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Leaders of some of the biggest AI company say it is time to slow down. >> They were in the technologies advancing faster than they can keep it safe. But President Trump says he doesn't want to lose the AI race with China.
>> I'm Leila Faldil, that's Amartina's and this is up first from NBR News.
[MUSIC] >> Talks between Iran and Gulf countries of the state of Hormuz are postponed, attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure are driving oil prices even higher. >> As Gulf countries are looking for a way to keep their oil moving. >> And President Trump promised American's 5,000 bucks if Republicans win the mid-terms.
Even his own party is skeptical about the proposal. It can Trump's promise help us party struggling to reach voters with high prices and the war in Iran.
“Stay with us, we've got the news you need to start today.”
[MUSIC] >> This message comes from Pod Save the World. >> With major geopolitical developments unfolding daily at breakneck speed. Pod Save the World breaks down the week's most impactful foreign policy news. Tune in every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
>> This is Ira Glass. On this American life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy David, his entire life took a sharp unexpected and very unpleasant turn.
And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the moon keeps us the button.
That's right because the monkey pressed the button, surprising stories every week. Where you get your podcasts. >> On the latest code switch, 25 years after 9/11, America's have gotten real used to being watched by the government from doorbell cameras to AI power license plate readers. If you put anyone under a microscope or any community under a microscope,
you're going to find reasons to harass people or to tick it them or to arrest them. >> Listen to code switch in the MPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> Artificial intelligence companies have been sprinting to make their AI models as capable as possible. >> But over the weekend, leaders of some of the biggest AI companies in America indicated that they think it's time to tap the breaks for the sake of safety.
>> MPR's John Ruich has been following the story, John tapping the breaks is not the same as
“slamming the breaks, so what happened over the weekend?”
>> So it started when Dario Amade, the CEO of Anthropic, which makes Claude AI posted a long essay online that said it's time for an intentional global slowdown of AI development.
He said basically the pace at which AI is advancing is becoming too fast for people to keep
up with it and keep it safe. So it needs to slow down and he said companies like his need to have independent auditors embedded within them to check their safety measures. After that post went up online, there was this rapid and extraordinary display of unity from other industry there.
So Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Elon Musk, who among other things runs XAI and Dennis Asabas, who runs Google's AI efforts, they all agreed online. >> Yeah, I wonder if everyone was just waiting for one person to step up and say it first. So what do you think is part of this? >> Well, there's been this string of incidents which I'm sure you've heard about in recent
weeks that have spooked a lot of people, a lot of the top minds in AI. A big one was the so-called hugging face incident. That's when a bunch of open AI's AI programs agents were working together in secret behind the backs of people and eventually hacked into a startup called hugging face. That was not what they had been told to do.
Other companies have also reported similar incidents of AI agents going off script. And Dario Amade wrote in that essay on Saturday that he worries that in six to 12 months a swarm of AI agents like that could take over the entire internet. You know, the ultimate fear here is that humans lose control of AI. And the discussion really blew up last week when an anthropic employee warned that he thought
there was a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill us all within a decade.
“>> So can an coordinated slowdown of AI really happen?”
Or what I really want to ask, John, will AI let it happen? So going, there's been, sorry, yeah, there's been discussion about this for a while, but what we have now seems to be this open, clear set of statements among company leaders that something really needs to happen. And Thropics says it will unilaterally put in third-party safety auditors.
Sam Altman agreed that was a good idea, so presumably open AI will follow suit. Colin Shea Blimeier is a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology. He says there also needs to be government support. >> They can only be so effective on their own, right? And there's only frankly so much that we, the public, want to trust them to do the right thing on their own.
>> So there is a renewed push by some members of Congress to act to curb AI risk. President Trump was asked about this slowdown prospect yesterday in Ireland. He did not seem to be in favor of it. He said the U.S. is leading China on AI and he wants to keep it that way. >> All right, so Steve, a China, are they likely to get on board?
That is a big and complicated question.
Many in China do have some of the same concerns that were voiced by these AI ...
But Beijing also sees themselves as underdogs in the AI industry.
“Kyle Chan is at the Brookings Institution.”
He says companies in China will take their cues on this one from the government. What he says does actually ultimately have an interest in AI safety.
>> Their worst nightmare would be if a Chinese AI model were used to attack a Chinese critical system.
At a foreign ministry briefing and Beijing on Monday, a spokesperson said all parties should promote open and inclusive AI development. Fear-mongering and confrontation will disrupt the global AI governance process. Xi Jinping, the leader of China, by the way, will be in Washington to meet President Trump in about 10 days.
And AI is likely to be a topic of discussion for those two leaders. >> Right, that's MPR's John Ruich, John Thanks. >> You're welcome. And a note anthropic and Google are financial supporters of MPR.
Talks to reopen the straight-up.
Hormuz took another blow as a meeting between Gulf Arab states and Iran's scheduled in Oman for today was postponed. >> And in a ground offensive, the Iran backed Houthis and Yemen captured a strategic port in the Babin Mende of Strait in the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia used as an alternate route to export its oil.
>> MPR's international correspondent, Hadeel Al-Shalci, has been following the developments from Istanbul.
“Iran said it was going to meet with Gulf states today. The meeting got postponed. Does anyone know why?”
>> Well, the Iranian foreign ministry said the meeting was not going to happen at Saudi Arabia's
request. But then we didn't hear yet from Saudi Arabia. Yesterday, Bahrain said that it wouldn't
attend. And of course, we don't know exactly who else was supposed to be there. Iran said they were meant to discuss the Strait of Hormuz at the meeting. Oman and Iran have been in talks for weeks to try to come to an agreement to reopen the Strait. But nothing has materialized yet. And of course, as we've been reporting, Iran has been responding to U.S. strikes by attacking U.S. military bases in Gulf countries. So the Gulf really sees
itself as collateral damage and an economic victim in this conflict. But for years, the Gulf relied for its security on the U.S. And now President Trump's administration has signaled that it doesn't have a plan to end the war. I spoke to Iran expert at the Middle East Institute, Alexovatanka, who told me that this meeting was meant to be a way that the Gulf takes matters back into its own hands to try to get themselves off Iran's target list and to get the Strait
reopened. But the fact that this meeting did get postponed shows how hard diplomacy has been in preventing the spread of this conflict. And the conflict is spreading as Yemen seems to have
“now become the the latest frontline in the war with Iran. What's happened in there?”
Right. So the Iranian back to Yemeni Houthi rebels have escalated their attacks on maritime shipping in the bubble, meant that Strait aim specifically as Saudi vessels. The Strait is a water way, which is in the Red Sea and an alternate route that Saudi Arabia uses to ship its oil. So the Houthi's capture of a port in the bubble meant that Strait on Friday and more strategic islands today is the group's latest move to control that choke point. The Houthi's have also been attacking
Saudi oil facilities over the past month to keep pressure on global markets. So the rebel group has been at war with Saudi Arabia since 2015. And the tank had told me that they now see Iran's ability to so far with stand U.S. pressure as a chance for them to further their own goals. And Iran, which has supplied the Houthis with military training and equipment, is starting to see a return on their investment, giving them new leverage. And that includes trying to push the price a few up,
which happened today again. Now there's been more fighting over the weekend. What do we know about that? So according to Iran's state run media, one person was killed when an Iranian commercial vessel was struck in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military, which has been striking Iranianships in the past did not comment on that incident. And then the Houthis fired more drones and missiles towards Saudi Arabia over the weekend. This came after Iranian proxies in Iraq also saw the
targeted Saudi Arabia forcing it to close its east-west pipeline on Friday, which again will likely impact the oil market. That's MPR's international correspondent, Hadeel Al-Shalcip, in Istanbul. Hadeel, thank you very much. You're welcome. All right, it's officially mid-term campaign season. President Trump pledged to visit dozens of Republican candidates nationwide ahead of the November elections to drum up voter enthusiasm.
But the warning Iran and Skyhag gasoline prices contribute to a tough political environment for the incumbent party. MPR's senior national political correspondent, Marlais, and has been watching the dynamics of the President at the Republican Convention in Dallas last week, pledged to give every American 5,000 bucks if Republicans win in November. What have you seen
As a response?
worry that even if Congress would approve such a payout because the President can't just send
“those checks himself. It would cost more than a trillion dollars, and that would add to the”
historically high national debt, unless it was paid for by raising taxes or budget cuts. And then there's the question about credibility. Dividers think they would get those checks. Trump has made so many unfulfilled campaign promises. He promised to give Americans a $5,000 doge dividend. A $2,000 tariff rebate. He promised no foreign wars that inflation in high prices would come down as soon as he took office. And none of those things have happened. And Trump
got asked yesterday if Congress would need to approve the checks. He was at a brief press conference
in Ireland. Here's what he said. I don't know if it's easy enough. If the Republicans win,
as they said. Now, by President J.D. Vance also had line to convention as a potential inheritor of Trump's Omega support base. What stood out from his remarks? Well, that's right. Vance is preparing for a 2028 presidential run of his own Republicans are watching to see if he can develop the same deep emotional bond with the mega base that Trump has. Some people have called it a cult of personality. But he was also in Dallas to deliver the 2026 Republican message.
He ticks through the Trump administration's accomplishments, closing the border, drop in violent crime, a rollback of taxes. But he was mostly focused in that message on the failings of Democrats. The Democrats are the party of hatred. They're the party that despises America and the people who built it. Vance and Republicans are counting on negative partisanship to motivate voters with that negative message. The idea is that mostly nowadays voters go into the polling booth to vote
to stop someone from winning not necessarily because they're thrilled about who they're voting for. The other thing that would struck me about Vance's speech was that he did not name the big elephant in the room, the Warren Iran, which is very unpopular even with Republicans.
“Now, what are you watching in the coming weeks when it comes to the dynamics for each party?”
Well, I think they're two competing forces at work here. One is the kind of organic environmental forces Democrats have a lot of enthusiasm. Their turnout has been higher. Their angry about
the economy. Trump himself is unpopular. Quinnipiax poll had him last week as low as 33 percent.
His policies are unpopular tariffs. The Warren Iran, data centers, AI safety, the use of flock cameras. Normally, when we see this, we would say there's a blue wave forming. But Republicans have a lot of structural advantages, including much, much more money, which they're beginning to spend now, partisan gerrymandering, which let them create more safe Republican seeds. And this big confusion over mail-in ballots, which could end up decreasing the number of votes. And what I'm
watching for is to see whether these structural factors and the fact that the Democratic Party brand is so bad, help Republicans hang on in what is a very grim political environment for them. All right, that's MPR's Marlies and more. Thanks a lot. You're welcome. This week on this Sunday's story, we feature a conversation about the Lindsey Clancy trial and what it means for how we look at maternal mental health. I went sort of from feeling a little
off all day to suddenly believing people were watching me. On the Sunday's story, how the Clancy trial revealed how little we know about postpartum psychosis. Listen, now to Sunday's
story from the up first podcast on the NPR app. And that's up first from Monday, September 14th,
Amir Martinez. And I'm Leila Falded. Today's episode of up first was edited by Raphael Nam, and a Yukonana of Tina Cryo. How am I that birdy seen a D.H.J. Mai? It was produced by Zeyad Butch at the U.D. Moss. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zach Coleman, our technical director, is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow. Hi there, I'm Brittany Loose and not to brag but I host a really fabulous podcast. It's called
“it's been a minute. I love making it and I think you'll love listening to it. Over the last year,”
hundreds of thousands of listeners have been tuning in and I got to say, if you haven't yet, you're missing out. Listen to the it's been a minute podcast from NPR today. How do products end up on big box shelves? Well, we have planted money, pitch deep on it, money, board game. We're trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has
Gone into it.
We go inside the minds of the people who decide what goes on store shelves. Listen to planet money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
