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Connect the World

WH Bars CNN, MS Now Reporters from Xi's State Dinner Arrival; Trump, Xi to Visit National Archives on Final Day of Summit; Nor'easter Set to Slam U.S. East Coast with Heavy Rain & Wind; AI and Tech Bosses at White House Dinner with Trump, Xi; University Uses AI to Alter Student's Race and Gender. Aired 9-9:45a ET

Aired September 25, 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, from trade wars to toasting friends, Xi Jinping uses a White House dinner to celebrate U.S.-

Chinese ties and call for cooperation, despite sharp differences between the two governments. It is 09:00 a.m. in Washington this Friday.

It is 05:00 p.m. here in Abu Dhabi, from our Middle East programming headquarters, you're watching "Connect the World". I'm Becky Anderson. Also

coming up this hour, Iran says it has put forward a proposal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart talks with the United States.

The White House is weighing its response. Church bells ring across France as Pope Leo arrives for a four-day visit, will be live for you in Paris.

And we are 30 minutes away from the start of trade on Wall Street this Friday, end of the week, and it looks like well a better open as a drop in

oil prices brings a little relief to those who have been a little concerned of late.

Let's see what happens with that. Bottom of the hour, the markets will open. We will be back on Wall Street for that. Well, the leaders of the

U.S. and China herald a new era for future relations. They are preparing to look back on the past. Presidents Trump and Xi will today tour the U.S.

National Archives in Washington on the final day of what is this landmark summit.

The U.S. President hosted a state dinner at the White House on Thursday, where President Xi envisaged a new chapter in U.S.-China relations. AI, a

big focus, with tech leaders like Elon Musk attending the dinner. Well other issues on the table during meetings yesterday, we're told, included

Taiwan and the U.S. war with Iran.

Now, if you're wondering why you're not seeing video of Presidents Trump and Xi, it's because of this ongoing impact of Mr. Trump's media ban on

Thursday. The White House denied reporters from CNN and MS Now access to Xi's arrival for the state dinner, even though both networks were allowed

in earlier in the day, after a judge overruled President Trump's media ban.

It is now unclear whether the Trump Administration will allow CNN to cover today's events. Meanwhile, sources tell CNN that Chinese intel is aiding

Iran's war effort against the United States. American intelligence assessments show that satellite imagery and intelligence support provided

by Chinese groups has helped Tehran threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz and launch precision strikes on U.S. military bases here in the Middle

East.

The level of the Chinese government's involvement in providing that assistance is unclear. Mike Valerio is in Beijing. Zachary Cohen is in

Washington for you. Mike, let's start with you. Tell us more about how this summit is being viewed in Beijing. You and I talked 24 hours or so ago.

And we talked about what the Chinese President was likely taking in. How is the meeting now assessed?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, it's being seen as a coup, Becky. And I think that that is the best way to put it. I mean, state media has

said that this is an unprecedented welcome for a Chinese Leader. You just have to look back 20 years ago, when Hu Jintao visited D.C. in 2006.

And when they were playing the national anthem, they said, you know, welcome to the leader of the Republic of China.

Of course, Hu Jintao is the Leader of the People's Republic of China. He didn't get a state dinner; he got something like a social lunch. So, when

you see President Trump welcoming Xi Jinping on the tarmac, something that hasn't happened for a foreign leader since I think it was April of 1962,

with Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, and President Kennedy meeting him on the tarmac.

This is being seen as such an accomplishment for resetting the atmosphere of competition and potential agreements between the United States and

China, but still a lot that's left to be done. Let's put up the graphic if we have it from the control room. There is the trade truce.

You know, it's been almost a year since the trade truce was struck in South Korea, but we heard from the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that it's

only been extended for two months, from November until January 10th of next year. So, you know what exactly gives with that?

There are plenty of reporting elements and also statements from the treasury secretary that are seeming to convey that they need to work out

more details with increasing the flow of rare earth minerals.

[09:05:00]

So, whether or not that leads to a larger agreement. The next time these two gentlemen meet, either in Shenzhen, China, southern China, just across

the border from Hong Kong, or if Xi Jinping goes the G20 summit in Miami, that certainly is the biggest piece of unfinished business when we're

talking about the economy.

Also, how is this U.S. Board of Trade going to work between the U.S. and China? That was announced in May. No specifics there exactly. Who's going

to run it? What's it going to accomplish exactly? And the AI dialog. How exactly will that work? Its meeting is going to happen in Shenzhen in

November.

But you know, this story is like our runaway train, according to some AI experts and leaders of the AI sector in America, is really meeting in two

months, meeting the moment for AI, Becky.

ANDERSON: Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? Zachary, let me bring you in.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Because what Mike didn't allude to there was anything on this new information about Chinese intelligence being used in Iran's war effort.

What do we know at this point?

COHEN: Yeah, Becky, the optics of this state dinner really do contrast with this new information that we're learning from our sources, who drew a

direct link between intelligence support and satellite imagery provided by Chinese groups to Iran and Iran's ability to improve its targeting

capabilities against both ships in the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. facilities across the region.

VALERIO: Yes, absolutely.

COHEN: And now this support has really allowed Iran and helped Iran extend this conflict, both by using its leverage to threaten ships in the Strait

of Hormuz, which it views as its key piece of leverage in this negotiation, potentially looming negotiation with the United States, as well as

retaliate against U.S. bases in the region, as we've seen them do during this month-long conflict.

And so, sources point directly to that July strike from Iran, targeting a U.S. base in Jordan, saying that this strike that killed 3 U.S. service

members would not have been possible without Chinese satellite imagery and without Chinese intelligence support, so really drawing a direct line

between that aid and the deaths of three American service members.

And then, in addition to that, we're learning that Chinese geospatial data has been used by the Iranians to track ships through the Strait of Hormuz,

allowing them, according to some officials, to more accurately target those commercial vessels and continue to credibly threaten commercial shipping

writ large as the U.S. continues to try to push more oil through each day with these escort operations.

So, this is obviously a complicating factor both politically for President Donald Trump, as especially as he's hosting Xi Jinping in D.C. this week,

but also militarily one that is difficult to suss out because, as you mentioned, the Chinese government its direct level of involvement in this

remains unclear.

But it is the firmest sign yet that we've seen of China's direct support for Iran in this conflict.

ANDERSON: Good to have you both. Thank you very much indeed. An important story, and we will continue to monitor that trip, the Xi Jinping trip here,

there to Washington in the hours to come.

VALERIO: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Right, Iran's Foreign Minister says his country is presenting a new proposal to restart talks with the United States and reopen the Strait

of Hormuz. That news coming as Iran's president held a briefing with reporters, including from CNN, at a hotel not far from United Nations

headquarters.

Masoud Pezeshkian talked about the financial strain, Iran has been under during the war. He also said he had meetings with the Supreme Leader

Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since the start of the war. Well, I'm joined here in Abu Dhabi by Paula Hancocks.

So, this latest proposal, at least announced by the Iranians, what do we know about it?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, this came from the Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. He didn't specify exactly what was in the

proposal, but he did say that it was nothing more these conditions than what we saw in the memorandum of understanding, which was signed back in

June.

That agreement, which has effectively been ignored by both sides in recent months. So, the proposal would be that the U.S. has to reach and agree to

certain conditions within seven days, and then talks would restart. The Strait of Hormuz would be reopened.

We've heard from a U.S. official telling CNN that they believe that these talks that have been going on, on the sidelines of the U.N. General

Assembly have been positive and constructive, but they also point out that they're not in a rush to reach any kind of agreement with Iran, because

they believe that they are in a strong position and they are in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

[09:10:00]

Now we did hear and we have been hearing quite a lot from the Iranian presidents Masoud Pezeshkian, as you mentioned, he had a fairly

unconventional briefing with reporters at a hotel, just a stone's throw from the U.N. building. He said that Iran is seeking agreements with the

United States and said it's basically up to Washington to end the war.

He did an interview with Fox News, so let's listen to part of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASOUD PEZESHKIAN, IRANIAN PRESIDENT: We did not choose war. The war was imposed on us. We do not seek war. Rather, whenever they attack us, we are

forced to defend ourselves. We never started a war, but if they wish to keep fighting with us, we will respond strongly, resolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: Now, in that briefing, he also gave more indication of how the Iranian economy is being affected by ongoing sanctions, by the naval

blockade that the U.S. has in place, and he said that the economy is being suffocated, pointing out that Iranian people are struggling with price

increases.

They're struggling with basic goods, a shortage of basic goods within the country itself. We also did hear from him saying that he had met with the

supreme leader about a month ago. He said he had a seven-hour-long meeting with Mojtaba Khamenei, who of course hasn't been seen in public since the

assassination of his father, an attack that he was believed to have been seriously injured in as well.

And then he also pointed out that he believed that the U.S. bases in this region, in the Gulf, which we know were very heavily targeted during the

kinetic part of this war by Iran, he claimed that many of those U.S. bases are now unusable. We did hear from the Pentagon watchdog in a report saying

they believed hundreds of buildings and structures had been damaged, but the Iranian President there going one step further, claiming that they're

unusable, Becky.

ANDERSON: Good to have you, Paula. Thank you. Well, the U.N. General Assembly heard two different interpretations of reality as the Israeli and

Palestinian leaders addressed the forum on Thursday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied his country committed genocide in Gaza, saying

Israel quote, prevented it.

He also dug in his heels when it comes to strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. He made a prediction that the fall of Iran's regime is only a

matter of time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: One day, and it may not be far away, the Iranian people will be free. Their murderous regime will be

toppled by its lies, by its corruption, by its cruelty. This evil regime will form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas focused on keeping the possibility of a two-state solution live. He spoke remotely. The U.S.

denied him an entry visa. He slammed Israel's plans to expand West Bank settlements, which he said would effectively split the territory in two.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT: We have long warned the international community, through the United Nations General Assembly and through the

Security Council, that these Israeli policies, in violation of international law, would destroy the two-state solution, and that this is

what is happening now.

The Palestinian people will not accept displacement, will not accept displacement, and will not disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, Ukraine's President says U.S. President Donald Trump has made a final decision to allow Ukraine to manufacture patriot missiles.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, quote, concrete agreements are in place. The two leaders met this week on the sidelines of the UNGA.

It should be noted that President Trump suggested at the NATO summit in July that he'd allow Ukraine to make patriots, and then he backtracked.

We're watching "Connect the World". I'm Becky Anderson for you here in Abu Dhabi. Still to come, we'll take you to France to follow Pope Leo's visit,

the latest from his meeting with the French President, and what he told reporters about press freedom.

And later, an early fall nor'easter is gathering strength along the U.S. East Coast. We'll have the very latest weather forecast for you after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

ANDERSON: We'll get you to France, where Pope Leo is making a four-day papal visit. He is meeting with the French President Emmanuel Macron, and

will be leading mass at the capital's famous Notre-Dame Cathedral. In the meantime, the Pope also speaking out on press freedom.

While on his way to Paris, Pope Leo was asked about the White House ban against the three media organizations, including CNN. He told CNN that good

coverage is important. Our Senior International Correspondent Melissa Bell on the ground in Paris. Do we have a sense of what the Pope and President

Macron will be discussing?

This, of course, is a four-day visit. Just take us through what we know at this point.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, the French President made his way to Orly this morning, Becky, to fetch, to

meet, to greet Pope Leo the 14th as he landed, and then welcomed him to the Elysee Palace with the diplomatic corps and much of France's political

classes.

Right now, they're at UNESCO headquarters where they're having discussions about AI. Of course, one of the big steps that Pope Leo XIV has taken since

becoming pope in his first encyclical has been to devote all that time and energy and thought to the question of AI and what it means for humanity.

So those conversations continue here in Paris alongside the French President. What we then expect is that he will make his way in the

Popemobile through the streets of Paris, from Montmartre all the way to Saint-Michel, and then find himself for vespers at Notre Dame.

Of course, now so spectacularly renovated, he is the first pontiff to make his way on a state visit to Paris since Pope Benedict 18 years ago back,

and it is a much more secular country that he's landed in this morning. One in which abortion has now been made a constitutional right, and a country

that's also just passed into a law on assisted dying.

So that's likely to be the sort of subtext of some of what the pope speaks to when he gets to Lourdes later this weekend. But there has been, and I

think it's important to note, this sort of resurgence of Catholic fervor here in France, and you can see a lot of that out on the streets of Paris.

Not just today along that route I mentioned, but here at the Concorde when he holds his giant mass tomorrow.

They're expecting about a million people to make their way to the French capital. I'd like you to listen, Becky, either to what one French priest

who calls himself a digital missionary has to say about that resurgence in the number of baptisms that we've seen here in France.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you for having us on the plane, I just wondered if you had a word for some of our colleagues at CNN

having difficulties at the White House. I mean, you have spoken of freedom of the press.

POPE LEO XIV: Very happy that here you are all welcome. And good coverage I think is very important, and we have it all the way around for everybody.

Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: Sorry about that, Becky. I had expected to have you listen to what a Catholic priest had to tell us about the need for more faith.

ANDERSON: Got it.

[09:20:00]

BELL: And that's something we've seen amongst the young, and it'll be at the heart of what happens tonight, when the pope gets the Stade de France

for a giant mass with the youth, but instead, what you just heard was Pope Leo the fourteenth on his way to Paris with our Vatican Correspondent Chris

Lamb.

And what he wanted to know from the pope, Becky, he was in the context of CNN being excluded from the White House earlier this week. What he had to

say about it, and what you heard there was the pope expressed himself on the importance of the freedom of the press, telling the journalists that

were with him this morning that they were more than welcome on his plane, Becky.

ANDERSON: And we are looking at live images of the pope as he tours or has just toured the UNESCO headquarters there in Paris. It's lovely to have

you, Melissa. Thank you so much.

BELL: OK.

ANDERSON: Well, an early fall nor'easter storm is gathering strength along the U.S. East Coast, threatening coastal flooding along with strong winds

and heavy rain throughout the weekend.

Derek Van Dam joining us from Hull, Massachusetts. How are you doing there? And how bad is this going to get, sir?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, wind has picked up significantly since we got out here earlier this morning, starting to get kind of pelted

by the sand. But I think why we call this a nor'easter, and this is important for our international audience, is because of the direction of

the wind.

The predominant wind is a northeast wind, and you are looking directly at it. That wind is coming straight off of the Atlantic, and it has been for

days, and it will continue to do that for several days on end. And that therein lies the problem, because this Atlantic Ocean has not only been

churned up from this onshore wind for the past several days.

But as the storm really gets us back together off the East Coast of the U.S. it's going to help push this water further and further along the

coastline, and that's why we have this coastal erosion threat here amongst the high wind threat and amongst the flooding threat that's really

contained to the coastline.

I'm going to show you around, give you a little bit of a scene set, but we're in Plymouth County, so we're just outside of Boston, and I'm going to

bring you down to the shoreline with my photojournalist Tom here, and just give you a little bit of an understanding of this northeasterly wind, what

it does, and why it can be so problematic when we talk about powerful nor'easters.

This is an early season, the first one of the years. We can think of the impacts similar to a tropical storm, but this storm doesn't have a name

like we would see with hurricanes this time of year. This is an early season nor'easter. But when we talk about the duration of the wind pounding

the shoreline for days on end, we're going to go through multiple tidal cycles.

So right now, the Atlantic Ocean is being pushed in by high tide, but it's being made worse by the fact that this onshore component to the wind is

going to continue to drive this water up into some of the low-lying areas that you see here along the coastline. There are a lot of residents and a

lot of businesses here.

And I want to show you on the graphics just so you could see exactly what the storm is doing and how it's still intensifying. That northeasterly wind

here is so critical in terms of where the storm is going to push that worst part of the impacts on into the Long Island Sound, the Coast of

Massachusetts, New York City.

There will be localized coastal flooding in that area. The coast of New Jersey, these areas are all bracing for impact as this nor'easter early

season storm gathers strike right now, Becky.

ANDERSON: And our viewers hearing that wind on your microphone, we can practically feel it here around the world.

DAM: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Apologies to our viewers for the slight technical hitch on that microphone, but it's certainly supporting the conceit of your narrative

there. Thank you very much indeed. It's difficult to know what the daily lives of North Koreans are like, given the limited access Pyongyang, of

course, allows to the country now.

An aid worker, though, who spent decades helping North Koreans is sharing her experiences and never before seen video with CNN. And we should warn

you, some of these images are disturbing. Senior International Correspondent Will Ripley with this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are images the North Korean government does not want you to see. Far away from

the showpiece capital Pyongyang, inside the homes of everyday people struggling to survive during the darkest days of the North Korean famine in

the 1990s.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And this child had the same old face than her grandmother. That's struck me.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Kathi Zellweger is a Swiss aid worker who spent nearly 25 years running humanitarian programs in North Korea, 75 trips, five years

living there.

[09:25:00]

Foreign journalists have never been granted this kind of access. Not even me on my 19 trips.

RIPLEY: We're looking at them, but they're looking at us as well. Every time I try to take a picture of those girls, they run away.

What is it like to be born and to grow up in North Korea?

KATHI ZELLWEGER, SWISS AID WORKER: I think you know parents try their best to look after children well, but it's challenging, especially in the

countryside, to provide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 3,200 tons of rice arrived several days ago.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Kathi brought in massive shipments of food, but she still had to verify where it was going. Following the food took her deeper

and deeper into North Korea.

MIKE CHINOY, FORMER CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of North Koreans who are alive today, who would be dead

if it wasn't for the work that Kathi Zellweger did.

RIPLEY (voice-over): In later years, she could feel the government tightening its grip, especially after diplomacy with the U.S. fell apart,

and North Korea was no longer interested in engaging with the West.

ZELLWEGER: The word "control" was used much more widely than before.

RIPLEY: So, you thought it was getting more restrictive and more controlling in more recent years.

ZELLWEGER: Yeah.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Then suddenly, the door slammed shut. Kathi often thinks about all the people she met, people she may never see or hear from

again. Will Ripley, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: Well, still to come on "Connect the World", the prestigious university where real students have been replaced by AI-generated images.

We speak to the Stanford senior who found himself erased.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Welcome back. I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi. You are watching "Connect the World" from our Middle East programming headquarters. The U.S.

and Chinese leaders will visit the National Archives in Washington today, the final day of their summit on Thursday.

Xi Jinping said he foresaw a new chapter in relations with the United States. CNN -- along with MS Now, from covering Xi's arrival at the White

House for that state dinner. Well, Pope Leo is in France for a papal visit. He'll spend the next four days in the country, meeting with French

President Emmanuel Macron and leading mass at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

[09:30:00]

He's also set to lead a prayer service at France's largest stadium. Let's get you the opening bell on Wall Street. Should just about be on the

button. There you go. Ringing the bell today. Operation Lifesaver, non- profit that promotes railroad safety, untold. Well, stocks were indicating a higher start on the futures market, and that is pretty much what we are

seeing.

Here the Dow Jones up by about an eighth of 1 percent. We will wait to see how the other couple of markets settle down in the next minute or so. Well,

some of America's most powerful tech executives joined President Trump and Xi at last night's White House dinner.

Elon Musk, there, CEO of SpaceX, has big ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence. Of course, Jeff Bezos, the Founder of Amazon, and

Michael Dell also in attendance, along with Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the top designer of AI chips. Well, AI has been one of the major issues for

discussion at the summit as growing numbers of people express concern over the pace of development and the lack of guardrails in place.

CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke with Nvidia's CEO ahead of that dinner, Jensen Huang told him it should be up to businesses to regulate the safety of

their own products. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The people who are working closest, the people who are on the front lines of the frontier models, the frontier of this

technology, they seem worried. Whether it's researchers, engineers, or the CEOs, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, they are raising alarms, saying we need

regulation.

Aren't they the ones closest to these models who would know best about what is needed?

JENSEN HUANG, NVIDIA CEO: If they're worried about it, they should just stop. If the product is not safe. Just don't release it.

COOPER: It's that simple. I mean, these are multi-billion-dollar companies, the competition --

HUANG: No, that's what every company does. That's what we do. That's what a car company would do. That's what you know anybody would do. If you're --

COOPER: Of course, companies that have gone forward with products that are not safe or are risky, and they go forward anyway because of competition.

That's why there's regulation.

HUANG: Well, if a regulation is necessary, if they don't have self, first of all, they ought to have self-restraint. If they're telling everybody

that their product is unsafe, they obviously know it. They're publicly admitting it. They ought to just not release it. OK.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: Well, let's get you a look at the main tech stocks, the so-called Magnificent 7. You got Alphabet, that's the Google company up today. Amazon

off as is Apple, Mett down, and you got the other three companies there make up the Magnificent 7, Microsoft and Nvidia higher, Tesla down.

So, it's a mixed bag. Stanford University says it's looking into what went wrong after an arm of the school used AI to alter a student's race and

gender in an advert changing a Hispanic man to a black woman, CNN's Jason Carroll spoke to the student who got deleted.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It may look harmless enough, a photo showing smiling, racially diverse group of students eating together

on campus, but it's the same photo which appeared in a Stanford University banner last week that has left some students outraged and raised questions

about the abuse of AI.

This is what the original 2024 photo really looks like. Again, take a look to see how it was altered. The Hispanic student replaced with an AI version

of a black female student, while the other two students' features were altered.

BILLY RAMIREZ, STANFORD STUDENT IN PHOTO: I did feel pretty upset with the actions of the university.

CARROLL (voice-over): Billy Ramirez, who was majoring in biology, is the student in the original photo. He says he first found out about the AI

photo swap from a friend.

RAMIREZ: I don't think it's mainly about the discussion of me being solved with like a black woman, but it's more about my Latino identity kind of

being erased in that photo and how I pride myself in being Mexican.

CARROLL (voice-over): The Stanford Review, an independent student newspaper, was the first to break the story.

GARRET MOLLOY, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE STANFORD REVIEW: I think this story was a perfect storm of abuse of AI, questions around diversity policies in

universities.

ZAYD PATEL, EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE STANFORD REVIEW: The goal was diversity, and they strayed so far from it.

CARROLL (voice-over): A university spokesperson said, we have reviewed the matter and confirm that AI was used to alter the image in violation of

university policy.

[09:35:00]

The banners with the image in question have been removed. Stanford's AI policy is clear, the use of AI in producing or altering images of Stanford

people, events, research, facilities, or achievements is strictly prohibited.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's kind of unacceptable you know, Stanford is a place where we have, they actually pride themselves on having students from like

over 60 different countries in their incoming class, like they have diversity that they shouldn't need to fabricate it.

CARROLL (voice-over): This isn't the first time universities have been caught altering photos in the name of diversity. Long before AI, in 2000,

the University of Wisconsin Madison was caught using Photoshop in an effort to make the school appear more diverse.

While in 2019, York College of Pennsylvania was accused of doing the same.

PATEL: It honestly doesn't seem that different than what happened -- has happened in the past. It's just a particular use in this age with AI that

makes it so much easier to get to that point.

CARROLL (voice-over): Ramirez says this experience has taught him an unexpected lesson.

RAMIREZ: -- this is a wakeup call for Stanford to increase its diversity rates because if you pride yourself so much in diversity, you have to swap

a student who's Hispanic into another race and gender to kind of showcase to the world it's diverse. Will actually like you need to take action.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: That was Jason Carroll reporting for you there. All right, you're watching "Connect the World" with me, Becky Anderson. Up next in the world

of sport, a champagne celebration to remember for the White Sox and one Japanese rookie in particular. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Well, up next here on CNN "Seasons", which is CNN's culture and lifestyle series. We meet with the British artist Es Devlin. She's designed

for stages for Beyonce's World Tour, the London Olympics closing ceremony in the Super Bowl halftime show.

Not a bad list. Well, Laura Jackson visited her studio and found out how AI helps her to engage with audiences in new ways.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ES DEVLIN, ARTIST AND DESIGNER: This is Abel from the weekend. That's his head.

LAURA JACKSON, CNN HOST: Oh, my goodness.

DEVLIN: So, first we cast his head here. So, this was from 2018, and then we made a mask that sat like that on Coachella stage. This is the

sketchbook from pretty much the first piece of theater I made in 1998. We made a show with tape that called "The Circus" in 2009.

It's just been redone lately, and this was a man, a giant man that stood up and walked across the stadium.

JACKSON (voice-over): Es Devlin blends architecture, light, and technology to transform stages and stadiums.

DEVLIN: For the first 20 years of my practice, I was making work in response to primary texts only.

[09:40:00]

So, the primary text might be a Shakespeare play. It might be a Beyonce lyric. It might be a collection by Nicolas Ghesquiere at Louis Vuitton. It

might be an opera. And it was really in 2016 that I felt I found the beginnings of a thesis of what I wanted to say. I've just made a work.

It's at the National Portrait Gallery, and it's called a National Portrait, and it's a portrait of everyone in this country.

JACKSON (voice-over): The digital artwork developed in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture began with Es' drawings in charcoal and chalk.

DEVLIN: I made 50 portraits of strangers in this room. Then I trained an AI on all of these portraits. So, if we press start, take a photo, and then

it'll do a drawing of you. And if you like it, you can add it to the national portrait. And then when you go into the national portrait gallery,

you'll see yourself.

JACKSON: One amazing use of AI. If I don't like Kate Moss, I want my money back.

DEVLIN: Yeah, yeah, that's quite right.

JACKSON: There you go. It's rather nice. So much of your work is emotive, and if it's intuitive, then I don't believe that creativity and taste can

be replicated through AI learning machines.

DEVLIN: It can only draw like that because it's been trained on copying the drawings that I did in this room 50 times over for you know many thousands

of hours and throughout my life. In terms of how you or I would have been changed if I'd sat and drawn you. It comes nowhere nearby.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: And that was Artist Es Devlin. And you can watch a full episode of "Seasons" this weekend on CNN. Well, Chicago White Sox fans had got used

to losing, but not this year. They are back in the playoffs and big time, making history along the way. Coy Wire joining me now, and a lot of their

success, in part to one Japanese rookie.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: This Becky is the sound bite of the day, maybe the week, maybe the year. The White Sox, listen to this.

What they did was incredible. No team in MLB history had come back off of back-to-back 100 loss seasons to make the playoffs.

The White Sox were coming off of three 100 loss seasons. To say they were excited is really to say the least. Let's hear from Morataki, I'm sorry,

Murakami about how excited he was. Listen.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- at your first clubhouse celebration rated on a scale of 1 to 10. How's it going so far?

MUNETAKA MURAKAMI, CHICAGO WHITE SOX ROOKIE FIRST BASEMAN: One hundred -- No 10 --100.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just what does it mean just to be able to celebrate with this team?

MURAKAMI: -- I'm Japanese.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: -- In Chicago, you can see why Munetaka Murakami, absolute pure gold.

ANDERSON: Fantastic. Love it.

WIRE: And that wasn't the only champagne popping occasion. We have that. Lots more coming up on "World Sport". But he just gave us a universal

answer for just about everything. You having a good day? 100. You want some more fries in that bag? 100. Pure joy, all in one sound. Love it.

ANDERSON: Superb, super. More on "World Sport" after this. Thank you, Coy.

WIRE: Got it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:00]

(WORLD SPORT)

END