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Connect the World
Anthropic Researcher Warns AI Could Cause Kill All Humans; U.S. Strikes 5 Iranian Tankers After Iran Fired at U.S. Warship; Iran Fires Missiles at Jordan After U.S. Hits Iranian Tankers; Iran Threatens to Hit Oil Tankers Near Bahraini & Kuwaiti Ports; Russia Strikes Ukraine Just Days After U.S. Envoys Attempt Peace Talks. Aired 9-9:45a ET
Aired September 09, 2026 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: Well, happening right now, Norway laying its monarch to rest, you are looking at live pictures of the
funeral of King Harold V. It is a busy news day, but worth noting this live moment there happening now in Oslo.
It is 03:00 p.m. there. It is 05:00 p.m. here in Abu Dhabi. From our Middle East programming headquarters. I'm Becky Anderson. You're watching "Connect
the World". Here are the top stories that we are focused on for the next two hours. Well, the Trump Administration taking new action against Iranian
tankers hitting five and sinking one.
We'll have the latest out of Washington and this region. An air traffic control outage has caused dozens of flight cancelations at some of the UK's
busiest airports. And an Anthropic researcher warns that there is more than a 10 percent chance AI quote, could kill all humans in the next decade.
Well, New York Stock Exchange opens about 30 minutes from now. And this is how futures are doing, indicating a weaker start to this trading day. More
on that at the bottom of the hour. I want to start though with a major escalation of the U.S.-Iran war. The U.S. military striking five Iranian
oil tankers and sinking one of them, after Iran fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship.
Four of the tankers hit, were in the Gulf of Oman. The other was near Kharg Island, a hub for Iranian oil exports. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio
says the attacks should serve as a warning to Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: But Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they're
going to lose tankers, and I think you'll see that again today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Well, Iran responding by launching missiles at an air base in Jordan used by U.S. forces. Jordan says its air defenses intercepted a
barrage of missiles. 18 of 20 missiles fired, and the other two fell. They say in unpopulated areas. And just within the past few hours, a marine
monitoring group in the UK reports a vessel off the coast of Dubai is possibly taking on water after what could be an attack from an unknown
projectile, that vessel was seen tilting to one side.
Brian Todd, joining me from Washington. Brian, what we certainly saw reported last night does feel like a change, direct shrinking of an Iranian
vessel, as opposed to just disabling. What do we know, and what's the thinking at the White House?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is clearly an escalation on both sides, Becky. We have new reporting on this from our colleagues Zachary
Cohen and Hira Humayun. In addition to information we're getting from U.S. Central Command, the U.S. military has really ramped up its campaign of
strikes against Iranian tankers.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military struck five Iranian tankers, sinking one of them. This after Iran fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship. Now,
in a video posted on X by CENTCOM, one of the Iranian tankers, which is called the M/T Riesco, can be seen on fire and gradually sinking.
You see the strike on it right there. This is in the Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM says U.S. forces instructed the crews of all the vessels they hit to
abandon ship prior to the strikes. We also have video of the other Iranian tankers being hit on Tuesday. CENTCOM says four of those tankers were
struck in the Gulf of Oman.
One was struck near Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. Iranian state media says the crews of at least two Iranian vessels hit were taken ashore in
life boats. These U.S. strikes were in response to two Iranian attempts to attack a U.S. Navy ship over the past two days. That U.S. vessel evaded the
Iranian missiles.
CENTCOM says no American personnel were harmed, and the U.S. ship continued to patrol in that region, Becky.
ANDERSON: And Brian, this Iranian retaliation in Jordan. What more do we know about that?
TODD: Well, we do know, Becky, that Iran did attempt to retaliate on Tuesday following those U.S. strikes on the tankers.
[09:05:00]
Iran launching a missile barrage toward Jordan, which is a U.S. ally. And Iran says it targeted U.S. military assets in Jordan.
ANDERSON: OK.
TODD: Now the Jordanian army says its air defenses destroyed 18 of 20 Iranian ballistic missiles, and the other two fell in unpopulated areas.
But Iran is continuing to threaten more retaliation, saying it will target oil tankers near Bahrain and Kuwait. But this is all part of a continuing
escalation.
U.S. forces actually hit three Iranian tankers over the weekend after Iran attempted to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier and a guided missile destroyer,
Becky.
ANDERSON: And finally, before I let you go, there's new information, Brian, as I understand it, on a suspected Iranian nuclear site. What have you got
on that?
TODD: Right. We have new reporting on that from our colleagues Davis Winkie, Zachary Cohen, and Thomas Bordeaux. This suspected Iranian nuclear
site called Pickaxe Mountain, about 140 miles south of Tehran, has seen a flurry of construction work this year.
Analysis by the think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis, which was shared with CNN, says the site quote, has
shifted from active excavation toward probably internal construction. That it has seen more road activity this year than ever before, and it has seen
the reinforcement of portal accesses.
But the analysis also says despite this construction, that site is not yet capable of enrichment work. Intelligence agencies view Pickaxe Mountain as
a possible location for Iran to protect future efforts with its nuclear program. President Trump, in recent days, said the U.S. may strike Pickaxe
Mountain very soon, but it's not clear if the U.S. has sufficient munitions to destroy what they would like to destroy at that facility, Becky.
ANDERSON: Brian, thank you. Brian Todd for you out of Washington. I'm joined now in the studio by Firas Maksad, who is the Managing Director for
the Middle East Eurasia Group, good friend of this show, expert on this region. What do you make, Firas?
Good to have you here in Abu Dhabi. Thank you. What do you make of what we just heard?
FIRAS MAKSAD, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR THE MIDDLE EAST EURASIA GROUP: Becky, this is the new normal as economic strangulation becomes a strategy of the
United States. And as these sanctions and the blockade hit hard, Iran right now is virtually unable to export its oil.
Iran's going to lash out, including against shipping and U.S. naval vessels. The U.S. is determined to extract a price from the Iranians firing
back, and we go into that tit for tat scenario. Now, the important thing here, Becky, is that's happening below the threshold of an all-out war.
Neither the Iranians nor the Americans have an interest with that. There are constraints on both sides. We've all heard the discussions about the
limitations of precise scattered munitions on the American side and interceptors versus ballistic missiles. The Iranians too have constraints
of their own, including the numbers of launchers they have left.
And so, this is a war that continues below a certain threshold, below a certain ceiling. Will probably be with us well into 2027.
ANDERSON: The U.S. has clearly not degraded Iranian assets enough to prevent the sort of attacks both on U.S. assets in the Strait of Hormuz, or
certainly in the waterways around the Strait of Hormuz, and on the Jordanian base last night. That's a clear message from Tehran, of course,
that we're still in this.
MAKSAD: Iranian capabilities have been degraded. They haven't been eviscerated. So, the taking out of much of the radars along the coastline
on the islands has enabled the U.S. to provide what we call the shuttle service. The fact that so much more oil right now, particularly here,
Emirates, UAE oil.
UAE is back to exporting roughly 100 percent of what its exports were pre- war, so there's a lot that's more that's coming out of the straits, with some credibility the U.S. therefore is claiming that Iran has lost control
of the straits, but that doesn't mean that Iran doesn't have the ability to do damage and fire to extract a price from the U.S. every now and then.
ANDERSON: That oil coming out of the UAE, of course, is not coming out as it was six months ago. Some of that will be going, you know, under the
radar out at night. But you're right to suggest that, as far as UAE is concerned, its exports are getting out. That's not the same for other Gulf
states, particularly not Qatar, for example, with its LNG.
The U.S. very focused on getting the strait open for oil at this point, but those waterways are so much more significant and important than just that -
-
MAKSAD: And I didn't mean to suggest that. We're talking purely about crude. We haven't talked about refined product.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
MAKSAD: We haven't talked about LNG.
ANDERSON: Fertilizer, and all the rest.
MAKSAD: In fact, in terms of the strangulation policy now called Operation Economic Outcast, as the White House likes to call it. Iran is losing quite
a bit, and I would argue that the dynamics are not in Iran's favor. But there are going to be some hard questions for the Trump Administration as
we get into the fall.
[09:10:00]
If this continues, there are going to be shortages in refined product, diesel is an all-time high in the U.S. And as a former senior U.S. official
liked to say, the U.S. is not a farm to table. It's a farm to truck to table. Much operates trucks operate on diesel. The economy needs diesel and
refined, and those kinds of constraints will become that much more real for the Trump Administration as we head into the fall.
ANDERSON: And that's right. Heading into the fall, of course, is heading into the midterm elections. I am told by many people who are in constant
contact with the White House that Donald Trump doesn't care, when it comes to the Iran-U.S. story, the midterms do not factor in.
Believe that or not, that is what, you know, that's what we're hearing, and I think it's probably you're hearing the same thing. However, you know, for
those lawmakers who are trying to defend, you know, their jobs and their livelihoods in these midterms, it is going to matter.
And what you hear around the Gulf is this fear that you'll see increasing leaks tapered by lawmakers on both sides of the divide about this, the risk
that this war has, the impact it has on the U.S. and on them individually in their states. And so, you know the risk, the concern here is that this
becomes a U.S. domestic political issue that the U.S. walks away from this because it's becoming too painful in America, and the approval ratings for
this war for Donald Trump are extremely low.
Again, he says he doesn't care, but the Republican Party does, and so do the Democrats.
MAKSAD: You're absolutely right, but if you ask me what the Iranians are betting on at this point, given that the dynamics I would argue have been
reversed, that a lot more --
ANDERSON: I agree with you at that point. Absolutely.
MAKSAD: -- is coming out, that the blockade is really having an impact and will have more of an impact as time goes by. What the Iranians are hoping
is that kind of domestic pressure, the shortages expected in the fall, really piling the pressure on Donald Trump. Donald Trump, I would argue to
you right now, is much more focused on his legacy, his strongman persona, and not being seen as having defeated by the Iranians --
ANDERSON: So, two questions at this point with the midterms beginning of November, you know, we're -- it's crystal ball gazing at this point. But
you know there's much talk from those who are sort of relatively well sort of embedded in Iranian thinking that the Iranians are likely to ramp this
up in the lead up to the midterms.
Is that something that you buy at this point, because what's going to happen if that's the case?
MAKSAD: It is certainly a possibility. They do so at great risk, given where Donald Trump is. Everybody that I know that has access to the
president talks about a much more hawkish mindset. In fact, this new approach of switching gears away from kinetic and into focusing on economic
pressure is favored by many of his advisers.
Certainly, favored by countries here in the Gulf region, wanting to give economic coercion and diplomacy. There are, by the way, ongoing diplomatic
efforts.
ANDERSON: Correct.
MAKSAD: There are negotiators and mediators that will be meeting this very weekend with a real proposal. We yet to see whether that will pan out or
not, but there are continuing efforts at diplomacy between the two sides. But the Iranians can very much escalate. Trump is more likely to escalate
after the war. He doesn't care about the midterms -- after the midterms.
ANDERSON: -- Yeah.
MAKSAD: He doesn't care about the midterms, but it's certainly easier to escalate for him after the midterms, rather than before the midterms. So,
the possibility of this devolving into yet another major military confrontation is real. But right now, both sides keep this below a certain
threshold and not to risk a full confrontation.
ANDERSON: And you talk about this sort of economic coercion, the tightening of the squeeze, you know, through the Bessent moves as beginning to hurt,
and it is. There is absolutely no question about it, both inside Iran and the most recent sanctions hurting members of the Revolutionary Guard
themselves.
But this isn't a kind of -- this is a long-term game, isn't it? I mean, we're talking about not today, not tomorrow. However much the region might
have hoped that things would happen quicker and that we would see the demise of this regime, that's not going to happen any time soon.
So, the question is for the and come back to this region as we close this out. You're right to suggest that this sort of contested space feels like
it's being normalized, and that's worrying.
MAKSAD: It is both worrying and reassuring, I would argue to you. The fact that life can go on. I mean, we're both --
ANDERSON: Sure. Absolutely. No doubt about that.
MAKSAD: Defenses have been upped. A lot of anti-ballistic missile, anti- drone technology imported.
[09:15:00]
This part of the world is in a much better place today compared to where they were when this war started. However, it's not an ideal situation.
Everybody wants this war to come to an end. And so yeah, I think the Iranians at this point are feeling the pressure. That is quite different
from whether that will move the needle politically in Bahrain.
And for a lot of the mediators that I talk to that are very much involved in active diplomacy, one of the main challenges they feel in dealing with
the Iranians is the sheer fragmentation after the killing of the supreme leader, and the knockoff effect that has had on Iranian decision makings.
The Iranian political system is fragmented, and cannot seem to get on the same page on whether to sign on to a deal and then how to implement a deal,
and that's been a real challenge.
ANDERSON: It's really important that you noted that diplomacy goes on, and both you and I, you know, understand. We know that there is a deal. You
know, there is a -- at least a technical deal, and we're talking about very specifically for the Strait of Hormuz at this point.
MAKSAD: Yeah --
ANDERSON: I mean, what happens after that is a sort of long road to an off ramp. But that's really important to note, and so we will watch for news on
that because we're talking, you know, as we move into a weekend, we could actually see some news on that, which would be good to see.
Always good to see you. Thank you very much indeed. One of the best in the business, if not the best, and always good to have you here in Abu Dhabi.
MAKSAD: Thank you, Becky.
ANDERSON: Right, the UK, France, Canada announcing plans for sanctions and what they describe as illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West
Bank. Nine other Western nations say they'll also introduce similar restrictions on trade, or would work to support European sanctions.
Speaking in Parliament, the new British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband accused what he called settler terrorists of carrying out ethnic cleansing
against Palestinians. He described the sanctions as part of a reset in Britain's relationship with Israel. While Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon
Sa'ar calling the move an absurd political decision and a quote, morally corrupt move.
Settlement expansion has accelerated under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which has made growing the settlements a key
priority. Here is more from the Israeli Foreign Minister.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIDEON SAAR, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: The message to every government that harms us is clear, whoever acts against Israel, Israel will act against
them, and they will lose their influence and relevance in this region. Measures against Israel will not go unanswered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declining to comment directly on the new sanctions with reporters. Have a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBIO: We were made aware that they were going to make this decision. We heard their argument as to why, but look, we share the goal of stability.
We don't want to see some uptick in violence, or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time in the region.
There are always tenuous times, but beyond that, I don't think, as at this moment, we don't have any further comment on the UK decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: You're watching "Connect the World". Still to come, passengers and airlines could end up having another tough day at some of the world's
busiest airports. More on that after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:20:00]
ANDERSON: Well, airlines are scrambling to clear what is a huge backlog on the second day of major flight disruptions at British airports, including
Heathrow, which, of course, is the seventh busiest airport in the world. The chaos erupted on Tuesday from an air traffic control glitch.
Departure boards at Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted showed flight after flight delayed or canceled. This isn't the first time in recent years that
a major outage has affected passengers at Heathrow and other airports. CNN's Clare Sebastian joining us live from London. This is day two flight
delays and cancelations.
What's the latest, and what do we what do we know about why this happened?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Improving, Becky, but we are still seeing, as you say, that major backlog, which has left, of course,
passengers stranded and crew and planes in the wrong places. Which has meant that today, again, according to data from Cirium Analytics, which is
an aviation analytics company, we're seeing 327 flights canceled across UK airports.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
SEBASTIAN: That's about 5.5 percent of the normal schedule. If you compare that, I think we can pull up a graphic to yesterday. We saw about 30
percent of the flights arriving and departing that just didn't take off or were canceled. So, things are improving. It's still not a normal day.
It's still not business as usual. Passengers are still being advised to check with their airlines, but look, they are working to clear the backlog
in terms of what exactly went wrong. Well, they're calling it a technical issue. They say that it's resolved. This is according to NATS, the National
Air Traffic Services.
This is a part government-owned provider of air traffic control services to major UK airports. They are not saying what exactly it was as of yet, but
they are denying that it is the same problem that caused the major outage in 2023. They're saying that it is something new.
The CEO of NATS was hauled in to see the British Transport Minister earlier today. And the government has ordered a very quick investigation. They want
the company to report back in a week, but they are saying, despite calls from some airlines, in particular Ryanair, for the CEO to be sacked, they
are saying that as of now they have confidence in him.
But Ryanair, so far, among the airlines who are obviously very affected by this, very disrupted and facing higher costs, Ryanair the most outspoken.
Take a listen to the COO of that airline.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEAL MCMAHON, RYANAIR CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER: Enough is enough. It's time for the UK government to intervene, so we can finally get NATS up and
running and fix the chronic ATC issues that we've had over the last number of years. We've seen ATC charges go up 28 percent despite we continue to
get worse and worse performance under Martin Roth's leadership.
We once again call on the UK government to fix UK ATC and put somebody in charge who can do the job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEBASTIAN: So, look, all of this, of course, translates into higher costs for the airlines in terms of looking after the passengers, providing food
and water, and all that for those stranded, rebooking them. The cost of moving airlines around and updating the schedule.
They've been working through the night on that. We're hearing all of that mount, and of course, this is already a difficult year for airlines with
the rising cost of jet fuel. So, it's another problem layered on top of the challenges they're already facing, Becky.
ANDERSON: Good to have you, Clare. Thank you very much indeed. News you can use for our viewers around the world. Right, Moldova's President warning
Russia's front line is moving further west after a Russian drone attack hit a checkpoint at the Ukraine-Moldova border.
Two civilians killed, three others wounded, according to local authorities. While Russia also struck Kyiv overnight, continuing its attacks on the
Ukrainian capital. This video released by Ukraine's State Emergency Service shows firefighters battling a blaze and thick smoke after a Russian drone
hit a food industry building in the Kyiv region.
Well, these strikes come just days after U.S. special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff visited Russia and Ukraine, attempting to kickstart
stalled peace talks. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing the talks as quote, substantive, but added that a lot of work remains.
Well, let's get you up to speed on some of the other stories that are on our radar right now.
[09:25:00]
And President Trump gave three female White House aides, $45,000 each last Christmas. Among those who received the money, Natalie Harp. The executive
assistant's relationship to the president has been attracting interest in recent weeks. That's after Harp left the G20 summit with Trump on Air Force
One, following fears of an assassination attempt.
And Norway's King Harold V is being laid to rest today, marking the end of 13 days of national mourning. Heads of state and members of royal families
from around the world were invited, including Britain's Prince William. King Harold spent more than three decades on the throne and died at the age
of 89.
Well, you're watching "Connect the World" with me Becky Anderson from our Middle East programming headquarters here in Abu Dhabi. Up next, the start
of the trading week and the business headlines for you, including a start warning about the power and danger of artificial intelligence. You want to
hear this one? Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: Right, welcome back. I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi, and where you are watching, you are more than welcome. This is "Connect the World".
Well, the U.S. military attacked five Iranian oil tankers and sank one of them after Iran fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship.
Four of those tankers hit were transiting the Gulf of Oman. The other was near Kharg Island, a hub for Iranian oil exports. Tehran responding by
firing missiles towards a U.S. base in Jordan. Well Russia continues to strike Ukraine just days after U.S. envoys visited Kyiv to try and restart
peace talks.
Video released by Ukraine's State Emergency Service shows firefighters battling a blaze at a food industry building in the Kyiv region overnight,
sparked by a Russian drone strike. Well, the head of Britain's air traffic control system has been summoned to a meeting with the UK Transport
Minister.
This comes as airlines try to get their flights back on track after an air traffic control outage hit UK airports on Tuesday. We are hearing of more
flight delays and cancelations today. Well, the U.S.-Canada rift widening as President Trump's tariff war enters a new chapter.
Less than 24 hours after Canada retaliated with 20 billion dollars of their own tariffs, President Trump threatens an outright ban on a host of
Canadian goods. Well, the White House claims it would block Americans importing a range of Canadian-made alcoholic beverages, motorcycles, and
whey.
[09:30:00]
And President Trump has threatened to go further blocking major government purchases from Canada unless the country offers Americans greater access to
its markets. Right. Well, that news ahead of the opening bell, which is just about to ring. And on that bell today, it is members of staff for the
leadership team at Oracle.
OK, we'll let you just listen to that iconic sound on Wall Street. It is 09:30 there, and the markets will be open. We always let the S&P and the
NASDAQ settle just a little. Worth having a look at the Dow Jones. We were expecting to see a weaker start, and that is what we've got down about a
third of 1 percent.
Do remember we've got the oil price, and let me bring those up for you. Got the oil price above 100 on Brent, which is the international index, of
course, and WTI crude at 95 spot 94. These prices continue to rise as we continue to see this escalation between the U.S. and Iran, both in the
Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere.
Right. Well, an AI researcher has issued a particularly dark warning for artificial intelligence as he quit his role at Anthropic, which is the
company behind the AI tool Claude, saying that OpenAI, company behind ChatGPT and Anthropic, are acting irresponsibly and gambling with our
lives.
Jacob Coxon says firms are racing to build self-improving AI systems that may not be they may not be able to control. While a top safety researcher
at Anthropic, backing up the comments, posting, quote, we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans.
And he goes on to say, there is a more than 10 percent chance of that within the next decade. Well, Anthony's scalable oversight lead weighed in
too, saying in a personal capacity and not on behalf of his employer, quote, AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction
bracket or similarly bad outcomes, which is an odd one to write and certainly an odd one for me to read out to you.
This could happen in the next few years. Hadas Gold has been following this, and she joins us live from New York. This could cause human
extinction or similarly bad outcomes. Like I say, oddly phrased, but hugely worrying. I'm sure for many of our viewers out there.
Look, we've sort of seen a kind of tsunami of posts and thoughts over the past 24 hours, and this isn't, you know, this isn't new. This sort of, you
know, doom laden sort of version of an AI future, but just tell us more about these warnings. The original X read from Coxon is really worrying.
It is, you know, it's really worrying to read. Is it as bleak as is being made out?
HADAS GOLD, CNN AI CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what's important to remember is that, as you noted, this is not a new sentiment in the AI
industry. Not even just by you know lower-level researchers like Jacob Coxon. The leaders themselves, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, they have all
expressed this sort of yeah, there's a potential that this technology could kill us all.
And that's part of the reason why Dario Amodei even created Anthropic was because he believed that OpenAI was not being serious enough about safety
and about alignment, and thought that he could create a company that would really focus on safety and alignment.
And now you have one of his own staff members saying, actually, nobody is doing this right, and this is very dangerous. I want to play a clip of
Dario Amodei from actually a few years ago, where you get a sense of what this sort of sentiment is like through the industry and how long they've
been talking about how AI could kill us all. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DARIO AMODEI, ANTHROPIC CEO: I think I've often said that my chance that something goes, you know, really quite catastrophically wrong on the scale
of you know human civilization, you know, might be somewhere between 10 and 25 percent when you put together the risk of something going wrong with the
model itself, with you know something going wrong with human, you know, people or organizations or nation states misusing the model or it kind of
inducing conflict among them, or just some way in which kind of society can't handle it.
That said, I mean you know what that means is that there's a 75 to 90 percent chance that this technology is developed and everything goes fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLD: They talk about the end of the world so casually, Becky. Like they're just you know sitting around a podcast table talking about how the robots
are going to heal us all. But I think one of the reasons that this post in particular went viral is not only is it somebody quitting their livelihood,
which was probably a very lucrative job, in order to sort of sound, the alarm.
[09:35:00]
But also, because this is coming on the heels of what have been a very alarming few months in terms of what we've seen AI agents able to do, where
they are breaking out of their lab environments and hacking into other companies, where they are taking on false identities to try and trick
humans into posting malicious code online.
These sort of sci-fi like situations that we thought could only happen in movies are now happening in real life, and it's not hard to make the
connection between an AI agent hacking into another company's just you know backend systems and an AI agent going rogue and hacking into the hospital
or utilities.
And I think that's why people are really now paying attention to this sort of doom and gloom sentiment that we've been hearing from the AI world for
quite some time.
ANDERSON: Yeah, and it does, you know, when you hear the head of Anthropic talking like that, it feels sort of self-contradictory, given that his
company, you know, it's his company that's involved in the development of these sort of you know, swarms of AI agents, sort of you know, working
together for this what feels like really sort of doom-laden existential kind of moment for all of us.
However, he is also one of the companies that was out front talking about how important regulation is. I guess you know it's important to these AI
companies that they get ahead of any of this and can sort of own the regulation story rather than leaving it to other people.
But it's just you know, one of these things that I'm sure our viewers will wonder why it is that you know, these companies you know, are led by people
who are actually you know, ringing the warning bells. But anyway, we'll leave that to another discussion. I do want to discuss the upsides, AI's
potential for solving seriously complex problems.
OpenAI says it has solved the decade-old Navier-Stokes math's problem in a matter of hours. There is some controversy around this announcement. So,
just tell us what we know about this.
GOLD: Agents over 88 hours to produce the proof of this math problem, which I'm not going to get into because I barely understand it myself. But it's
one of these sorts of seven huge math problems that have confounded mathematicians for ages. And there is actually a $1 million prize
associated with solving this math problem, which I will say, OpenAI has said they will not be claiming this prize.
But you're right. There is some controversy because just a few hours before OpenAI announced that they had solved this, two other mathematicians
announced that they had also solved. It's not clear whether it's the exact same problem or something similar. They used a different approach.
One of them is a professor at NYU, and one of them is someone who also works in Anthropic, but solved this in his personal capacity. And they made
some suggestions that maybe OpenAI, first of all, had heard that what they were working on, and actually dedicated a bunch of agents and time to solve
this before those mathematicians could publish their work.
But they also brought up an interesting question. They said that they actually used OpenAI's ChatGPT while they were trying to solve this
problem, while they were trying to write up the paper, and they are worried that ChatGPT, you know, is constantly learning. All these AI models are
constantly taking in what you are telling them and training and making themselves better in sort of live action.
They were wondering whether ChatGPT had taken in what they had put in as part of their proof, and that in turn helped the OpenAI researchers because
you know they were working with their model that had learned from what these other mathematicians had said.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
GOLD: OpenAI has said that you know they did this on their own, but they still actually do not fully know, although they do not believe that ChatGPT
took what those other mathematicians did to help their own, you know, problem solving, but it just goes to show you how sort of murky this world
of when it comes to credit in what AI is discovering, like who is actually to be credited for this.
Like I said, OpenAI says they're not going to claim the prize, and they are trying to also laud these other mathematicians. But it's very interesting
to go see what these mathematicians from NYU, Tristan Buckmaster in particular, has said publicly about what he believes open AI did and how
they solve this problem themselves.
ANDERSON: Yeah. Yeah, fascinating. Somebody suggested there should be. This is a sort of Netflix script this one.
GOLD: Yeah.
ANDERSON: It's just -- it's a wild story. Good stuff. All right, thank you. Up next in sports, the defending champion at the U.S. Open out. Carlos
Alcaraz upended by home favorite Ben Shelton. More on that up next.
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[09:40:00]
ANDERSON: Well, home fans happy in New York after an incredible day for American tennis Tuesday, highlighted by Ben Shelton's marathon win over
defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, a match that finished again in the real early hours of the morning of Wednesday, a record-breaking late finish,
03:33 a.m. Eastern Time.
Amanda Davies with that on "World Sport" after this short break. I'm back with more. "Connect the World" in 15 minutes.
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[09:45:00]
(WORLD SPORT)
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