Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has no shortage of critics, but earlier this
Speaker 1: year one of them stood out. Philip Loow isn't a journalist,
Speaker 1: his neuroscientist, inventor, and once a close friend of Musk.
Speaker 1: That was until he published a scathing post accusing the
Speaker 1: world's richest man of manipulation, narcissism, and a dangerous obsession
Speaker 1: with power. The post exploded online before vanishing almost entirely. Today.
Speaker 1: Contributed to the Saturday Paper, Paula Totaro on what Sparklow's
Speaker 1: dramatic break with Musk and why he's willing to put
Speaker 1: his money where his mouth is to test the limits
Speaker 1: of free speech on platforms Musk and his tech bro
Speaker 1: peers control. It's Thursday, May twenty nine, So, Paula, you
Speaker 1: recently sat down to interview Philip Low, not the former
Speaker 1: Reserve Bank governor, but a neuroscientist and tech ceo. Tell
Speaker 1: me about him and why he wanted to speak to him.
Speaker 2: I think I was insomniac early in January when this
Speaker 2: whole thing happened, and I was doom scrolling and I
Speaker 2: read this extraordinary essay by this man that I'd never
Speaker 2: heard of, and literally after reading it, I sent a
Speaker 2: message via Facebook saying, if you ever want to be
Speaker 2: interviewed by some unknown journalist in London, I'd love to
Speaker 2: talk to you, and months later it happened.
Speaker 3: As a neuroscientists, I believe that my core of responsibility
Speaker 3: is to produce the data.
Speaker 4: But as a technologist, I.
Speaker 3: Believe that I have a responsibility to follow my work
Speaker 3: into the world and make sure there's used properly.
Speaker 5: Lo is a bit of a wonder kind. He's now
Speaker 5: forty five.
Speaker 2: He was mentored by the late great molecular biologists USCRIC
Speaker 2: and he earned his PhD in an error called computational
Speaker 2: neurobiology and presented a mathematical technique which basically allows the
Speaker 2: mapping of easy mapping of brain waves his eyebrain probe
Speaker 2: again to read sleep and brain waves.
Speaker 5: Launched a couple of years ago in four American states.
Speaker 2: One point four percent of AT stock was sold for
Speaker 2: eighty five million, So that value the company it's six billion,
Speaker 2: And if you think back to the same point of
Speaker 2: raising a venture capital for Facebook, that valuation is twelve
Speaker 2: times what Facebook is. But the essay was excoriating it
Speaker 2: was the most sort of skin blistering thing I've ever
Speaker 2: read of, you know, of a billionaire titan Ellen Musk,
Speaker 2: And at that point he was, you know, with Trump
Speaker 2: all the time, chainsaws the rest of it, And I
Speaker 2: just thought, Wow, somebody that has actually finally taken this
Speaker 2: guy on and doesn't seem to be scared of him.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the essa, About what it was he
Speaker 1: was saying exactly, and what was your immediate reaction to it.
Speaker 2: Look, it was quite long, you know, it was about
Speaker 2: nineteen hundred words when I finally sort of transferred it
Speaker 2: onto a word document. And he effectively established his long
Speaker 2: friendship with Masks, So you knew that it was somebody
Speaker 2: that wasn't just whistling out of their bottoms if you liked.
Speaker 2: They'd met in Paris a long time before they then
Speaker 2: became friends. They then became business partners and had a
Speaker 2: long association at some point you know that they shared
Speaker 2: information about the women in their lives, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5: But the essay itself was a takedown.
Speaker 6: He was being aggressive with people who had his best
Speaker 6: interest at height, not with me. But I noticed them
Speaker 6: do that with a number of people, and I felt
Speaker 6: that as a friend, I wouldn't be in his corner
Speaker 6: if I didn't call him out on it, so I did.
Speaker 5: Lo didn't hold back.
Speaker 2: I mean, he used words like, you know that Musk
Speaker 2: is a narcissist with an obsessive lust for power. He
Speaker 2: called him a total, miserable, self loathing poser. He accused
Speaker 2: him of going for the most vulnerable in US society
Speaker 2: and using his role with DOGE to attack the very
Speaker 2: organizations and you know that were looking at his own businesses.
Speaker 2: He described him as a man who in fact didn't
Speaker 2: really understand technology, didn't really understand algorithms.
Speaker 6: Respectful the ICAI, that's bullshit. And just like when he
Speaker 6: calls himself a free speech absolutist when he clearly is
Speaker 6: boosting certain voices on excluding his own, and shotow banning
Speaker 6: others relatively speaking. So I know him too well to
Speaker 6: understand that this is a charade.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think all this came from the fact
Speaker 2: that Lowe himself's father is a Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 5: And obviously what I.
Speaker 2: Think sparked his theory was the the Nazi salute. All right,
Speaker 2: so we just we just showed that right, it's worth
Speaker 2: it was quick.
Speaker 7: I think our viewers are smart, and.
Speaker 5: That musk, then later denied was a Nazi salute.
Speaker 1: Just this is the most This is the biggest, This
Speaker 1: is the biggest, and.
Speaker 5: So yeah, he demanded an apology.
Speaker 2: He described a musk slow sort of deterioration, you know,
Speaker 2: the way they fell out as friends.
Speaker 5: It was quite the read.
Speaker 2: I'm sure well millions of people have read it since,
Speaker 2: but it really surprised low I think he really seemed
Speaker 2: quite shell shot steel that had gone so viral. I
Speaker 2: remember that night just thinking, wow, passed the popcorn. This
Speaker 2: is amazing. Low has since accused Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook
Speaker 2: of suppressing his posts. At the time, he published an
Speaker 2: abridged version of this essay on LinkedIn, and that disappeared
Speaker 2: straight away. Apparently had to take legual action to get
Speaker 2: it put back. But since, you know, there's been sort
Speaker 2: of collection of data by Lowe's team to show that
Speaker 2: this essay had been diluted, not shared, you know, algorithms
Speaker 2: tweaked to sort of lower its impact. But in that
Speaker 2: initial burst it was huge.
Speaker 1: So I was alleging that the post was removed and
Speaker 1: the ability to share it was suppressed. So how is
Speaker 1: he planning to prosecute that argument? How's he fighting back?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because you know, one of the things
Speaker 2: that Lowe told me during this interview is that he's
Speaker 2: set aside two hundred and fifty million US to start
Speaker 2: testing freedom of speech in various states in the US
Speaker 2: where consumer law is particularly strong and.
Speaker 5: Carries with it criminal penalties.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that they've chosen a couple of states in
Speaker 2: the US, particularly California, where the pledge to promise something
Speaker 2: even if it is free, even if it's a product
Speaker 2: that has produced free and not delivering carries with it
Speaker 2: severe sanctions, including prison sentences. And what his team have done,
Speaker 2: and we don't quite know how because obviously he's not
Speaker 2: going to put his gump out on the table, is
Speaker 2: that they've collected information to show the way that algorithms
Speaker 2: have either been changed, tweaked to stop shares, to remove posts,
Speaker 2: and also apparently to dilute followers.
Speaker 1: You mentioned freedom of speech does load basically see this
Speaker 1: as a test of the various social media platforms commitment
Speaker 1: to free speech, something meta Facebook and X talk about
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's one of his driving moments
Speaker 2: or driving forces.
Speaker 5: Is that you go and test this.
Speaker 2: You say you are platforms of freedom of speech. You've
Speaker 2: removed your teams that were checking posts. As Zuckerberg announced
Speaker 2: earlier this year, We're going to.
Speaker 4: Get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes,
Speaker 4: similar to acts starting in the US.
Speaker 2: You promise this as your brand, Let's test it again.
Speaker 2: He gets very passionate about this is a promise. You've
Speaker 2: made your life on this, your money on this, and
Speaker 2: you're failing to do it. You can see if you
Speaker 2: look at both particularly Facebook and LinkedIn. He continues to test,
Speaker 2: so he'll put something up and then clearly the teams
Speaker 2: are watching what happens and analyzing what happens. He's really
Speaker 2: very very vocal about Europe really turning its attention to
Speaker 2: the regulation of these mega platforms. You know, he spoke
Speaker 2: a lot about the UK, you know, finding its Churchillian
Speaker 2: spirit and really taking them on. So, you know, apart
Speaker 2: from taking on these test cases, I think that he's
Speaker 2: acting as a sort of public advocate who who. He
Speaker 2: says he's fearless and clearly is. I mean, if you've
Speaker 2: got billions behind you, I guess you can you know,
Speaker 2: you're not fearful of these kind of arguments.
Speaker 1: After the break, Low makes it personal.
Speaker 2: Palla.
Speaker 1: One of the more incendiary parts of Low's post is
Speaker 1: that he goes after Elon Musk's character and credibility. When
Speaker 1: you met with him, what did he tell you about
Speaker 1: the man himself?
Speaker 2: Well, there's no doubt that these are two men that
Speaker 2: were friends. I remember looking at a really interesting video
Speaker 2: which is still up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you Elon and Philip for
Speaker 1: joining me here and sharing your thoughts about consciousness and
Speaker 1: enlightenment and technology.
Speaker 2: A young scientist interviewing the two when they were very
Speaker 2: young Musk and Low.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was just when I was in college. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think, what are the things that are most can
Speaker 5: affect the future humanity? And oring to be involved in
Speaker 5: at least some of those things.
Speaker 2: You know, you could tell our friends they were sort
Speaker 2: of talking about how they were going to change the world,
Speaker 2: you know, their bright, brilliant young minds that were sort
Speaker 2: of taking on the tech world.
Speaker 4: I'm an accidental entrepreneur, and before that, I was an
Speaker 4: accidental neuroscientist. And before that I was a mathematician. And
Speaker 4: then it wasn't until Stephen Hawkin asked me to help
Speaker 4: him with his last that I became really involved in
Speaker 4: trying to access consciousness in humans.
Speaker 2: But it's fairly obvious that over a period of time
Speaker 2: there was business clashes as well, clearly sort of rivalry
Speaker 2: at some point. And then if you look at the
Speaker 2: neurovidual Lowe's website, you see that Musk is still an advisor,
Speaker 2: but it's clear that he has no sort of financial interests,
Speaker 2: no advisory in etcetera, etcetera. So there was a big
Speaker 2: sort of behind the scenes breakup of a business friendship
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: I suspect did he speak to you at all about
Speaker 1: Musk's involvement in politics and had did he view his
Speaker 1: growing influence with things like Doze and his closeness with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because by the time we spoke, you know,
Speaker 2: Musk has he's not quite on the stage with his
Speaker 2: chainsaws and sort of breastfeeding as he was. And I
Speaker 2: think one of the things that Lowe was unable to
Speaker 2: kind of quell was his true joy at the fact
Speaker 2: that you know, Tesla and his stock had gotten down.
Speaker 2: He talked about great worries about these platforms, you know,
Speaker 2: meta as well influence in Europe and sort of bolstering
Speaker 2: right wing governments.
Speaker 7: In December, Musk waded into Germany's election campaign, calling the
Speaker 7: far right anti immigration Alternative for Germany Party or AfD,
Speaker 7: the country's savior.
Speaker 1: It's proud, it's okay, it's good to be proud of
Speaker 1: German culture, German.
Speaker 5: Values, and not to lose that in some.
Speaker 2: Sort of multiculturalism that that lodes everything. You know, he
Speaker 2: clearly has a great fear that these platforms are being
Speaker 2: harnessed in a way to open the door to kind
Speaker 2: of discourse that occurred, you know, as we saw pre
Speaker 2: World War two and which resulted in the horrors that
Speaker 2: we thought we'd never see again. So I think he's
Speaker 2: very motivated by history too.
Speaker 1: I think has low paid any costs for speaking out.
Speaker 5: Well. I asked him about that. The first thing.
Speaker 2: I asked him, you know, how are you because you know,
Speaker 2: he spent months in battle with this man, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not actually, you know, I'm not in Ol Salvador
Speaker 2: yet and laughed. But then when I asked him later
Speaker 2: about how he felt, he does. He now employs security
Speaker 2: and he says that he's had death threats some many
Speaker 2: not credible, but some credible enough for him to need
Speaker 2: to hire armed security while he's in a America. So
Speaker 2: he didn't dwell on it. He says he's fearless. He
Speaker 2: says he's not going to be cowed. But I think
Speaker 2: probably life has changed a little bit.
Speaker 1: And finally, Palla, what's Phillip's end goal here when it
Speaker 1: comes to his activism and the money that he's putting forward.
Speaker 1: What kind of world does you want to see?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: For some reason, I'd stumbled on an ad and an
Speaker 2: old Apple ab that had flashes of sort of Martin
Speaker 2: Luther King, great people of history, and this kind of
Speaker 2: sense that Silicon Valley at the time was for diverse people,
Speaker 2: people that thought differently.
Speaker 8: Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers,
Speaker 8: the round pegs and the square halls.
Speaker 5: You know what's happened?
Speaker 2: I asked him, you know, why is it that these
Speaker 2: technocrats are now shutting down free speech and they're beside
Speaker 2: people like Trump? And he was remarkably optimistic. He said, Look, actually,
Speaker 2: we still believe that most of us do. We still
Speaker 2: think that freedom of speech is important. We still think
Speaker 2: that We're in the world of ideas, and I think
Speaker 2: that's his sort of ultimate aim is to bring back
Speaker 2: a spotlight to science and the things that are being
Speaker 2: attacked in America and bring them back to where they belong,
Speaker 2: you know, intellectual discussions, civil discourse. I think there are
Speaker 2: things that matter to him, and I suppose a lot
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Palla, thank you so much for your time, absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1: You can read Power's full reporting in this week's edition
Speaker 1: of the Saturday paper. Also in the news, Opposition leader
Speaker 1: Susan Lee has announced her new shadow cabinet. The new
Speaker 1: economic term will be led by Deputy Leader Ted O'Brien
Speaker 1: as Shadow treasurer. Former Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor has been
Speaker 1: a pointed shadow Defense Minister. Meanwhile, Senator just sent to
Speaker 1: a Napple Jipper Price, who defected from the Nationals to
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party, has been relegated into the outer ministry
Speaker 1: as shadow Defense to Industry Minister and Environment Minister Murray
Speaker 1: Watt says he plans to approve Woodside Energy's proposal to
Speaker 1: extend the life of one of the world's biggest liquefied
Speaker 1: natural gas projects from twenty thirty to twenty seventy. What
Speaker 1: says the sign off of the Northwest Shelf gas processing
Speaker 1: plant comes with strict air pollution conditions and Woodsite now
Speaker 1: has ten days to respond. Opponents of the extension more
Speaker 1: local pollution will damage a globally significant collection of ancient
Speaker 1: rock card across what is known as the Murrajuga cultural
Speaker 1: landscape and released billions of tons of future greenhouse gases.
Speaker 1: For more on this story, you can listen to Monday's
Speaker 1: episode of seven AM titled the Carbon Baum Awaiting Australia's
Speaker 1: new Environment Minister. This has been today's episode of seven AM.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Bo