logged in. Since I have two monitors what I usually do is open up the gallery view over on my second monitor that way I can kind of observe my class while I'm giving the presentation but if you're dealing with limitations of only having the one screen on your computer or laptop just kind of go with it but make sure to check in with your students every once in a while and instruct them if they have questions that they can unmute themselves by holding down the space bar to go ahead and interrupt you and ask those questions or they can post questions in the chat and you can go ahead and see those by having the chat window open. One of the nice things is that Zoom tends to hide parts of itself so what I usually do as a best practice is just kind of leave the chat window open and off to the side. That way if a student has questions I can kind of connect back to it and answer their questions as they go but for the most part then if you're used to presenting with PowerPoint it's pretty easy to bring up your information talk a little bit about your information and continue through as you were delivering your lecture.  So I know a lot of this can be difficult especially as if you're one of your first time using Zoom do know that it gets a little bit easier to manage over time you get a little bit used to it and I find that most folks after delivering a couple lectures on Zoom sharing their screen like this are pretty comfortable with it and can start to kind of restore some of that class interaction and whatnot. When you are done presenting your present your PowerPoint if you want to go back to just the gallery view and being able to see all your students just click the little stop share button right right here and that'll bring things back to normal so that you're able to see your class and ask questions. Also know that it's fine to bounce back and forth in it if you want to exit the PowerPoint and have a discussion about a prompt or do a small activity with your class it's easy enough to do that way and at any point in time you can always just re-click the share button bring it back up and dive back into your PowerPoint presentation. Well that's all I got for today thanks for watching this video and as always if you have questions feel free to throw them in the comments and I will try to answer them as quick as I can. Alright thanks for watching everybody.


AI is becoming part of our world, whether we like it or not. It's been around in various forms for a long time, but now the takeover of AI seems to be inevitable. Just in these past few years, there has been a lot of work being done on AI, whether it's with art, whether it's with mimicking people's voices and faces, or whether it's just basic stuff, like assistance on your phone, like Siri and stuff like that. But as we continue into the 2020s, there has been more and more AI that has been coming out and that's been kind of taking over in a sense. And I wanted to talk about it a little bit today. Overall, I'll make sort of a blanket statement that I don't like AI. There are some things that include AI that I do like, I guess. Like I said, personal assistance, like Siri, Alexa.  It's convenient, it's nice. It is a luxury of the modern age. But where AI starts to cross the line for me specifically is with art. At first glance, when you're just goofing around with it, it can be kind of fun being like, okay, I typed this thing into the computer, it spits out an image. And a while ago, it was harmless because you could very easily tell the difference between real art or a real photograph of somebody and AI-based things. One of the first examples of that sort of like beginner art AI that I think of was a website called pics2pics. If you guys remember that, I think I might have even done a video on it. I did, six years ago. This was the program. You would draw something in the box over on the left. It would spit out a realistic image on the right using AI. And as you can see, the results were not believable if you were to say that this was a real photograph or like this is some art that I made. It's like, okay, this very obviously looks AI-generated. All of the textures are all over the place. So you can see that it's taking things from XYZ place. And it's very easy, in my opinion, at least, to tell that this is AI-generated art. It was harmless basically.  Okay, but now as the years have gone by, the specifically the AI-generated art programs have gotten so, so, so much better. Back in 2021, OpenAI released Dolly, Dolly. They're currently working on Dolly 2. Another program that a lot of people have used as well is called Mid Journey. All you do is you type in a certain thing. You would type in 3D render of a cute tropical fish in an aquarium on a dark blue background digital art. Spits out something like this. This you can kind of still tell a little bit that it is AI. But the stuff that kind of like freaks me out, honestly, is the actual like, okay, this looks like art. Like this kind of thing. A Van Gogh style painting of an American football player. Not only can you say, okay, like here in oil painting, you can say these are the specific attributes that I want this to have. This is a sketch, hand-drawn sketch. But you can even mimic specific artist styles, which I think is really kind of weird. And again, these programs have just gotten better and better and better. Like this monkey. That, like this, this looks real. All of the lighting and the reflections you can even see like in the eyes, the light source is coming from over here. You can see the highlights, but it's really, really, really well done. I think that if you're using it for personal reasons, I don't really know what I would define as personal reasons. Where it starts to draw the line is like, it's getting so good that we are having a hard time differentiating between AI and real art created by real people. And this is going to be a huge, huge problem. I think that this is specifically going to be a huge problem for artists who do concept art or storyboard artists, anybody like that. Because from a big company standpoint, why would I pay this person a salary to create conceptual things for me when I can just type in what I want into something like Dolly or Mid Journey or whatever. And it'll give me basically concept art for basically free in seconds. Not even minutes, in seconds. So that's something that I get really scared about is people like that. And obviously there have been so many layoffs in the gaming industry, in the entertainment industry. While not all of those have been because of like AI and stuff like that, but I think that companies are going to start playing people off and getting rid of certain positions because it's like, okay, AI can just do this faster and better than you can. And it's very, very scary. Little slide track from like art, art as in like paintings drawing, stuff like that. We saw in these last months in Hollywood with the writer strike. A large part of that was because of AI as well. Writers are worried that producers are just going to go to something like chat GPT, give it a basic outline of what they want and then they can get sort of like a basic pilot script. Like you can use chat GPT in that way. Write me a pilot script about a boy who wants to be a horse. Title, hoof dreams. It's giving me a whole thing. And while what it's writing is probably not perfect, it's something that people can work off of without paying actual writers. I've decided I want to be a horse. A horse? That's a unique dream, son. I'm serious. Writers are strong, fast and free. That's not true. In a video with me slamming AI, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I shouldn't be going on chat GPT and being like, wow, this is entertaining.  Chat GPT, I don't like you. I believe we talked about this on the episode that we did with Aaron Hansen on the Brain League podcast. Give a listen, link in the description. Go listen to the podcast. Me and Sean do it every Wednesday. I think we talked about it there. If not, I talked to Aaron about this a different time where Aaron one just doesn't AI-generated art, but specifically, he is an artist. And he's talked about how some people, AI tech bros, are slamming people on Twitter when it's like, oh, this piece of art that I like, this is really cool. I like that a lot. And then somebody swings around and it's like, actually, that was made by AI. Ha ha, I got you.  And it's like, well, how can you say that? You just said that you like the thing, but now that you've learned that it's made by AI, you just don't like it anymore? That just makes sense. And Aaron has made a very good argument in saying that it's not necessarily the art itself. It's that with art, it's fair to have the preference of I want it to be made by a real person. I wholeheartedly agree with Aaron on that. Like, I think that it's so valid to be like, oh, I want art to be made by another person and not by a robot. But I think if something is made by AI, then there's just like no soul in it, you know, literally. And so I think that that inherently kind of takes the meaning out of the thing. This is kind of a weird analogy, but imagine that somebody gave you a meal.  And that person was like, hey, I spent all evening cooking you this meal. I made this whole thing. What if instead they just gave it to you and they're like, yeah, I just microwave this real quick? Like, this is kind of a weird and a little bit of a stretch of an analogy. But I think maybe you get what I'm saying where, you know, somebody took their time and effort into creating something to give to someone, i.e. the person viewing the art. And it's inherently less meaningful if it's just kind of spat out by something else. That's what I think, Elise. Beyond scripts and stuff in Hollywood, there's also been a lot of scary things, particularly with acting and also just AI mimicking people in general.  And while it's kind of funny at first, like, wow, we can just have an AI scrub through somebody's videos or all of their back catalog of movies and stuff and just use that voice and train itself to learn that voice and give us a thing that that person actually didn't do. They've been all over the place recently with like SpongeBob and Peter Griffin. Schlat made a really good video on it a little bit ago about talking about AI song covers. And then he did an actual cover because there was an AI cover of my way of Schlat. And then he went ahead and actually did a real cover of my way that wasn't AI. It's funny, but also just a little unsettling. Not only because the person doing the cover isn't actually doing it, but also like beyond covers, you can just have an AI basically say whatever you want with another person's voice and that obviously can be very damaging. And the same thing happens with deep fakes as well. Deep fakes aren't getting better and better every single day. There have been certain deep fakes that people have done that have gone super viral over the internet because people thought that it was a real person doing it when in reality, it was just a body double and they deep faked another person's face on it. Let's talk about your cable ace award. Let's talk about buttered sausage. Talk about buttered sausage, where it comes from, what it does, why is it doing what it's doing? Corridor made this deep fake and now this is four years ago, so it looks a little bit dated, but it's still like pretty good. And obviously this is four years ago, so imagine what they could do now with deep fakes.  So we talked about AI art real quick. We talked very briefly about chat GPT, about deep fakes. This came up on my Twitter today and then Justin, the lovely editor of the channel, or Justin, give yourself a round of applause. Bravo, bravo. Justin actually inspired me to make this video because he was like, you should talk about this new thing from OpenAI called Sora. Sora is an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions. This is getting bleak. All videos on this page were generated directly by Sora without modification. So again, like in the background, like it's a little weird, but the fact that this is all AI generated and it's just made through text prompts is horrifying. The prompt here was just a stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street filled with warm, glowing neon and animated city signage. The fact that it can make something like this with just text instructions completely from scratch, like this, God damn dude, that's, it's such a weird thing because it's incredible and horrifying at the same time. My brain is like, I don't know whether to be more impressed or more terrified.  This in particular scares me for obviously for editors, for VFX artists, like crazy for VFX artists, this looks so good. And not only just like general crew who work on film sets, but also actors as well, other than movies and TV, especially with actors who aren't like A-list celebrities and stuff, a lot of actors get work through commercial work. This kind of looking stuff, this looks like an ad. Like this looks like a weird AT&T ad, the way that it's lit and exposed, the way that things look, it has like a very digital, very clean look. This is so scary. Like this could be like a fashion ad or like a perfume ad or something. And so the fact that it's like, man, this entire section of the entertainment industry, of the film industry could be completely taken over by AI if they wanted to. Just like with Dolly, just like ChadGBT, like I was saying with the script, why would you pay an entire production crew and entire hair and makeup and camera people and actors and sound and then having it edited, having it colored, everything? Why would you pay for that as a big studio rather than type in what you want and get it for free? Like it's so scary, dude. It's so scary and these big corporations are absolutely gonna do that because they're money hungry. And it's like, why would they go through? Like this is fucked. This is so fucked. This looks like a person. Ah, God, that's so scary, dude. Doing an ad like this, I know that this is only, what, the 10, 15 seconds long, something like that. Getting all of these shots like this, if you were to do it for real, if you were to do it practically, especially like, this looks like, obviously it's A.I. generated, so it's not a real thing. But this looks like it would be shot on like this in the salt flats or something like that.  So the fact, oh man, dude, that's so scary. How? Landscape stuff, oh my God. I've just thought about this. Stock footage is fucked. There are so many people that shoot things and then sell them to stock footage or stock image websites. So many commercials, so many movies, so much media has stock footage. You know, if it's like, okay, we have this scene in a city downtown, we need an aerial shot. A lot of the times they won't go and actually like get the shot. They'll just use stock footage and get the rights for it. So the fact that now it's like, oh, we don't need the stock footage, we can just have AI do it. That is horrifying. That is so scary.  Especially for like little kids stuff. You could do the whole thing with AI. You could say, chat GPT, make me a children's movie script about this little monster who his parents leave him on his birthday. And then you can have this animate the whole thing for free and then you can have AI voice stuff.  If it can mimic different celebrities, what's stopping it from just making a new voice? Or they can just say, hey, Camendillas, we want the rights to your voice for this movie. You don't actually have to do anything. We'll have AI do it and we'll pay 300 grand. It's so bleak. And again, it's like, this just looks like a bird.  This is horrifying. Like look at the way that the feathers are moving when it's breathing. The like micro jitters in its eyes with the light. Like it looks so real. I would like to think that people would use this stuff for good, but humans are, you know, shitty. People could use this for very nefarious purposes. People could just write up a prompt of somebody saying something really bad. People could do AI generated porn.  And the fact that it looks so real is horrifying. Let's read this safety thing real quick. We'll be taking several important safety steps ahead of making Sora available and open eyes products. We're working with red teamers. Domain experts in areas like misinformation, hateful content and bias will be adversarily testing the model. We'll also be building tools to help detect misleading content such as detection classifier that can tell when a video was generated by Sora, we can include C2PA metadata in the future if we deploy the model in an open AI product. That's good and all that you can go back and say like, oh actually this was generated by AI. A lot of times at that point it would be too late.  That's great that they can say actually this is AI generated, we have the metadata and the blah, blah, blah, and the blah, blah, blah. But at that point I feel like a lot of the damage would already be done. It's just, it's just scary. It's just scary. We plan to include C2PA metadata in the future if we deploy the model in an open AI product. I'm not familiar with what that is. C2PA is an open technical standard that allows publishers, companies, and others to embed metadata in the media for verifying its origin and related information. C2PA isn't just for AI images, same standard is also being adopted by camera manufacturers, news organizations, and other to certify the source and history of media content. If it's in the metadata, cool. But also what's stopping somebody from taking that video and just screen recording it and then putting it up. This C2PA data wouldn't be in the metadata of the screen recording. I assume at least, I'm pretty sure that's how that works. To show you the ways that people are getting around it, here is one example. Here's a douchey photo of me shirtless that I took. So Photoshop has a new beta that has a bunch of AI features. A lot of them being with generating different images. And there are times that it is actually really useful. A lot of the times I will use it for stuff in the background. But what I want to show you is that it's supposed to detect if somebody in the photo is naked. And if you're trying to expand on that using AI, it won't let you. So in this case, we are going to uncrop and we're just going to press generate. The fuck? So a lot of the times if you ask it to do a generative fill and there's skin involved like here, it won't actually do it because it doesn't wanna make something naked. Well, now it's doing it, which is cool. When I want to make a point. So let's take this for example. There are a lot of useful stuff with the generative fill because basically what you can do is you select a thing, you do generative fill, and then you type what you want to generate. Maybe something like this will work a little bit better. It's something that's actually kind of a little bit trickier to paint out. If I wanted to get rid of this stuff, and it's hit or miss, sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, so it's okay. That's fine and believable. If we wanted to do something a little bit more drastic here, we could take this whole thing and just type in wooden tabletop. Let's see what it gives there. And not only will it do different objects and materials and textures and stuff, but also it will expand. I don't know if I'll do it here, but it will expand upon my body. It'll imitate my skin texture, stuff like that.  It'll do stuff like this. It's a bit janky again. It's in the beta. We can just kind of use this to add in whatever we want. Okay, you got a little glass of wine. It does the shadows and stuff. I asked it to make an art piece to put above here. It made it like this one. Add in a fork and stuff.   Again, it kind of takes the heart out of it. If we went to chat GBT, we were like, give me an idea for an interesting thumbnail or a YouTube video about cooking. Let's see what happens when we do this. Let's take every prompt and make, okay. We'll do that. All right. It's a little bit janky, but this was all made via AI. I had chat GBT create the idea for the background main image and added in a chef's hand, text overlay. And honestly, like this is a pretty good thumbnail. Anyway, I'm not really sure what my point is with this part of the video with the Photoshop thing in particular, but it's scary, dude. AI has taken over a little bit. I think it's becoming dangerous. It's becoming harmful. And I think that it's going to continue to get more harmful. It's going to take away jobs. It's going to crush creativity. And I think in many ways, it's going to make people, it's going to make people less motivated to follow what they want to do. Cause it's like, oh, like, I would love to be a graphic designer or even with something like this, I would love to be a thumbnail designer for YouTubers. What's the point? They're just going to use AI to make their thumbnail or they're just going to use chat GBT to write a script for this movie. Or I'm not going to shoot stuff to put on stock footage websites because they'll just use AI to make that. I'm not even going to try and become a cameraman anymore because they're just using Sora to make commercials now.  God, we didn't even dive into AI influencers. Oh God, that's its own can of worms. You'd like to see me dive into that a little bit more. Let me know.  Anyway, this was a little bit different of a video than I would normally make, but I thought it would be fun to just sit down and talk about this. Give you my thoughts. Please give me your thoughts in the comments. If you stuck around this far, maybe toss a like my way. Wow, I love a like. Don't you love a like? I love a like. AI is taking over the world. We're all fucked.


cause. The seller knows where the price should be. Whether they do it or not is up to them and totally out of your control. This is what I believe. I'm sharing that with you for nothing.  I know that a lot of most people just aren't going to do what they need to do, but I do my part right to where I can go to sleep at night knowing that I did what I had to do. I did everything I could do to try to help them understand. Then it's up to them. I can sleep good at night knowing that I did everything I could do for them. There's not much else you can do. What you have to do is you've got to do something. There's a part to all this where you've got to be selfish too. Where you've got to feel good about how you handle the situation to where you can sleep good at night. You do everything you can do to help them, but then it's up to them. It's just like a listing. We go to a listing appointment. They think it's worth a god-awful amount. We show them the comps, we tell them what we think it's worth, and then it's up to them. We can't do anymore. This is what it is. It's the same thing with everything. Recruiting, listings, helping agents, helping anybody. Do anything. You just do all you can do for who? For you. No, you do it for you. You do it for you so you can sleep at night. See what I'm saying? The reason why I get up at 4.30 and answer DMs is because I'm doing it for me to make sure that I know I did all I could do to help all those people, reaching out, crying for help. Reaching out for help desperately. The reason I do it is for me to know when I go to sleep that night, I did all I could do to help. You know what I mean? So this is a part of it where it's got to be about you. You know what I mean? And not necessarily about them doing what you think they should do because that's totally out of your hands. It's the same thing with listings with sellers. It's not about them doing what you think they should do. It's about you doing all you can do to show them what we should be doing and then it's their decision. They got to take it and you know at that point. All the facts are out there. They know they should make calls. The seller knows where the price should be. Whether they whether they do it or not is up to them and totally out of your control. But you can go to sleep at night knowing that you did everything you do to help that seller or that agent. That's why I look at it because if I try to look at it in a way of I want them to do what I think they should do and then they don't do it then that's just going to be a frustration point. I'm just going to be extremely frustrated. I'm always going to be in a state of frustration because nobody's ever going to do what you think they should do and that's another reason why I have zero expectations. Zero expectations of anyone listing with me or joining our team or doing what I'm making calls or you know whatever. I have zero expectations of an event picking me to be the speaker or my YouTube videos going viral or anything. Zero expectations. I do what I have to do on the front end and then let the chips fall where they fall.