Closing Bell: 10/15/26

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Scott Wapner (1:05)

Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from One Market in San Francisco. Once again, our special report, AI in America continues this hour. How vulnerable are we to a cyber attack from an AI agent gone rogue? Are we doing enough to prevent one? We'll ask Palo Alto CEO, Nikesh Arora, coming up. Plus AI and the future of work. We're joined today by a Nobel winning economist making a dire prediction. Is he an alarmist or a realist? We'll debate that.

Let's first check the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation today. The AI trade once again at the center of the action. Stocks, though, as you see, well off their lows. In fact, the Dow S&P and the Russell are now positive. We need to check shares of CoreWeave shares. They've turned positive midday following yesterday's big decline. Jensen Wong of NVIDIA making some comments there, and that has helped turn that name. Overall, a mixed day after more hot inflation data.

Yields, though, today are falling, and we're watching all of it. I mentioned the Dow up big, the sector picture mixed today, health care leading the way. It is a more defensive tape. There's no doubt about that. Our talk of the tape, the AI trade, and whether it's showing some major warnings or is this fear and overreaction? Our Kate Rooney joins us now with a look at where we are at this transformational moment. Kate?

Kate Rooney (2:20)

Scott, great to see you again. So that's right, it's a great setup. What was once this very niche Silicon Valley technology has moved to the national stage dominating markets and reshaping politics ahead of the midterms.

Scott Wapner (2:34)

Front and center of this hour, questions about the AI trade.

Kate Rooney (2:37)

The more mainstream conversations, I think, outside of CNBC.

SPEAKER_5 (2:40)

AI is a boogeyman.

Scott Wapner (2:41)

The debate over data centers is only growing louder and the backlash seems to be growing too.

Kate Rooney (2:47)

Artificial intelligence headlines delivering whiplash for investors this year. Warnings of extreme risk and the promise of extreme reward.

Scott Wapner (2:56)

Here we are with record highs on the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ.

SPEAKER_6 (3:00)

How did we do that?

Kate Rooney (3:02)

The risk comes down to cybersecurity with dozens of examples of autonomous AI agents from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google going rogue with unintended consequences. OpenAI's breach of hugging face, the watershed moment.

SPEAKER_7 (3:16)

Well, on the current path, I think it is more likely than not that humanity loses control to these AIs and it could end in human extinction.

SPEAKER_8 (3:23)

The big story all week, all weekend. On Saturday morning, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay saying, quote, we must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.

Kate Rooney (3:34)

CEOs are leading, the largest AI companies have been some of the loudest voices.

SPEAKER_6 (3:39)

Being companies in competitive race is not a reason to make rash decisions. We have unilaterally slowed down in the past. We will do so in the future. I believe that this is the most important global security issue facing the world today.

Kate Rooney (3:51)

The irony of those tech CEOs asking for AI slowdown became a parody on SNL.

SPEAKER_5 (3:56)

If we can pressure lawmakers to create guardrails, we will be able to stop me.

Kate Rooney (4:01)

And it's turned into a political blame game.

Scott Wapner (4:03)

Hey, hey, home, home!

SPEAKER_1 (4:06)

AI companies have done a horrendous job.

SPEAKER_2 (4:09)

Hyperspace has got to go!

Michael Santoli (4:12)

Horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people.

SPEAKER_5 (4:15)

What do we want? When do we want it?