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CNN This Morning
Saudi Arabia Shuts Critical Oil Pipeline After Drone Attack; Trump Arrives In Ireland To Meet Leaders Before Attending Golf Tournament; New Cockpit Barriers Close A 9/11 Security Gap; Trump Promises $5,000 For U.S. Citizens if GOP Win Midterms. President Trump Promises $5k Payment to Voters if GOP Sweeps Midterms; Trump's Pick to Lead Investigations of His Enemies Resigns; CDC Declares Cyclosporiasis Outbreak Officially Over. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired September 12, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:00:34]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN This Morning. Here's what's happening. President Trump is in Ireland. He just met with the Irish prime minister a short time ago. Also met with the Irish president. We're going to take a look at the trip so far and what the president is expected to do next.
Also, diesel prices have hit a new record, 6.16 a gallon. And even if you don't drive a diesel vehicle, you're still going to feel it.
Plus, 25 years after September 11, airlines are now turning to new measures to keep hijackers out of the cockpit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the first line of defense, right, is a hardened blast proof door with electric locks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: We'll explain how it works and why. You will not see this on every flight. And if you've been craving iceberg one, I don't know that many people do. But the CDC says that this cyclospora outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce is over the steps experts recommend you should still take to be safe.
Plus, there have been dire warnings. You've heard that maybe you have some concerns about artificial intelligence. But are the AI doomsday fears overblown? That's coming up on CNN This Morning.
Saturday, September 12th. Welcome to your weekend. You have earned it. Thanks for joining me. I'm Victor Blackwell.
We're starting with the war in Iran. U.S. officials say a vital Saudi Arabian oil pipeline has been shut down after it was hit by projectiles. Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said the pipeline was temporarily deactivated as a precaution. Satellite images, look at these, show extensive fire damage at one pump station next to the pipeline.
Right now, it's unclear who's responsible for the strikes, but one of the officials said the drones involved came from Iraq. CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief Oren Liebermann joins us now with more.
Oren, break down what we know about what happened here, the protections that might have been expected but didn't happen. Walk us through it.
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: This attack happened on Thursday and in hitting the pumping stations that are right by the pipeline itself, it forced Saudi Arabia to shut down a key east west pipeline that's used to bring oil across the country. And of course, this comes at a key moment with the world's energy infrastructure, already feeling the effects of the Iran war. And we see that in the price of oil which surged past $100 a barrel this past week.
According to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter, projectiles hit these pumping stations, at least two of them. In imagery and early analysis from Thursday and Friday, you can see extensive fire damage to one of these pipelines and then a plume of smoke from another one of these pipelines.
It is this threat and damage to the pumping stations near the pipeline itself, that again compelled Saudi Arabia to shut down the pipeline. And it's unclear how soon it will be open.
One of the officials familiar with the matter said it was drones launched from Iraq that hit the pipeline itself. And although we haven't seen any group claim responsibility for this drone attack, we do know and we have seen Iranian-backed militias operating in Iraq that have in the past and for years carried out attacks on U.S. forces and according to analysts, have also attacked Saudi Arabia as well.
All of this puts additional pressure on the world's energy markets and forces oil prices potentially even higher here. And that's because Saudi Arabia had used this pipeline to divert oil that would have gone through the Strait of Hormuz trying to get it out instead on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula and out through the Red Sea.
And that's where the greater challenge comes. Now that's because the Iranian backed Houthis in Yemen have seized a key island where right along the Bab al-Mandab Strait. That's another one of the world's most critical waterways. And they have issued a threat that directly affects Saudi Arabia.
Here is their military spokesperson.
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YAHYA SAREE, HOUTHIS SPOKESMAN (through translator): The Yemeni armed forces affirm that maritime navigation is safe for all companies except Saudi vessels, which were previously declared subject to a ban.
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LIEBERMANN: All of this puts even more pressure on world oil markets and on Saudi Arabia itself. In late July, in a key meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, the Saudis warned that Iran could do this, use their proxies around the region to essentially cause havoc in world energy markets. And that's potentially what we're seeing here.
Iran has never had the military to compete with the U.S., but it's this sort of asymmetric warfare that puts pressure on the energy market and crucially, from a U.S. elections perspective, on gas prices.
So this is potentially Iran's way of putting pressure on oil markets and carrying out threats around the Gulf's ability to produce and transport oil. And it comes at this critical moment in the Iran war. The U.S. has signaled that potentially they want to scale it down or find some way to end the Iran war, but that's simply not what's happening as we see further escalation in the region.
BLACKWELL: Oren Liebermann reporting for us. Oren, thanks so much.
Let's follow right after that. Americans feeling more worried about the economy. A new survey shows consumer confidence dropping sharply. High gas prices and concerns about tariffs put more pressure on household budgets. Right now, the national average for a gallon of regular unreal unleaded is $4.31. That's up nearly 17 cents in a week and up about 30 cents over the last month.
And it's not just average drivers who are feeling this pain. Diesel prices are surging too, up 10 cents overnight to $6.16 a gallon. For farmers, it's a big problem. Just weeks before harvest season, the tractors and the combines and the heavy trucks all run on diesel. And for farmers already dealing with higher costs and a tough growing season, it's another hit to that bottom line.
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BOB WHITE, FARMER: Ain't no light at the end of the tunnel. It's 62 percent over what it was this time last year. Diesel powers everything on the farm. If you don't have any diesel, you're not going to do anything. We're probably to break point here pretty quick. That means people being closed out, people giving up.
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BLACKWELL: Some farmers say they held off on buying diesel this summer. They hoped that prices would eventually have come back down.
Happening now. President Trump is in Ireland for a two-day trip. He landed in Dublin a couple of hours ago, greeted by dignitaries on the red carpet. His first stop was a meeting with the Irish president, Catherine Connolly. He's in Ireland to meet with officials and business leaders. He's also there to attend a golf tournament at his resort.
Let's go to CNN's Nic Robertson. Nic, these meetings that have happened so far, pretty quick. The president moving rapidly through this morning schedule. What did he say?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think in the Irish context and the British context, he's sort of created a headline today. One of the questions he had when he was sitting next to Micheal Martin, the Irish tea shot, the Irish prime minister, was this sort of contentious issue of the unification of Ireland. They've been talking about Northern Ireland and President Trump saying he had friends up there.
Of course, there's a lot of American businesses in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and part of the U.K. and there's pressure north of the border and south of the border for unification.
So, it's a hot button issue and has been for decades. And the President Trump was asked what he thought about it and he said, and I'm going to quote him here, I'd love to see it happen. It's going to happen eventually. I think it will be a fabulous thing. You know, how could it be bad? He said, of course the British will have something to say about that.
You know, I think where he is an island, that'll certainly create waves and headlines and a lot of talk. But on the international issues and particularly on the domestic issues that he faces at home, he was asked about Iran. He was asked about the price of oil. He was pointing to post midterms, that the U.S. was really sort of being held up on trying to get the oil price down by Iran, that this could all happen after they get through the midterms because that's what the Iranians are focusing on.
But the big issue for the Irish was how will conversations go around trade, because U.S. businesses operating in Ireland, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, particularly the data industry, super important for the Irish economy. President Trump has talked about wanting to pull those big companies back to the United States.
You know, who gets the tax that those companies pay. That's kind of what's at stake. But President Trump was very clear that actually business relationships between the two countries is going well. This is what he said.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We've had some discussions on trade and various other things. We have a big relationship with Ireland and continue stronger than ever. But it's doing very well.
[06:10:00]
The two countries do very well together. We've had a very long. But I would say it's never been as good as it is right now. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: So that important for the Irish, that unification issue that's going to make waves. But on the core issues that President Trump is sort of being dogged with here, he was speaking to the issue of what's happening in Saudi Arabia, those strikes on that vital east west pipeline in Saudi Arabia. He said it had phone conversations with the crown prince in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
And he said in terms of Yemen and the threat that Yemen has the oil going through the Strait of Bab el-Mandab Strait there in the Red Sea, very important trade route there. He said the Houthis have talked to us. They're telling us they don't want to fight us. You know, the president clearly grappling with an issue that's getting more and more complex and potentially unravels further.
BLACKWELL: Nic Robertson reporting from London. Thank you.
Headlines for you this morning, President Trump announced calling for the Smithsonian to honor George Washington with a five-year exhibition at the National Museum of American History. He proposes a 30 foot statue of Washington outside the museum.
The president has accused the Smithsonian of failing to give Washington and other founding fathers the recognition they deserve on the country 250th birthday. The Smithsonian has not commented on the president's request.
The CDC warns now about a nationwide increase in rabies exposure. Health officials say They've seen a 17 percent increase over last year in reports of people coming in contact with animals that carry that virus. That includes what they called large exposure events.
One of the biggest involved a mobile petting zoo in North Carolina where hundreds of people may have been exposed to rabid baby goats. Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms start. It can be prevented if people get treatment quickly after a possible exposure.
In Tennessee, Dolly Parton, one step closer now to having an airport named after her. The board that oversees Nashville International Airport voted unanimously to begin the process of changing the airport's name in honor of Dolly Parton. For a lot of fans, there's no debate about who deserves this honor.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dolly has taught everyone in this world how to be a good person, how to be successful, how to be true to yourself, how to treat others, how to be successful and not keep $1 billion to yourself. Right. I can't think of a better person to be on an airport than Dolly Parton.
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BLACKWELL: Officials say a final name has not been decided yet, but they are working with her family and other stakeholders on how to best incorporate her legacy.
Next, a Trump loyalist handpicked to investigate the president's political foes is suddenly out why Joe diGenova resigned and what this means about the future of that probe.
Plus, a post-9/11 security gap is being closed, the new cockpit defense aimed at keeping hijackers out of the flight deck and a groom's wedding day took a disastrous turn. He was sent to the ICU instead of the church. This story has a happy ending though, so stay with us for that, where the couple finally said their I dos.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mary Catherine Murphy Fofa (ph). Timothy G. Byrne.
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BLACKWELL: The friends and family of people killed in the September 11 attacks honored their loved ones during ceremonies yesterday in New York. The names of the thousands of victims from the attacks were read aloud. Four former presidents, Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden attended the services at the site of the World Trade Center. President Trump marked the anniversary at the Pentagon instead of New York.
Now, new FAA rules now require airlines to install in flight security measures that could provide a last line of defense for pilots from hijackers. CNN's Pete Muntean takes a look at how it protects the flight deck from another potential 9/11 style attack.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This gate is supposed to close one of the last gaps in aviation security revealed by the 9/11 hijackings 25 years ago. Known as a secondary cockpit barrier, it is designed to keep the flight deck of commercial airliners secure when the cockpit door has to be opened.
At Southwest Airlines headquarters in Dallas, the company has taken delivery of dozens of new Boeing 737s equipped with the barriers.
DAVE HUNT, V.P. SAFETY AND SECURITY, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: Essentially, this is the first line of defense, right? It's a hardened blast proof door with electric locks.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Dave Hunt is head of safety and security for Southwest. He was a pilot for the airline on 9/11.
HUNT: Back then we were very reactive. We were on our heels. Something bad would happen, we would react to that. Now we're thinking ahead and trying to understand where could people with bad intention go and then coming up with new procedures and technologies to mitigate those.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Before 9/11, cockpit doors were required to be weak enough that they could be kicked open in an emergency.
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After the attacks, cockpit doors were hardened and stricter protocols were put in place. But those changes did not deal with what happens when a pilot opens the cockpit door to go to the bathroom, get food or make a safety check. Ever since, flight attendants would place beverage carts and even themselves in the front galley to block cockpit doors.
MUNTEAN: As soon as the cockpit door opens, the protection it provides is obviously compromised. That's why the secondary barrier is here. But here is the catch. This is required only on new airplanes, not the thousands of airplanes already in service.
CAPT. JASON AMBROSI, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION: In 25 years it's long overdue.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Captain Jason Ambrose heads the Air Line Pilots Association. The Federal Aviation Administration's requirement for secondary barriers in new planes did not take full effect until last month. But even that, Ambrose says, is a half measure.
AMBROSI: Let's get these things installed on all airplanes so passengers are safe and secure on any airplane you're flying, not just if you're lucky to be on a new one.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): An FAA analysis says it would take another 25 years for most of the US passenger fleet to get secondary barriers.
Ellen Saracini has been fighting to get pilots better protection for years. Her husband Victor was captain of United Flight 175 as terrorists took over the plane, then crashed it into the south tower of the World Trade Center.
ELLEN SARACINI, WIDOW OF 9/11 PILOT: What are you going to do the day that they take over another aircraft? You're going to say, wow, I thought we had our acts together.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Pete Muntean, CNN, Dallas.
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BLACKWELL: Next, President Trump promises a $5,000 check for every adult if Republicans win the midterms. Where's that $1.3 trillion going to come from? We'll discuss the options that the administration put out there.
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BLACKWELL: Fresh off his Republican midterm convention in Dallas, President Trump has touched down this morning in Dublin, Ireland. He's attending the Irish Open golf tournament at his club in County Clare and meetings with Irish leaders, including President Catherine Connolly, frequent critic of the Trump administration. Errol Louis joins us now. He's the political anchor at Spectrum News and the anchor, the host of the Big Deal with Errol Louis.
Errol, good morning to you. So this trip to Ireland this weekend, is this diplomacy with a side of golf or golf with some diplomacy sprinkled in?
ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, SPECTRUM NEWS: Good morning, Victor. It sounds like a personal trip for the president's business interests. A little diplomacy couldn't hurt. But obviously this doesn't fit into resolving the Iran war or any of the top priorities of the country.
Frankly, it doesn't even move forward. The priorities of the Republican Party, which just finished its midterm and is heading into finished its convention and is heading into a very difficult midterm. So, you know, you add it all up, it looks like he's trying to do a little golf business.
BLACKWELL: The president thinks that one of the elements that will help Republicans in the midterms is this, this promise of a $5,000, as he calls it, dividend to every adult in the U.S. i want to play here for you. This is the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and what he told NBC about the source of those $5,000 that the president promised.
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HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: There are so many ways that President Trump can use our economy and the amazing value that we have that he can make money not from tax money. And this is key. Not tax money. This is going to be non-tax money. You know, one of my favorites, as you know, is like the Trump platinum card where people can extend their visa up to 270 days and pass $5 million. We have a wait list of more than 100,000 people want to come. That's $500 billion. Right?
We can earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: So there's a list. So this is estimated $1.3 trillion in cost. The White House told Bloomberg Television that it was considering going through Congress. The VP said tariff revenues, no single narrative from this administration on where this money is going to come from.
What does this mean for the credibility of the promise? I mean, much less the viability of the program, what we're hearing from the administration.
LOUIS: Well, it's not a serious program. It was thrown into the political convention because it's a purely political proposal with purely political payoffs. If economists and lawmakers ever sat down and tried to figure out how to do it, you quickly run into the kind of problems that you're hinting at here, which is that there's no source of revenue for this $1.3 trillion that he's talking about.
Politically speaking, I don't know if it's going to do what the President is hoping. I don't know many voters who are going to say, oh, yes, this is a great idea. I wasn't going to vote for the Republican ticket, but now I will because I think I can get $5,000 whose source is completely unclear. That seems like a bit of a stretch.
BLACKWELL: We're showing some of the video from the convention in Dallas this week. What do you think Republicans got out of their midterm convention?
LOUIS: You know, the ones who showed up, I think probably got energized. They got some morale, a little networking, some fundraising. All of the things that you need at a convention to get that last push going.
[06:30:02]
What's important, though, is there are a lot of people who were not there. There are a lot of people in closely contested districts and in states where they're having a tough time. Who decided that they don't necessarily want to be associated with the Trump brand.
That, it's going to hurt them more than it will help. And that's a key to understanding what's going to happen in the Midterms. There are a number of places where Trump is popular, as he is among Republicans, actually draws out a lot of Democrats and turns off independents.
And he may not be all that helpful in all of the districts that they really are trying to hold on to.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING WEEKEND: The President made an interesting connection yesterday at the Pentagon linking 9/11 to the current U.S. war with Iran. Here's what he said.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago. We will never, ever forget. That's why we fight today. We don't have a choice.
On days like 9/11, we learned what a country is truly made of. We're learning right now what we're made of, and we have to be strong, and we have to be smart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: What do you make of that linking, especially with the context of the President derided the execution of the wars after 9/11, now linking 9/11 to this war with Iran.
LOUIS: Yes, look, it's troubling. Victor, it's somewhat obscene, to tell you the truth. A few miles from where I'm sitting is where thousands of people died. And it was an unprovoked attack on the United States, on civilians. What happened in Iran is completely different.
We dropped the first bomb. This was a choice that this administration made to engage in hostilities that it doesn't seem to understand how to dial back or dial down. And so, I think if you're a historically illiterate and don't understand either the past war, the 9/11 attacks, or the current war, you could throw it all together and say, well, yes, there's some trouble over in the Middle East and it's all one big problem.
But really though, leadership that's needed to get us through this war, and get our economy back on track. It's not going to be done with slogans like that.
BLACKWELL: Errol Louis, always good to start a Saturday with you, thanks so much.
LOUIS: Thanks, Victor.
BLACKWELL: The Trump's administration's pick to oversee the sweeping investigations into the President's perceived enemies has resigned under pressure from the Department of Justice. Sources tell CNN that Joe DiGenova left because of disagreements with top DOJ officials over the pace of his investigations.
DiGenova released a statement, "as an old prosecutor of more than 50 years, I make cases the old-fashioned way. Witnesses, evidence, et cetera. That takes time." The CDC has declared this Summer's Cyclosporiasis outbreak officially over.
Now, the disease spread across at least 20 states, sickened nearly 13,000 people hospitalized, at least 500 victims caused two deaths. Our Marybel Gonzalez explains how the big announcement impacts public health and the millions of families across the country still nervous about bringing lettuce back to the dining table.
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MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The months long Cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico and recalled by Taylor Farms de Mexico, is over according to the CDC.
JENNIFER LAYDEN, ASSOCIATE DEAN & PROFESSOR, BURSKY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: They know that the product is now off the shelf, the associated implicated product. And then second, it's been -- the cases have dramatically decreased.
GONZALEZ: Cyclospora spread to 21 states, killed two people and sickened more than 12,000 others, marking the largest outbreak on record in the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The big symptoms are abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting. We are hearing this, quote, "explosive diarrhea", but think diarrhea, that's multiple episodes per day, not going away associated with cramping.
GONZALEZ: While the CDC says the public health threat is no more, experts recommend always taking steps to ensure food safety.
LAYDEN: Washing it, washing your hands is really important before and after working with food, keeping it stored at the right temperature when appropriate, cooking it, not letting it sit on your shelves longer than the expiration date.
GONZALEZ: Meanwhile, the FDA is continuing its outbreak investigation.
LAYDEN: There's still an important effort to continue to investigate, to really get to the root cause of what caused it, and the purpose of them continuing to investigate it is so that they can find that out and then implement strategies to prevent future outbreaks.
GONZALEZ: I'm Marybel Gonzalez reporting.
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BLACKWELL: In Orlando, even a head-on collision could not stop one determined couple from getting married.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. And Mrs. Kapri Deramus --
(CHEERS)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Kapri Deramus and Tyasia Thomas made it official in the hospital after the groom was seriously hurt in a car crash on his way to the wedding.
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KAPRI DERAMUS, HAD ACCIDENT ON HIS WEDDING DAY: I'm just in my own little world, and out of nowhere, man, just got struck by a car.
TYASIA THOMAS, KAPRI DERAMUS' BRIDE: I was able to follow it in and watch them unload him from the back of the ambulance. But just seeing him in that state, it was very traumatizing. And I remember in the car just saying, like my biggest fear is losing him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Well, after Kapri woke up from three surgeries, they both agreed they still wanted to get married. No matter where they exchanged their vows. Kapri broke both arms, a rib and his jaw, but he was still able to say, I do. He was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon.
Next, warnings of A.I.-powered bio threats are growing louder. So, why do some experts say the panic is overblown? We'll get into that debate over the doomsday fears. And if you're heading out, remember I am always down to ride.
You can stream our show from anywhere in the U.S. right from the CNN app. You can also go to CNN.com/watch. And as we go to break, here's a live look at Peaks Island, Maine. Good morning.
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BLACKWELL: House Democrats want Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene the House immediately to address what they call the threat of Artificial Intelligence. In a letter to the Speaker, the Democrats argue Congress is fiddling while A.I. poses catastrophic risks.
They point to new reports of bioweapon threats and possible misuse of A.I. by foreign actors. But is the recent panic around A.I. outpacing the actual threat? Some cybersecurity experts argue those fears of an A.I.-induced Armageddon are wildly overdone.
Joining me now, Ciaran Martin; he ran Britain's National Cyber Security Center from 2016 to 2020. He's a Professor at the School of Government in Oxford University. Ciaran, thanks for being with me. So, let me ask you this, because your economist article was published before we heard from Jacob Coxon, this former Anthropic OpenAI researcher who said that A.I. could kill humans.
And before Anthropic, this week said it interrupted efforts to use Claude models in ways that could support biological weapons development. So, do you still stand by with this new reporting that fears of A.I.-induced Armageddon are overdone?
CIARAN MARTIN, PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Well, great to be with you, Victor. Thanks -- thank you for having me. I think when you look at A.I. and cybersecurity threats, and you look at the five-month period since Anthropic held back their new Claude Mythos model back in April on the grounds that it said it was too dangerous, too good at hacking to release.
And since then, it's been modified. It has essentially been released. So, we have other models and the predictions of what would happen within the first few months haven't really come to pass, because they've been manageable.
We've had them, as you say, we've had reports from Anthropic on bioweapons. We've also had reports on cybersecurity where actually they're very interesting, in how actors are misusing A.I., but they're also showing how it -- those threats can be contained in terms of the sort of catastrophic risk.
I think what other experts who go into the whole question of what A.I. means existentially for humanity in the future, with all the opportunities that it has, as well as all the risks. What I think the current debate lacks is the sort of path to that catastrophic situation, how it jumps from being isolated in the virtual world to causing the sort of catastrophic harm that has been set out.
The warnings about this week and these probability estimates seem to --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
MARTIN: Have been essentially made up. They don't have any workings out that we can scrutinize and so forth. So, it's a sort of unfalsifiable claim. So, I think context does matter. And I'm a cybersecurity expert, so I don't claim to understand bioweapons. I don't claim to understand many of the other risks. But if you look at what's happened --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
MARTIN: In terms of the warnings versus the reality in cybersecurity, we're doing OK and we're managing these risks.
BLACKWELL: So, let's talk about how long this runway is though, because what we heard from Jacob Coxon is that, these A.I. models could soon be smarter than humans. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACOB COXON, FRENCH-BRITISH TECHNOLOGY RESEARCHER: I think what's most scary is if A.I. is used to make itself more intelligent. The A.I. just gets smarter and smarter with no human involvement necessary. Until you have a thing that is vastly smarter than humans. And this could be coming very soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: So, the question is, how far are we from there? You write for "The Economist" that A.I. agents can act autonomously but are not autonomous. Is there any way to know how far we are from the possibility of them going rogue?
[06:45:00]
MARTIN: Well, there are all sorts of questions about what going rogue means, and I think we're at risk of conflating two different things here. One is this idea of recursive self-improvement that A.I. keeps getting better and essentially trains itself, and that slips out of our control.
I think what a lot of experts wonder around the limitations of that is simply the physical capacity it needs. If humans don't allow it to -- with all the computing power that, that needs, with all the infrastructure, it can't just sort of hijack things that cannot be switched off and controlled by humans.
Then on agents supposedly going rogue, what we've seen, and if we've been talking about this a week ago, and we wouldn't have had Mr. Coxon's intervention. We'd have been talking about the so-called hugging face incident.
And that's what's -- and happened there was, during an OpenAI test on the capabilities of its new models, some agents escaped their controlled environment and went off and hacked into another company, although they didn't do any actual harm.
So, we're a long way from this catastrophic risk. And what I think we've realized as a result of the extensive analysis of that incident is that, it was really a testing failure. There has been -- there's a way of training these models in these agents where, as in this case, they were incentivized to pursue an impossible task.
So, they weren't going to stop. And they were told essentially to ignore any obstacles in their way. So, they were incentivized to cheat even if late in the day --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
MARTIN: They were instructed not to. Also, and I think this is really important. They weren't being monitored. And if you're -- been involved in cybersecurity, you know, for more than 15 years, we've always --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
MARTIN: Said isolate and test from the internet, that didn't happen here, and monitor the actions of the agents. And yes, I mean, if we just decide we're not going to watch these things, if we decide there's going to be no accountability, that an agent somehow is an autonomous legal being that nobody controls, then we are in big trouble. We don't have to make those decisions, and we really shouldn't.
BLACKWELL: Yes, we certainly should be monitoring them. Ciaran Martin, thanks so much --
MARTIN: Absolutely --
BLACKWELL: For being part of the conversation --
MARTIN: And we won, and in some of these cases, we won.
BLACKWELL: Yes, thank you, sir. All right, next, hurricane season in now uncharted territory. We're still waiting for our first Atlantic hurricane. We'll explain the science behind this. And as we go to break, here's a live look at Coney Island, New York. Sun is coming up. Beautiful start to the weekend. Good morning!
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[06:50:00]
BLACKWELL: Check your top stories this morning. President Trump is in Ireland this weekend. He met with the Irish President and Prime Minister a short time ago. He's expected to meet with business leaders next hour before heading to his golf course for a tournament this weekend.
Gas prices are surging as the war in Iran continues. The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded is at $4.31 a gallon, up nearly 17 cents in just the past week. Diesel prices higher now than ever. A new record $6.16 a gallon.
Now, as we remember the September 11th attacks 25 years ago, it's natural to focus on what was lost. Understandable, but many found comfort in seeing how people across the country came together. CNN Hero Jeff Parness started a nonprofit to pay that goodwill forward by bringing grateful New Yorkers to help other communities hit by disasters.
And that work also helped resurrect a one-of-a-kind artifact that became a tangible symbol of resilience and unity.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: One of the most unique artifacts in the 9/11 Museums collection is currently on display. It's a 500 square foot flag from Ground Zero that was repaired through an ambitious effort led by CNN Hero Jeff Parness.
JEFF PARNESS, REPAIRED U.S. FLAG FOR 9/11 MUSEUM: It's emotional. Each one of the patches reminds me of all the people who stitched the flag.
COOPER: Now known as the National 9/11 Flag, it was hanging across from the World Trade Center and was destroyed when the Twin Towers fell. Jeff lost a close friend that day, but he was also deeply moved by the unity people showed after the attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you!
PARNESS: The day after 9/11, there were no Democrats or Republicans. We were just Americans. We were at our very best.
COOPER: This led Jeff to start New York Says Thank You, which brought New Yorkers to help other disaster-stricken communities. In 2008, the group helped rebuild Greensburg, Kansas, after a devastating tornado. A volunteer who had worked at Ground Zero brought along the tattered flag and local residents started stitching.
PARNESS: They had gone through their own 9/11, right, and they took it upon themselves to start healing the flag.
COOPER: It was patched with flags that had survived the tornado. Then, for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 --
PARNESS: We decided we were going to return it to its original flag format.
COOPER: For more than a year, the flag toured all 50 states where patches and threads from historic flags, including the Star-Spangled Banner, were sewn in by more than 30,000 people. PARNESS: People lined up for hours for the privilege of putting one stitch in. It's kind of like the best of what America is about. People chose to strengthen our national fabric.
[06:55:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The National 9/11 flag was the first artifact walked into the newly opened 9/11 Museum in May of 2014. So, it was a very moving, beautiful ceremony. It's just a tremendous symbol of good.
COOPER: It was on display for a year-and-a-half, and is now being safely preserved. Jeff hopes the flag will be exhibited again soon, so people can appreciate its powerful message.
PARNESS: It's a symbol of not just resilience, but of compassion. This is living proof that love is stronger than hate.
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BLACKWELL: To learn more about Jeff's work, go to CNNHeroes.com. A new hour of CNN THIS MORNING continues after the break.
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BLACKWELL: Welcome back to CNN THIS MORNING. Here's what's happening. President Trump is meeting right now with U.S. Embassy officials and staff in Ireland.
