Trump's AI Safety Switch, OpenAI Targets $1.4 Trillion Value

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Karen Moskow (0:10)

Good morning, I'm Karen Moskow.

Alexis Christoforos (0:12)

And I'm Alexis Christoforos. Here are the stories we're following today.

Karen Moskow (0:16)

Alexis, we begin with the latest developments on the artificial intelligence front. President Trump is endorsing using outside auditors to assess the safety of AI systems through an accord with Silicon Valley leaders that seeks to sidestep new government rules and addressing a groundswell of concern over risks. Under the agreement forged at a White House lunch with nearly two dozen top tech industry executives, AI companies all committed to regularly meet to set best practices for the industry.

Donald Trump (0:45)

There's going to be a tremendous self-policing aspect. We're also thinking about forming a committee of sorts where we put maybe ten people on that committee, it could be from that group, so that we can, so the committee can watch over the whole enterprise.

Karen Moskow (1:01)

President Trump says existing laws would be enough to safeguard Americans from the potential risks of AI.

Alexis Christoforos (1:07)

And Karen, in an impromptu appearance on the West Wing driveway after that event, industry leaders joined the president outside the White House endorsing his desire to maintain a hands-off approach and let AI companies police themselves. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, whose company makes the chips and have helped power the AI boom, said he saw no conflict between innovation, technology, and safety.

Jensen Huang (1:29)

This is the largest industrial revolution in history. And we're going through the single largest infrastructure build-out in the United States. And so it's creating a million jobs here in the United States.

We have chip plants coming up, computer plants coming up, they got factories coming up. And so it's creating just an enormous amount of jobs.

Alexis Christoforos (1:47)

Joining NVIDIA's Jensen Huang alongside the president was Dario Amodi of Anthropic.

Dario Amodei (1:53)

Whoever wins, AI wins. I think that's very important. But I think the technology has very real risks. And the mechanism, how we address those risks is still under discussion. But we all need to work together to make sure that we can win and we can win safely.

Alexis Christoforos (2:10)

Anthropics Dario Amodi and NVIDIA's Jensen Huang were joined by other tech titans, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and SpaceX's Elon Musk. The decision to engage on AI safety appears to mark a shift for the president, who only last week rejected fears of catastrophic risk as, quote, a hoax.

Karen Moskow (2:32)

Well, one tech leader that was not in Washington for the luncheon, Alexis OpenAI's Sam Altman. He was at OpenAI's Dev Day in San Francisco. Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow was there and asked Altman about the safety of artificial intelligence.

Sam Altman (2:45)

When we need to make a decision about slowing down our training or our model release, so that we can make more progress and put more of our attention into safety, alignment, monitoring, security, we will happily do that. Now, of course, we're going to continue to make progress, but the world should always have confidence in our safety cases, in our safety claims, and that we are going to be responsible with this technology.

Karen Moskow (3:13)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking with Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow. OpenAI said this week that it had scrap plans to debut a GPT 6.1 version of its top-of-the-line Astra model, flagging heightened risks after recent rogue AI hacking incidents. The company also apologized this week to Australia for a breach of government websites carried out by some of its AI models.

Alexis Christoforos (3:36)

And Karen, another major story we're following this morning comes out of Europe. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham opening the door to a return to the European Union. Bloomberg Daybreak Europe anchor Caroline Hepker covered the Labour Party's conference in Liverpool and joins us with the very latest. Good morning Caroline.

Caroline Hepke (3:52)

Good morning Alexis. Karen, yes, Andy Burnham says that Brexit has done more harm than good to the UK. He wants clarity on Britain's relationship with its closest trading partner. A decade after Britain voted to leave the EU, he wants to look at all the options again. That could mean rejoining the single market or customs union, or even fully rejoining the EU as a proposal at the next general election, which is due in 2029

But this is just one of the radical proposals that Burnham set out in what was an emotional speech in Liverpool. He also wants a new national care service paid for by paring back costs for state pensions, possible nationalisations of utilities coming.

These big plans though are largely future focus. They could also signal tax rises. This at a time when the UK already has high government spending and high tax to GDP ratios. The markets are going to be watching what happens in the immediate future, the budget on the 28th of October, even as Andy Burnham has decided to tackle some of the most contentious issues in British politics in London. Caroline Hepke, Bloomberg Radio.