Make the First Move | The bystander effect, AI-mageddon and Burnham meets Trump

The Concept of the Week is the bystander effect: the more people watching something go wrong, the less likely any one of them is to step in. Peter traces it from the Kitty Genovese story through the staged subway experiments to the advice he was given as a new lecturer. If the fire alarm goes off, every student in the room will wait to see what you do, so leave the bloody room. Hilary has a Brighton story about a homeless woman punched in the face and a crowd that did not look. The finding that follows is the useful one: people are waiting for a cue, and if somebody steps forward, the chances are the rest will follow.

Then AI-mageddon. Trump told the UN that artificial intelligence should be called super intelligence and that the United States will not accept a global system to regulate it. Hilary listened to Rory Stewart and Yuval Noah Harari on the Aztecs and found herself psychologically inert. Peter's answer is about regulation, tigers and fences: if you were rich enough to keep a menagerie, you would spend some of the money on the enclosure. He has been reading about Lavender, the Israeli military's AI targeting system, and the operators who described their role as pressing yes. Hilary brings the 2023 mammography study in which radiologists went along with a wrong AI suggestion most of the time, and Peter matches it with a mental health tribunal chair who told him the panel had never once disagreed with the psychiatrist. No AI required.

Peter's way through the doom is Descartes by way of a video game. If it turned out you were a character in somebody else's game, what should you do? Play it to the best of your ability. Terrible situations do not change the job, which is to take what you know and make the best possible decision. He has a plan for Russian paratroopers landing near Manchester Airport, and he would rather people other than Donald Trump decided how AI is regulated.

Andy Burnham met Trump for the first time at the UN General Assembly. Peter's advice for negotiating with him: when he says something outrageous, say yes, then bury it in the long grass, because he will not remember and he is mostly interested in how he looks on television. Hilary rates Mark Carney as the first leader to get the measure of the man, and both admire the American TV pool for pulling coverage after CNN was thrown out. Which prompts the question Peter answers with unusual honesty: do you always stand up to a bully? No. He was once thumped in the street in Leeds, and his rule now is to read the situation and pick, and sometimes that means running away.

Finally, the new right to two weeks' bereavement leave, unpaid, for the loss of a partner, parent, adult child or sibling, and for pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, from April 2027. Hilary is dismayed it needed a law at all. Peter puts it alongside AI and migration: as a species we are plenty rich enough, and the problem is only ever how it is shared out.

The Triple T is make the first move. On the tube, in a bar, in the office: somebody has to go first, and it might as well be you. Peter's dating algorithm, aim high and work down, gets a swift rebuttal from Hilary about who actually punches up.

A note before you listen. Peter briefly describes being physically assaulted. The episode also discusses bereavement, pregnancy loss, and AI used to select military targets.

Mentioned in this episode

• The Booker Prize 2026 shortlist was announced on 22 September. Black Bag by Luke Kennard is on it. Mary Beard chairs the judges, and Jarvis Cocker is on the panel. The winner is announced on 9 November
• The novel riffs on a real experiment: in 1967 Charles Goetzinger had a student attend his Basic Persuasion class at Oregon State University inside a black bag, to see how the other students reacted. Hilary is right that it was late sixties and that it relates to Robert Zajonc's mere exposure effect
• Peter's cockroaches are real too, though they belong to a different Zajonc finding. Zajonc, Heingartner and Herman (1969) found cockroaches ran a simple runway faster with an audience. A 2020 attempt to replicate it did not find the effect
• The Kitty Genovese case is from 1964, and the story of 38 witnesses who did nothing has since been shown to be badly overstated, which is Peter's own caveat. The staged subway experiments are Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin (1969), in New York
• Trump told the UN General Assembly on 22 September that AI should be called super intelligence and that the United States will not accept a global system to regulate it. Bigly intelligence is Hilary's
• The enfeeblement argument Hilary makes is set out in Could AI really kill all humans? Most scenarios require physical access, making AI armageddon unlikely, by Alessandro Di Nuovo and Samuele Vinanzi of Sheffield Hallam University, The Conversation, 21 September 2026. Their case is that bioweapon and power station scenarios need hands in a lab, and the real risk is people who stop thinking for themselves
• Rory Stewart's interview with Yuval Noah Harari went out on The Rest Is Politics on 18 September, with the second part for TRIP Plus members
• Lavender was reported by +972 Magazine and Local Call in April 2024: an AI system that marked around 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants, with intelligence officers spending about 20 seconds on each target and one describing their role as a rubber stamp
• The mammography study is Dratsch and colleagues, Radiology, May 2023. 27 radiologists read 50 mammograms with suggestions they were told came from AI. When the suggestion was wrong, the least experienced readers' accuracy fell from about 80 per cent to under 20 per cent, and even those with 15 or more years' experience fell from 82 per cent to 45 per cent. Hilary says radiographers; they were radiologists
• Andy Burnham and Donald Trump met for the first time in New York on 22 September. Burnham argued for international principles and standards on AI with the UK as a bridge between America, Europe and China. Trump called the Chagos Islands agreement a terrible deal, and Burnham raised the Falklands to restate British sovereignty. Hilary's suggestion that one was traded for the other is her reading, not something either leader has said
• Mark Carney addressed the European Parliament on 17 September and said the Canada and EU relationship is not meant to be a rival to the United States with better manners
• The White House removed CNN from the television pool on 20 September. The pool suspended its coverage of Trump the next day, and CNN, Politico and MS NOW have sued
• Trump's ten billion dollar lawsuit against the BBC over the Panorama edit is still going, though in July he dropped the part aimed at BBC Studios
• The bereavement leave announcement was made on 22 September: up to two weeks' unpaid leave for the loss of a spouse, partner, parent, adult child or sibling, including step, half, foster and kinship relationships, and for pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, for the woman and her partner. It starts in April 2027
• Strictly Come Dancing's launch show was 19 September. Craig Revel Horwood is still on the judges' desk, and the Josh is Josh Widdicombe, one of the new hosts

Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com.