Trump's press ban overturned + The price of a Grand Final pop star

Chris Spyrou (0:07)

Hey, Chris Spyrou with you, happy Friday, and welcome to The Briefing. Kylie Minogue takes to the stage at the AFL Grand Final tomorrow, and the NRL was in talks with Tones and I for its one next Sunday, but that's no longer happening. Instead, the league says it'll spend the money on kids who can't afford to play, and its boss reckons nobody cares about the pre-game shows anyway. So does he have a point?

Hunter Fujak (0:31)

There's a lot of things we do in the world just because they become established norms, and then we perpetuate those norms.

So I think this is a really good opportunity to see what this can look like without a headline. Will it change audiences? Audiences are measured minute by minute, so we'll be able to see how the composition changes.

Chris Spyrou (0:49)

That look inside the business of Grand Final Entertainment in Australia, and whether it still has a place is coming up in the second half of this episode. Let's get into the headlines with Sacha Barbour Gatt. It's Friday, the 25th of September.

Donald Trump (1:08)

President Xi, Madame Peng and the members of the Chinese delegation, I'm delighted to welcome you to the beautiful White House. Such a great honor.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (1:22)

Yes, we're starting in Washington this morning, where Donald Trump has, as you heard, rolled out the red carpet to welcome Xi Jinping to the White House. It's the Chinese president's first trip to the US since 2023, but his first time at the White House since 2016, with trade and artificial intelligence topping the agenda. And both sides have already agreed to extend their trade truce by another two months. That is what is keeping tariffs down at the moment and keeps China's rare earth minerals flowing to the US.

Chris Spyrou (1:51)

Xi also came bearing gifts. He's inviting 100,000 Americans to study in China and sending two giant pandas to zoo Atlanta. So, you know, that panda diplomacy thing is continuing. Trump, for his part, says decisions are coming on security technology and what he now calls super intelligence.

Donald Trump (2:09)

The decisions we make in these areas today can promote peace and prosperity for decades and decades to come.

Chris Spyrou (2:18)

And that last category is really the space to watch super intelligence, as he likes to call it, or AI, as the rest of the world calls it. Trump sees AI as a race that the US must win against China. And this week he told the UN that he rejects any global scheme to control it. A reminder, that's the scheme that Albanese has floated with a bunch of other middle powers. You know, they're saying that AI needs to be regulated and we need a UN body to police it.

Interestingly, after the bilateral talks today between Trump and Xi, they're off to a state dinner at which some of the US biggest chip providers and tech companies will be in attendance.

So names like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the chiefs of Google and Apple, as well as OpenAI's Sam Altman.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (3:00)

And speaking of Altman, his company is in hot water here at home. And that's of course after Anthony Albanese yesterday revealed that a Medicare platform had been breached by an OpenAI agent back in June.

Anthony Albanese (3:12)

Today, I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident. And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (3:29)

Now, just to clarify, an AI agent is a bot that can carry out tasks online on its own. And this one was told to research how much the government spends on medicines. It hit security blocks on an old Medicare statistics portal and found a way around them. It then accessed non-public files and even wrote files to a government server. The government says no personal health records were touched.

Chris Spyrou (3:54)

OpenAI only noticed in August, then told the government on September 10 via a public inbox. It was then moved up the chain to Finance Minister Katie Gallagher, who was told last Thursday. The PM was then briefed a few days later. Now, experts have come out to say that, you know, this is more proof that we need AI regulation and AI laws now, not later. But they do say that the timing of Albo's announcement is very convenient and something that we should be taking stock of, given that he is in New York at the moment and he has been pushing very, very, very hard for those AI guardrails, like I mentioned earlier.