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Quest Means Business

Trump Names Controversial Housing Official Acting Intelligence Chief; Russia Hits Ukraine With Deadliest Attacks In Months; Anthropic Expands Access To Powerful Mythos A.I. Model; Inside Hospital Grappling With Rare Strain Of Deadly Ebola Virus; Hinge Sees Revenue Jump Thanks To Subscriptions; Researchers Study Differences Between A.I. And Human Writing. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired June 02, 2026 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:17]

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell is ringing on Wall Street. Victoria's Secret. My word! That's something to

start off our program. They are ringing the closing bell on a day where we have records. We have two, the S&P and the Dow. But -- and in fact, maybe

the NASDAQ. Now it has just eked into the positive territory. It is just oh, one, and a two and a one, two, three. I missed the gavel. But I am sure

it was a strong robust gavel.

Trading is over. Someone will confirm in my ear we are at NASDAQ record. Those are the records across the board. Those are the markets. The main

event: President Trump has named a controversial top housing official to be Acting Director of National Intelligence. Apparently, he lacks demonstrated

experience in the field.

I will be talking to President Trump's envoy for the U.S. Tourism about the upcoming World Cup and the dip in the recent visitor numbers to the United

States.

And the chief executive of the dating app, Hinge on how they are dealing with dating app fatigue.

We are live in New York. It is Tuesday. It is June the 2nd. I am Richard Quest and yes, I mean business.

Good evening.

We start tonight with a question. What do you need by way of qualification to be the Director of National Intelligence in the United States? That

seems to be the question over the latest announcement for Bill Pulte, who has been appointed as Acting Director and who has played a major role in

President Trump's retribution campaign. But here is the problem. He has zero national security experience.

He currently serves as the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He is also chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So he knows quite a lot

about all the financing of housing. But what does Mr. Pulte know about National Intelligence?

He pushed the Justice Department to investigate President Trump's rivals over mortgage fraud, and that includes the New York Attorney General,

Letitia James, the Fulton County D.A., Fani Willis, and, of course, most memorably, the Federal Reserve Governor, Lisa Cook. All apparently had

commissioned some form of mortgage fraud.

President Trump says Mr. Pulte will remain in his current role until a permanent DNI head is named.

Kevin Liptak is at The White House. What's really going on here? He didn't need to name Mr. Pulte. He could have just taken an existing somebody out

there and said, you're acting until we've got a replacement. Why put somebody like Mr. Pulte, who is demonstrably not qualified for the job?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and he actually did put someone from DNI in the job for at least a temporary amount of time when

Tulsi Gabbard said that she was going to step down, he named that individual. It was a career sort of Intelligence officer. He had been ready

to do the job when Gabbard stepped down at the end of this month.

But today, apparently switching course now, the way it has unfolded is the way I understand it is that once this job became open, when Gabbard said

that she was going to step down, Pulte came in and began actively lobbying for this position.

You know, he is someone who is very close to President Trump. We understand he has a direct line to him. He talks to him frequently. He is a frequent

guest on Air Force One. He is down at Mar-a-Lago all the time and so he is someone that the President speaks with fairly regularly, and he wanted this

job and he essentially conveyed to the President that he wanted a much bigger position in the administration.

You know, the job he has now is head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is not by itself a very high profile position. I don't think I could name

the person who served in that job in any previous administration, but what he has done with the position has given him a relatively high profile,

which is to use the information that he has access to about mortgages to allege mortgage fraud against these perceived enemies of the President, and

I think the implication here is, is that once he gets into this DNI job, is that he will similarly use the information that he has access to in this

job to advance the areas where the President is very intently focused, whether it is retribution against these perceived enemies or vindication

for some of his claims about election fraud or Russian election meddling.

All of the areas that you saw, Tulsi Gabbard kind of dabbling in, and clearly, I think Pulte will be advancing some similar areas.

QUEST: Right. But does he -- as Acting, does he have to be confirmed by the Senate?

[16:05:10]

And if so, what's the chances of that happening?

LIPTAK: He does not have to be confirmed if he is only to stay in this Acting role, which he has the potential to do for quite a long time. You

know, he was confirmed by the Senate for his current position and because of that, he is able to stay in the acting job for 210 days. That's what the

law says, and so he has the ability to do this position for quite some time.

If he were to be nominated for the permanent job, yes, he would have to go through a confirmation process. By all accounts, that would be a very tough

road for him. You've already heard from in the Senate, a number of Republicans who are questioning what his qualifications for this job might

be, including John Cornyn, who is notably on his way out, including from John Thune, who is the Senate Majority Leader, top ally of the President,

who has wondered whether this could lead to some sort of weaponization of the Intelligence Community.

So no indication yet that the President plans to try and put him into this job permanently, but he has a long time to serve before the President would

potentially have to make that decision.

QUEST: I am grateful. I just do need to point out, of course, I was talking about those people earlier that have been accused of mortgage fraud. They

all deny, most robustly, they all deny the claims.

Grateful for you, Kevin. Thank you very much indeed.

Ukraine's President Zelenskyy has warned another large scale Russian attack could happen tonight. It follows hard on the heels of one of Russia's

deadliest offensives that took place last night.

At least 22 people were killed overnight. There were the assaults on Dnipro and Kyiv, and the attack has forced tens of thousands of people to shelter

underground.

Sebastian Shukla with this dispatch from Berlin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN PRODUCER: Russia unleashed another barrage of torment and psychological warfare on Ukraine last night, as 600 drones, dozens of

missiles, including the nuclear capable zircon missile, incredibly difficult to stop with air defenses smashed into targets across the

country, including the capital, Kyiv, and the major central city of Dnipro.

The attacks have left at least 22 people dead so far, six in Kyiv, 16 in Dnipro and a hundred others injured across the country. The damage is

extensive and has led to major search and rescue operations in various different locations.

Our team in Kyiv even told us that the attacks last night left a pile of acrid smoke lingering over the city. This latest episode also unleashed a

degree of psychological warfare on residents after Moscow issued a warning to residents and diplomats alike last week, telling them to vacate, seeming

to suggest there would be imminent attacks and then waiting, seemingly lulling people into a false sense of security.

OLHA MUDRA, RESIDENT OF DAMAGED BUILDING (through translator): Smoke was everywhere. We crouched with my daughter. I tried to cover her, but a stone

or debris from the building hit her and tore her jacket.

(UNIDENTIFIED GIRL speaking in foreign language.)

MUDRA (through translator): She is saying her back hurts. Everything was covered with smoke. We couldn't understand what was happening. Some kind of

apocalypse.

SHUKLA: As the war has ground to a near stalemate in the Donbas, neither side has been able to make gains. Russia has retaliated with fury over a

Ukrainian attack in the occupied region of Luhansk. But Ukraine has also been bringing the war home to Russia, with attacks as far away as Moscow

and hitting military and civilian infrastructure.

But these attacks may be starting to pile pressure on Ukraine's ability to be able to defend and fend off these swarms of drones and missiles.

President Zelenskyy hinting at that in a post recently saying assistance from the United States in supplying missiles for Patriot systems is

absolutely necessary. We are counting on the support of our partners and on effective responses to today's attack.

Ukraine relies on purchases of U.S. weapons through a NATO mechanism called PURL, Purchased by European Allies. But the question is, are those requests

able to be fulfilled by the United States as its resources of those missiles have been depleted by the war in the Gulf?

Sebastian Shukla, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: President Trump wants the U.S. federal government to have some oversight of advanced A.I. models. It is a new executive order, and it asks

the industry for a 30-day window to review their latest systems.

During that time, the government will identify whether the A.I. should first be used by select, trusted partners. This is all because of Mythos.

Anthropic has already warned that its Mythos model could be used to exploit software bugs. That's its purpose. It is now giving 150 more partners

access to Mythos so they can identify those vulnerabilities first.

The company filed plans yesterday for an Initial Public Offering.

[16:10:10]

Clare Duffy is with me. Two things here, obviously, you've got -- we've got the Anthropic IPO, but this idea of giving the government an opportunity to

review, there is a certain sense in it, isn't it, because these are extremely powerful devices and essentially you could be unleashing

something by accident.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: That's right, Richard. It really is this Mythos model from Anthropic that has encouraged the government to shift

from what was really a more hands off approach to oversight of these A.I. companies, but Anthropic has warned that, as you said, Mythos could create

huge opportunities for hackers.

This is essentially like having hundreds of hackers working 24/7 that could identify security vulnerabilities and if it is not Anthropic's Mythos,

there are other A.I. companies that are close behind with similar models. And so that was really the motivation behind this project.

Glasswing limited release program that Anthropic has been working on since April, when it rolled this out to just 50 partners, including finance and

cybersecurity companies. Its partners identified 10,000 security vulnerabilities that it was able to fix because of Mythos.

Now, they are rolling it out to 150 additional partners. These are companies and organizations in critical industries, things like power,

water, health care, communications. They want to try to help these critical industries and these critical companies identify these vulnerabilities

before this technology becomes widely available.

And I think the same is true of this Trump Executive Order, they want the government to have a sense of what is coming, and potentially to give

important companies a sense, a chance to have a sense of what is coming before this technology is widely available, potentially to bad actors --

Richard.

QUEST: Okay. But I guess the difficulty here, I mean, there are so many in a sense, the common sense of giving access to partners in advance versus

First Amendment rights versus you don't want the government snooping, but we are in new territory here. And I guess, the government, administration

or whatever you want to call it must be given the benefit of the doubt in that they have a responsibility the rest of us do not.

DUFFY: Well, that's what is interesting about this executive order is it is actually a voluntary oversight program. So, it is asking companies to

voluntarily give the government 30 days to look over their models before they are released more widely, and this was developed in partnership with

many of the big A.I. labs. But you'll remember, Richard, that Trump hit pause on this executive order two weeks ago, just before he was set to sign

this, an earlier version of the executive order would have given the government 90 days to review these models, and members of the industry said

that is just too much time because A.I. models are accelerating and developing and improving so quickly that by the time you finish that 90-day

review period, you might have something, entirely new to look at.

And so this was something that was created in partnership with the industry, but the challenge here for the U.S. government, for the A.I.

industry is that as soon as you have a bad actor who finds a way to create technology that is as capable, as improved as these big A.I. models and

isn't willing to hand it over to the government. What happens then?

QUEST: Clare, I am very grateful. Thank you.

Now the World Cup begins in nine days, and it could bring more than a million tourists to the United States. There are fears that the travel

policies of the administration might discourage fans from making the trip. The numbers so far do suggest bookings are down, although they do often

come in at the last moment. We will discuss it all in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:23]

QUEST: Some of the best football players on the planet are now enroute to North America. The World Cup begins in a week or two.

Germany's team have headed to or are heading to Chicago, where they have a friendly scheduled against the United States, and many more Germans are

sure to arrive in the weeks ahead.

"The Oxford Economic" expects the world cup to bring about 1.2 million international visitors to the United States. There are those who say

President Trump's immigration and travel policies have dampened enthusiasm. International travel to the U.S. fell last year by five percent.

Nick Adams is officially the U.S. Presidential Envoy for Tourism, Exceptionalism and Values. Except the U.S. doesn't have a tourism minister,

per se. We used to have somebody in the Commerce Department. So de facto, he is the tourism minister. He joins me now from Paris.

Sir, the World Cup will be good, no question about it. The football will be spectacular. I guess, the question is whether the number of bookings and

the visitors are going to meet expectations, because at the moment it does look like they will be down.

NICK ADAMS, U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR TOURISM, EXCEPTIONALISM AND VALUES: Good evening, Richard. Thank you for having me.

I can tell you that all the latest data that is coming across my desk indicates that we are going to have an incredibly well-attended World Cup,

the 11th hour, last minute bookings, you know what it is like. They are coming in thick and fast.

But on top of that, I can tell you that we are experiencing an uptick, a rebound in just about every single metric. Flights are up three percent, a

million more seats between June and October coming to the U.S., a projected visitor spend increase of five percent. We are on fire right now.

QUEST: The overall position on tourism. You can't avoid the fact that the numbers are down, up to five percent, in an industry where all major

competitor countries would be higher and the reason anecdotal and in research suggests that the perception is that there isn't a welcome here in

the United States and people are worried about coming here.

These are basically well-known facts at the moment that you have to now redress the balance on.

ADAMS: Well, the perceptions are well-known, Richard, the facts are not and that's kind of what I am here in Europe trying to explain to people.

Unfortunately, misperceptions are that the United States is unsafe, it is unwelcoming, it is inhospitable. It is too expensive.

That people are going to come, they are going to have their social media pulled over. They're going to be detained, put on a flight home. All of

that is absolute nonsense. Ninety-nine percent of people that are going to be traveling to the United States, tourists of America are going to

experience a seamless. time from the moment they land to the moment they take off again.

QUEST: Right. The difficulty is the perception is now there and it is borne out, by the way, from some very well-publicized incidents that took place,

and I will accept what you say, 99 percent of people will have a magnificent time. And all the research shows that that's what people have.

But this idea, certainly of LGBT visitors here is that there isn't a welcome and people are worried about what happens. And as a result, we do

see weakness in westbound travel. We see it on discounting of tickets compared to eastbound travel. How can you redress that? How can you get

people to appreciate that that is perception and maybe not reality as you see it.

[16:20:10]

ADAMS: Richard, by coming on with people like you, by spreading the message as aggressively as we possibly can: America is open. America is welcoming.

America wants you to come. We are the most hospitable people. We are the most exciting destination on the planet, and I would push back on this idea

that we are doing extraordinarily well, you're right. The numbers were down last year, and in fact, they have been down for the last three or four

years.

It started under the previous administration, but I am here. We are about to have the biggest summer we've ever had. It is going to be great.

QUEST: Nick, the fact that you and I are talking about this in these terms for about a country that never had this perception before, shows that there

is a problem. And, for instance and another -- go ahead.

ADAMS: There is one other reason, and that is that the United States is about to embark on an unprecedented, unparalleled era of mega sporting

events and mega events in general. We have obviously, beginning now this summer, we have 250. We have the FIFA World Cup, we have the Olympics, the

Paralympics. We have the Winter Olympics in 2032, the Men's Rugby World Cup, the Women's Rugby World Cup, potentially the FIFA Women's World Cup,

the World Expo in Miami, we've got a bid out for that.

So the next decade is going to be all about tourism and travel. We are going to keep America as the number one tourism sector in the world.

QUEST: So, are you in favor of restoring the funding? For example, to brand America, to all of these -- to all the various different organizations,

which in the past funding had been cut.

ADAMS: Richard, that's a little above my pay grade. I can tell you that I work with Brand USA every day. They are a very valuable partner. They've

got some fabulous campaigns out. They are echoing all the stuff that I've been telling you today, and I, my work wouldn't be possible without them.

We are all working in concert to make sure that we can bring as many international visitors as possible, dispel the myths and showcase the best

and greatest of America.

QUEST: Nick, I am about to start a massive road trip for Route 66. We are, never mind what Sean Duffy did.

ADAMS: Can I go with you?

QUEST: I am just about to say, we will send you the itinerary, if we can meet up somewhere on the way, we can talk more about it. Actually, in

America, we are doing it for "Quest's World of Wonder." We are going from Chicago to Los Angeles on Route 66. We will be in touch if you're somewhere

nearby, you'll come and join me in our motorhome.

ADAMS: I would be delighted, Richard. It would be the honor of a lifetime.

QUEST: Good to see you, Nick. Thank you very much, the Tourism Minister. Well, that's what he is. I mean, that's essentially what the job that he

has.

QUEST MEANS BUSINESS tonight. Let's stay with tourism.

Gulf carriers are gradually restoring flights to the region. It follows the major disruptions, of course, from the Iran War.

The chief executive of Etihad says business is already back to normal, and the airline has actually grown. Remember, Etihad is based in Abu Dhabi.

Emirates is based in Dubai. They are the two airlines, two major flag carriers of the UAE.

Etihad in Abu Dhabi, this is Antonoaldo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANTONOALDO NEVES, CEO, ETIHAD: We were faced situations like this before here, right, so we had a situation before where we had to airspace closure.

So I would say from a safety perspective, from an operation's perspective, teams are very well prepared. So I would say it was actually ordered,

process.

We managed to protect all the customers that we are connecting Abu Dhabi, their Century hotels. The key question that we had on February 28 and 29 is

when are they going to be able to start flying again, and I think if you look back, right, we, as a region, we did a very good job.

I mean, day three, we started flying slowly as we were getting more and more corridors that were dedicated to airlines, we put more capacity, and

things are -- I can say things are back to normal for us.

QUEST: It was quite an extraordinary event because what it did show is how the locus of the centrality of the gravity of flying has shifted to the

Gulf. The Gulf 3, you know, it is now -- so much of aviation revolves around these three large hubs in the region.

[16:25:11]

NEVES: I agree, Richard, I think, I think only the UAE, we have more than 100 million passengers per year. That's the size of Brazil. It is the size

of Brazil, right?

So the world relies on this region to connect, and that's great because we can provide a great customer service, right? And at the same time, we are

very efficient. If you see, I mean, when I compare our, for instance, our people costs, our personal costs, right to revenue, I mean, we do about 15

percent here in the region, 15 to 16 sixteen percent.

I mean, this is ten points less than the average European carrier, right? So efficiency helps a lot, bringing prices lower and providing customers

with a great customer service.

QUEST: Right, now, don't worry, I am not going to ask you the question of when are you and Emirates going to merge, because I already know the answer

that you'll give me.

But has this crisis brought the two flag carriers of the UAE into closer cooperation? So although you are still separate airlines with separate

identities, you do recognize there are synergies, greater synergies to be had.

NEVES: I would say that the answer is absolutely, yes, right. I mean, this crisis brought not only Emirates, Etihad, but also FlyDubai and Air Arabia,

which are very large airlines as well in the UAE closer together because every single day, our operations teams are working together to make sure

that we are flying safe, right? That the airspace management was done in a proper way.

And I can tell you, because of that, I sleep very well in the region. So really, really happy to see the collaboration on the operation side.

QUEST: When you took over Etihad, it was a basket case. That's my words, not yours. How far do you think the restructuring now has? Is it complete?

Have you -- I mean you've certainly got the airline back by some measures of profitability, let's not go down that road. But are you now satisfied

that the recovery is essentially there from the mess that existed before?

NEVES: We had the best January and February ever. We were on a good track to make about 10 percent net income this year, and that's a very important

threshold in the industry.

So I would say that the strategy that we have implemented and our execution capability is proved right. What we have in our hands today is good, but we

want to be even better, right? In Etihad, we say that we are never satisfied. We always want to do more.

So the airline today has about 125 planes, about three years ago, we had only 70 planes. We are doing 10 million passengers. Now, we are doing about

25 million passengers per year, if you are just for the war, right?

And next year is going to be 28 and we are going to be 50 million passengers per year very soon. So to get to that level, we need to keep

investing. Actually, it was really reassuring to see that even during this complex situation in the region, we were negotiating more aircraft with

Boeing and Airbus, and we are, as of now negotiating to buy more widebodies so that we can deliver what we want to deliver, which is an airline that is

even bigger than what we have today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: That is Etihad.

Coming up in a moment, inside the red zone of an Ebola ward.

Clarissa Ward and Alex Black go inside there in the DRC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:32:08]

QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest.

There's more in a moment. CNN's Clarissa Ward has got extraordinary access to a hospital where Ebola patients are being treated. It's the red zone in

the DRC. You'll see that in a moment. And I'll speak to the co-author of a study that found A.I. makes writing less creative. How can this be? It is

the nirvana of creativity, we are told.

Well, I can promise you this. The news comes first because this is CNN and we'll have the news now.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is warning that Russia may launch another largescale attack tonight. Earlier, Moscow had unleashed a massive

assault with more than 650 drones and dozens of missiles that targeted Kyiv and Dnipro. At least 22 people were killed, according to the Ukrainian

authorities.

Lebanese and Israeli diplomats have begun a new round of direct talks in Washington. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says his military

will keep striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon as planned. President Trump says he warded off a major Israeli raid on Beirut during a

phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

A man who played a key role in President Trump's retribution tour, as it's called, is now his acting national intelligence chief. The president has

appointed Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, currently, and he'll replace Tulsi Gabbard. The support he doesn't have any

intel or national security experience that we know of.

The third largest Ebola outbreak on record is getting bigger by the day. In Uganda, six more people have contracted the virus. It's the number of total

confirmed cases in the country to 15. The WHO, the World Health Organization, says at least 49 people have died. Most of those in the

Democratic Republic, where the outbreak is believed to have started.

Our own Clarissa Ward has gained extraordinary access to a red zone at a hospital that's treating Ebola patients. It's in the DRC.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a surreal but now all too familiar ritual. Health care workers painstakingly

disinfect the coffin of the latest suspected victim of the Ebola virus at Bunia's General Hospital, as family members look on in anguish, unable to

get close to their loved one, torn apart by grief and consumed by fear.

"Oh, my father. Why, God?" This woman cries. "Oh, God, this is my only father."

[16:35:03]

As the dead are carried out, new potential cases are arriving. At the entrance to the hospital, everyone's temperature must be taken.

So this is the room where they take people who are found to have a fever. There is a woman in there now. Obviously, they don't know if she has Ebola

or not, but they're going to keep her here until they do more tests and get a better sense of what's going on.

(Voice-over): At a makeshift coordination center inside the hospital, Dr. Richard Kojan and his team are working round the clock to keep up with an

outbreak they say is out of control. They agree to show me and photojournalist Alex Platt what they're up against.

We are now getting ready to go into the so-called red zone of this hospital. That is the area where all suspected Ebola patients are put. And

there is a lot of protective gear, unsurprisingly, that one needs to wear to go inside.

(Voice-over): Bundibugyo is a strain of the virus that few were expecting. There is no vaccine and no cure. The doctors write our names on our backs

so they can recognize us. And then it's time to go in. At the moment, patients are treated in hastily constructed tents. 30-year-old Gloria is a

lab technician, one of dozens of health care workers believed to be infected.

She says she's difficult to breath.

(Voice-over): Earlier, we met her sister waiting outside for news.

(Through Translation): I saw your sister. She's waiting for the moment she can hug you again. Do you want us to tell your sister something for you? A

message?

(Voice-over): "Do not be afraid," she says.

But it's impossible not to be scared. Some of the patients here are in very bad shape.

How do you stay strong when you're seeing this?

DR. RICHARD KOJAN, EMERGENCY ICU DOCTOR, ALIMA: For me, it's our humanity.

WARD: Your humanity?

KOJAN: Yes, yes, it's our humanity. When people are suffering like this, I feel it. I feel it. He was in a coma.

WARD: Yes.

KOJAN: It's Ebola confirmed.

WARD (voice-over): Ten-year-old Meshack (PH) is still very weak. His mouth ravaged with blisters from the virus. He asked the doctors for a banana, an

encouraging sign.

"Slowly, slowly," Dr. Kojan warns him. His condition is improving, but he has a long way to go.

KOJAN: You lay down, yes.

WARD: He wants to lay down? Let's help him lay down then.

(Voice-over): They lay him down in the corridor while his room is disinfected. Nothing about this situation is OK. But these doctors are

doing everything they possibly can. As we walk to another ward, a familiar sound in the distance.

You can hear the cries of a family who are claiming the body of their loved one. This is a scene that's playing out here multiple times every single

day.

(Voice-over): This is a temporary ward for suspected cases. Patients lie waiting for test results that are taking up to a week to process.

So this is the situation that health care workers really want to avoid and are racing to put a stop to. You have five patients in the same room, all

of them suspected of having Ebola, but doctors can't be sure. They can't rule out the possibility that one person in here may not have Ebola and

then, of course, there's a strong chance they could contract it.

(Voice-over): Every exit from the red zone is as careful as the entry. Protective equipment must be sprayed down with chlorine and methodically

removed.

We were in there for maybe half an hour and I could barely stand up by the end. It's incredibly tiring, really hot. You're sweating so much. You're

thirsty. I just like, help us understand the kind of stamina that you need as a doctor to be going in and out of that red zone multiple times every

single day.

KOJAN: It's really hard. We have to stand strong for those patients and otherwise, you know, the situation will be really very, very bad.

[16:40:05]

WARD: That 10-year-old boy, that's hard to see.

KOJAN: The first day, you know, he was really bleeding, a lot of diarrhea and shock, you know. So you have to get a way to give IV fluid. It's not

really easy. So -- and for me, you know, like an ICU doctor, when you have a situation like this, it's very hard to just say, I have to stop because

I'm tired.

WARD (voice-over): On the outskirts of the city, the family we met earlier is burying their father, 72-year-old farmer Papababona Bodwan (PH). The

burial team forms a cordon around his grave. The mourners forced to grieve at a distance. The final cruelty of this vicious virus.

Clarissa Ward, CNN, Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: The dating apps are supposed to help us find love. Of course, many of us end up having a love-hate relationship with these apps, and that's

something the chief executive of Hinge wants to fix, saying Hinge is adding features to help relieve the overwhelming experience of looking for love

online.

Anna Cooban spoke to Jackie Jantos at the South by Southwest Festival in London.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACKIE JANTOS, CEO, HINGE: What has kept Hinge sort of growing, double- digit growth in monthly active users and revenue, in a category that has largely stagnated because we're focused on that end goal of getting off the

app, building momentum to get there. And that is very much like what we think about every day.

ANNA COOBAN, CNN BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hinge has been doing quite well in the first quarter, so nearly 30 percent increase in

revenue compared with the same period last year. And now part of that is to do with the fact you're getting more paid subscribers. And from a business

perspective, I'm sure that's great. But I do wonder, is this an indication that people are joining the app, the free version, feeling dissatisfied,

and then feeling forced to pay?

JANTOS: Actually, a vast majority of users on Hinge are on the free product. And the challenge the team, as we continue to build product, isn't

how to monetize free users.

[16:45:03]

It's how to build product features or add features to existing products that actually are worthy of this audience's money.

COOBAN: I think a lot of people feel with apps in general, but including Hinge, manipulated to be quite honest. You know, their romantic lives are

so sacred to them and to how they see their futures. I suppose the question I'm asking is, is there an inherent tension between being a business and

wanting to make money, and also being a user and being a user on this platform and feeling like a good in a marketplace? Are you always going to

feel like that as a user?

JANTOS: You know, I think one of the interesting parts about Hinge is we do not monetize users through advertising. And so for me, the purpose of the

product and how we develop it is singularly focused on outcomes, which, as I described, sort of organically grows the business. I think that as a

true, an orientation and a mission at service of users as one can get within a business like this one.

It is, you know, on one hand, we do continue to see that growth just comes in this way. And so we don't think as much about the monetizable products

as we do about the innovation that's necessary to take some of that overwhelm off users. Because you're right, we are living in an incredibly

disorienting, transformative time. The world feels very heavy whether you're dating or just living in it. And then the complexity of all of that

sort of hits this Gen Z audience even harder.

This is a group that literally grew up where their late teens and early 20s were spent in lockdown in a pandemic. So there was no in-person flirting.

You know, it requires a level of vulnerability that can feel very scary. And this is a generation that is spending, you know, a thousand less hours

in-person than their same age group 20 years prior. That's two plus hours per day, mostly spent on a device versus spent in the company of someone

else, whether that's even a family member or a friend.

COOBAN: People talk a lot about dating app fatigue, but for many people, quite honestly, it's dating app despair. I want to know what do you say to

that and how can you restore people's faith in this way of meeting people?

JANTOS: Yes. You know, I will say, having met my own partner online, that there are many ways to meet partners and I encourage sort of all of them. I

do think the category writ large Hinge excluded because we've been focused on product innovation for so long, has underserved users by not keeping up

with and responding to their frustrations that they've been feeling. And I feel quite excited about the innovation that we're seeing.

And, you know, I say to many people that finding a relationship, this is one of the most challenging parts of life. It's the essence of life. It's a

choice I know for me that I made that has been the most important choice in my life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: And that's now back in the day when I went to school, in those days, if you wanted to get the right word, you went for a dictionary or a

thesaurus or an encyclopedia. Yes, we still had those in those days. Now it's all A.I., all A.I.. But does A.I. actually make our writing more

creative? Does it make it better? Is it a tool which enhances, replaces, or merely duplicates?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:21]

QUEST: Welcome back. All three major us indices were at fresh records today. It's A.I. powering some tech stocks to new heights.

Now, how many different ways can I actually say this? The nirvana of A.I., the superb prospects and optimism. You get the idea. The use and

terminology about A.I., what role is it playing? Well, yesterday we discussed whether companies investing in A.I. are actually getting good

returns.

Now we're going to talk about A.I. and its specific ability to improve human writing and creativity. A study from Georgetown University found that

ChatGPT, when it came into a picture, student essays appear to be more creative, but they actually lack new ideas.

Adam Green spearheaded the research, professor at Georgetown and lab director at the Georgetown Laboratory for Relational Cognition.

This is the idea that ChatGPT is very good at being verbose, eloquent and elegant. But actually the originality of what's there is seriously sorely

lacking.

ADAM GREEN, PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Hello. Yes. Great to be with you. Yes. That's exactly right. So what we found when we looked at these

essays that were submitted to colleges all around the U.S., was that somehow magically right after GPT comes on the scene, these essays that are

supposed to be about your life story, what makes you, you, everybody's life story somehow got a lot more similar.

And at the same time that everybody's life story was getting more similar, the words they were using to describe their life story became a lot more

colorful. And what happened when people started reading these essays is that the human readers found these essays to be even better than the essays

that had come in before GPT for this language trick is working on. And that's what makes it really scary.

QUEST: And what's -- of course this is exactly what the algorithm would know. The algorithm would know from the vast amount of experience within

the algorithm that certain things are certain words are trigger words, dopamine words, serotonin. Certain words will have a reaction. But it's

this idea of how we would then quantify true creativity of originality of idea, that's the tricky part.

GREEN: That is tricky, and it takes some real care, right? Because the ways that we've always thought about creativity have to change. We've always

been able to rely on language because in a human brain, language that shows a lot of variety signals ideas that have a lot of variety and a lot of

originality. That's because when we look for words, we use the same networks in our brain that we use when we look for ideas.

A.I. does it very differently. A.I. is searching across a big probability distribution and guessing what's going to be the best next word. That best

token to create a good story or a good sentence. And it can do that almost independently of the underlying ideas that those words are formulating. So

it breaks that link between words and ideas much more easily than our brains can.

QUEST: So, so, at the end of the day, the student who, I mean, I'm guessing that eventually people like yourselves, professors, reading these essays,

over time you will be able to spot that which is heavily A.I. versus that which has got the kernel -- even, even if it's been written by A.I., has

got the kernel of an original idea within it.

[16:55:10]

GREEN: It's a good question, and it's a question that we're still trying to answer, but I think it's a trickier question than most people understand,

because it's not really about whether the essay is good. You can read one essay that A.I. wrote or a short story that wins a contest, which happened

a couple of weeks ago. A creative writing contest. That story is good. That one essay might be good.

It's when you look at the essays together and you start to see, oh, that really good essay is a lot like this really good essay is a lot like this

really good essay. And humans, on the other hand, are generating things that are much more -- they're much more distinct, much more original. Yes.

QUEST: So let's say I put in my prompt to whichever one I'm using, oh, and by the way, do not go for the obvious. Make sure my essay is not similar to

anything else you're generating for anybody else on the same subject. Would that work, do you think?

GREEN: It doesn't work. It's a great question. What ends up happening, so you've got -- so I, and I don't want to go too far into the weeds, but A.I.

is trying to guess what the best word is going to be, one word at a time. Well, if you tell it to do something like that, it'll simply look in a

different part of its probability distribution.

QUEST: Right.

GREEN: But you haven't solved the problem. You've just moved it.

QUEST: Excellent. I'm grateful to you, sir. I'm grateful. Thank you for joining us tonight. A fascinating subject.

Some breaking news that I need to bring to your attention. The acting U.S. attorney general, Todd Blanche, has confirmed that the Justice Department

will not be moving forward with President Trump's plan for the Anti- Weaponization, the $1.8 billion fund. It comes after days of pushback from the president's own party, with some saying it's essentially a slush fund

to pay allies. Critics feared the fund could also be used to compensate, amongst others, those arrested during the January 6th riots.

We'll take a "Profitable Moment" after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: Tonight's "Profitable Moment." The U.S. Tourism envoy, Nick Adams, has got his work cut out for him because there's no question about it, the

offer in this country, when you visit the United States, it's better than anywhere else almost. I mean, great places, wonderful people, lovely food,

good sights to see.

The problem is the perception of fear that your social media is going to be looked at. You're going to have a terrible time at the border, and that

it's all going to turn out rather badly.

Perception versus reality is an enormous driver when it comes to tourism and travel, because at the end of the day, nobody wants to spend their

money to have a bad time. And that's the problem that the U.S. has at the moment. The perception that it's not as welcoming as it was. True or false,

I leave that to be discussed.

And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS means business for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's

profitable. Do it again with me tomorrow.

END