9/30/26: Trump Sham AI Deal, Nvidia Stock Buyback, Flight To Israel Hijacked, Minab School Bombing Horrors

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

The episode covers high-stakes developments across technology, finance, and global conflict. Hosts discuss Donald Trump's meeting with AI le

Key takeaways

• Donald Trump met with tech giants like Zuckerberg and Musk to finalize a voluntary AI safety agreement focused on 'Super Intelligence' (SI).
• Nvidia confirmed a $150 billion stock buyback, drawing criticism for using massive profits while benefiting from federal tax incentives.

Main topics

• AI Safety and Regulation
• Nvidia Financial Strategy

Notable quotes

We've changed the name officially today... to SI, like Super Intelligence.

Conclusion

A heavy episode that juxtaposes rapid technological advancement and co

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:35) Hi, this is Kylie Brakeman, Angela Geratana, Speaker 8 (0:38) Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald, and Speaker 5 (0:40) we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists podcast, the Speaker 8 (0:43) improvised character comedy podcast, where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of Eurovision participants. Speaker 5 (0:52) And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. Speaker 8 (0:58) He gets right up next to the microphone. Speaker 5 (1:00) I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. Speaker 8 (1:03) You've never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Speaker 5 (1:08) Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (1:16) I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Speaker 8 (1:28) Ooh, I scammed him. What? I could talk to you for an hour. Speaker 6 (1:31) You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (1:46) Hey guys, Ready Speaker 5 (1:47) or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We Speaker 8 (1:54) rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Speaker 2 (2:10) Good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, you'll like this. I was at a Dave Chappelle show here in Washington, D.C. on Friday. It was a fundraiser for his high school. He went to high school here in D.C. Ran into a Breaking Points fan. He said, hey, I just want to let you know that I went to BreakingPoints.com and signed up for the free trial just to own Sager. I Speaker 1 (2:32) love that. Speaker 2 (2:32) So in real life, actual people are doing it. Sager is in shambles. Speaker 1 (2:39) Sager has been hit so hard by this news. I met a lovely couple in Maine last week who told me they got, one of them got the other a premium subscription for Christmas. And that made me think, shout out to them, by the way, they're amazing. But that made me think, do we need to run a Ryan Grimm Christmas sign-up special? So you can make someone happy by owning Sager for Christmas. It's a beautiful gift. And it's kind of a gift to us too, because we love to see that. Speaker 2 (3:03) I met somebody recently also who had said, Apologetically, he said, my mom got me a gift subscription. Otherwise, I would have gotten it on your day. I'm very sorry about that. You don't have to apologize for that. But if you want a month free of the show, go to breakingpoints.com. We'll actually put up a tally because it's so funny at this point. It really is hilariously lopsided. Can we put up a tally? Is Speaker 1 (3:25) that Speaker 2 (3:25) right? It's almost too mean. No. Also, Sagar is so torn because he loves when the business grows and is doing well. Speaker 1 (3:33) He's a little capitalist. Speaker 2 (3:34) But he doesn't know how to feel about it. He's very torn. Speaker 1 (3:37) I feel like actually now this was your grand plan all along. This Speaker 2 (3:40) was it. Speaker 1 (3:40) To insert a wedge between Sager and his love of capitalism. Exactly. Speaker 2 (3:43) Well, here we are. And I promised that I would ramble less if people started signing up for the free trial. I broke that promise. So let's stop the rambling. There was a huge meeting between a bunch of AI juggernauts and the president. Sorry, super intelligence, SI, and the president. The White House ruled. We'll break down some of that. There was an attempt by an Emirati pilot to take a flight bound for Tel Aviv out of the sky. That attempt was foiled by another pilot. It was an Omani pilot, actually, who was trying to take the plane down. An Emirati pilot and others fought the Omani pilot. We'll get into some of the details on that. My colleague Jeremy Scahill from Dropsite has been working for, I guess, months now on an investigation into the massacre at Minab, talking to parents, survivors, first responders, prosecutors, and has put together the most comprehensive look yet of what that day was like in the city of Minab. We're going to talk to him in a little bit. We're also going to have updates on the midterms. Emily, out with a new profile of independent candidate. Dan Osborne over at UnHerd. The economy continues to completely collapse. We'll be getting inflation data this morning. Emily spoke to a whole bunch of callers in the Megyn Kelly network who are not so happy with their choices. Speaker 1 (5:16) Every day I get these calls now. They're pissed. They're pissed. Speaker 2 (5:19) They are mad. So we'll hear from some of those folks. And Jack Smith. So Emily's got some actual news on what Jack Smith has been up to, which she'll get into. And we'll have a lot of fun at the expense of Eric Schmidt, who, oh, my God. So Hank Johnson famously at a hearing said that he was worried that Guam was going to tip over. that and at the hearing people were like you mean like tip over population wise into like some other chaos Speaker 1 (5:56) he's Speaker 2 (5:57) like no no i mean tip over like what if there are too many people in the island tips over this Speaker 1 (6:02) is worse than that this Speaker 2 (6:03) is eric schmidt's performance yesterday puts hank johnson to rest brutal Speaker 1 (6:08) it's brutal Speaker 2 (6:09) you're gonna you're gonna want to stick around for that This is going to be a very long show where we're going to try not to have to cut that episode. Oh, Speaker 1 (6:16) and my car got towed this morning. So if it's late, it's because I went to get in my car. And the city had moved it for no good reason. So Speaker 2 (6:23) Mark Wayne Mullen could get to the... Speaker 1 (6:25) Oh, well, that was also... I did get behind a Mark Wayne Mullen security detail and watched him walk out with his dry cleaning at 8 in the morning. Mark Wayne Mullen, dude, have someone else do that for you. Yeah, you Speaker 2 (6:35) should be at work by then, buddy. Speaker 1 (6:36) 8 a.m. Be in the office. All right. Ryan was at the office that day. That's Speaker 2 (6:41) right. Speaker 1 (6:41) He had no problems with it. All right, let's get into the show. Big news on the AI front yesterday because Donald Trump has secured a massive voluntary AI safety agreement. I know it's exactly what you all wanted to see from this meeting with Donald Trump and all of the AI leaders. Basically, everybody except for Sam Altman was there and OpenAI representative Brockman was there. But let's put the first hair sheet up on the screen. Trump, top AI leaders agree to voluntary AI standards. There was a lot of hype about what was going to happen. At this meeting yesterday, Trump himself released this seating chart. He has basically all the major leaders in the room. Look at Brockman's signature, by the way. If you're watching this, you can see on the screen all these different signatures. And then Greg Brockman. It's impossible to say. He's Speaker 2 (7:23) the main funder of that Lead the Future super PAC, right? The Speaker 1 (7:28) AI super PAC. Speaker 2 (7:29) That guy's signature right there. My uncle does handwriting analysis. I'll ask him to look at that one. I don't even know if you need an expert to tell you that is not the kind of guy you want ruling the world. Speaker 1 (7:41) No, that tells you everything that you need to know this creature itself. But basically the contours of this, it, as Axios reports, quote, puts AI companies at the center of policing their own technology as pressure grows for software safeguards. And basically, yes, it's Zuckerberg told people some of the steps are going to involve. internal risk reviews, outside audits, board oversight. Quote, Zuckerberg said the leaders drafted a list of principles that include reviewing internal controls and detecting issues with the technology, which could include multiple layers of auditing controls. So you have all the major companies agreeing to this. Better than nothing, I suppose, Ryan, but not nearly as good as actually prosecuting some of these people for the dangers their products have been already doing. putting in place. I mean, there are, I think Stoller makes a great argument. There already are laws in the books that you can prosecute people for. But if you're gathering all the AI leaders in the room, I think what most people would like to see is, well, here's the laws that you may have violated and that we may be investigating you for and that you should not break going forward because we're going to enforce them. And so act accordingly. Yes. Speaker 2 (8:50) A late friend of mine, Aaron Schwartz, was prosecuted for, he had legal access to MIT, through his MIT fellowship, to JSTOR's database of kind of academic papers. He downloaded them, or he downloaded many thousands of them. That's all he did. They tried to put him in prison for 60 years. He ended his life amid the prosecution as they were resistant to any type of plea deal. They were trying to put him in prison for decades. Speaker 2 (9:27) These AI companies have done far worse when it comes to hacking through paywalls to extract the exact same type of thing that he was downloading that he had legal access to. They don't have legal access to it. Speaker 1 (9:43) They're Speaker 2 (9:43) downloading it, then they're repackaging it, and they're selling it to people. He wasn't even trying to make any money on it. Speaker 1 (9:49) Right. It's at least dubious that they have legal access to it. They just decided to plow through. He had full legal access to it. Speaker 2 (9:55) Right. Speaker 2 (9:57) Right. And we have all the text messages of them and their Slack messages saying, oh, we managed to get through the paywall and we're extracting everything. He's like, sick, awesome, dude. Great job. Like, we're hacking them. Great. Anyway, so yes, prosecute a few of these guys. I think the guys that replaced them would have a bit more concern about safety. Trump, obviously, not prosecuting anybody powerful. Like, he's certainly not going there. And he doesn't think there's anything remotely dangerous about this. It's kind of amazing to have him in there. Speaker 1 (10:24) But at the same time, he said one of them assuaged his concerns about possible safety issues. It's the same thing with all of them. It's like they all know that there are concerns about possible safety issues. They're telling it to us constantly. Yet they think the solution here is internal review. And you had the FTC chairman, Andrew Ferguson, standing out there with them yesterday, grinning alongside the people he's supposed to regulate. So that's lovely. We have some audio from Trump who went to the White House driveway outside of the West Wing and yucked it up with the CEOs and reporters. So let's go ahead and take a listen to this next thought. Speaker 4 (11:04) Mr. President, tell us why the world should not be concerned about Speaker 8 (11:07) AI, why there shouldn't be guardrails. Because we have people that love our country and love the world. But it requires more than love, doesn't it, sir? No, it requires this, and they're the smartest people in the world. And we had a great meeting today, every one of them. We had a great, really a great, great meeting. It was something very, very special. We had the top... I'd say it looked like a group of about 40, but whatever it was, here's one of them right here, Jensen and NVIDIA. And they love our country, they love the world, and they came together and they did something that few people really, it's almost like a constitution in a way. Speaker 5 (11:44) Sorry, who should be held accountable when the AI agents committed a crime? It's not AI, Speaker 8 (11:49) it's SSI. That's the other thing. We've changed the name officially today. We've changed the name, Steve, officially to SI. Okay? SI, like SI, SI, instead of AI. You know what that means? Super intelligence. Speaker 8 (12:06) So the name, I guess that's really quite an announcement because, but the name has been officially changed by the biggest, the smartest, the greatest people anywhere in the world at this. And I was with President Xi a few days ago and he would admit, he said, these are the smartest people in the world at what they do. And it's a big, it's Speaker 1 (12:26) a Speaker 8 (12:26) big thing, but it's been officially changed to super intelligence or SI. Speaker 1 (12:32) Oh, great. Brian, any reaction to that, or should we go straight to Dario? Speaker 2 (12:36) Well, I suppose it's all relative intelligence. So, yeah, let's go with A3. Speaker 8 (12:42) But even in America, there are so many people that want data centers. You know, the areas with data centers have become very rich. People have become very rich. Their taxes have gone down, not up. And a lot of good things have happened. But these people and others having to do with the data centers that you've been reading so much about. I think they're going to do things for the community that will be really financially beneficial and otherwise beneficial. Mr. President, on commonality. There's Speaker 6 (13:10) a Speaker 8 (13:10) belief of everybody that you're meeting with today that no guardrails, no regulation of AI, superintelligence, as you call it, is necessary. Well, there's a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that. But the self-regulation is very important. Speaker 2 (13:31) Yeah, everybody feeling at ease? That was him Speaker 1 (13:34) at the meeting, actually, yes. Right, that was Speaker 2 (13:35) him at the meeting. Dario, his reaction outside, his kind of inability to control himself or appear normal for any considerable stretch of time, I think also had people concerned. But here's Dario Amadei of Claude fame talking about how he can work with Trump. Let's go to A4. Speaker 4 (13:58) Look, I mean, I will say what I've always said, which is that AI Speaker 8 (14:02) has incredible benefits. I've talked about the medical benefits of the technology. As the president has said, you know, whoever wins AI wins. I think that's very important. But I think the technology has very real risks. And, you know, the mechanism, how we address those risks is still under discussion. But we all need to work. We all need to work together. to make sure that we can win and we can win safely. If we do this right, we work with the president and everyone here, we can win safely. Speaker 2 (14:31) And Elon Musk talked about a few of the things that they agreed to. Let's roll A5 this Elon. Speaker 3 (14:36) Running up on time, but maybe if you guys could share, you spent a lot of time at the White House. Is there Speaker 8 (14:42) anything that you can share with the world about what came out of what Speaker 2 (14:47) was evidently a long and productive lunch? We did good. Speaker 3 (14:51) Yeah, we signed a joint declaration regarding SI safety. And I think that'll be published by the White House soon, if it hasn't been already. But we agreed to a number of things that include joint monitoring, board special committees, and just generally grading each other's homework, which is a lot better than if people just grade their own homework for obvious reasons. Elon, how do we win? How do we keep winning? Well... Speaker 3 (15:28) We need a lot of power, a lot of energy generation. So scaling energy, I think, is one of the biggest things. You've got to scale energy, you've got to scale chip production. And I think we're winning on software, on anything intellectual or digital. But in the long run, we need to be able to generate enough power to compete with I think essentially China is the biggest competitor. And China has about three times the electricity production of the United States. And I think we'll figure out how to make ships. Speaker 3 (16:11) So really the central challenge I think is long-term is going to be how do you generate enough power and how do you ensure that we have enough logic and memory fabrication capacity in the United States or in a safe region? Speaker 8 (16:25) We need the Wright brothers on the job. Speaker 3 (16:28) Yes. Well, it turns out Speaker 8 (16:29) the Wright brothers are on the job. Speaker 2 (16:32) And he's right in the sense that China now produces, when it comes to just solar energy, roughly a third of what it would take to run the entire U.S. electrical grid. And they are adding huge amounts every month to their grid through clean energy, solar, other renewables. The Trump administration came in and blew up the IRA, which was the most aggressive attempt to expand energy production. Speaker 2 (17:01) since, you know, in many decades. And yes, now the SI barons, Sports Illustrated barons, are upset that they don't have enough energy after kneecapping the energy production policy that was put into place. Shame for them. Speaker 1 (17:19) Also, when Elon says it's better than them grading their own homework, I mean, technically based on what they released yesterday, they're still grading their own homework. They're supposed to hire... Outside auditors and that sort of thing but there's not a government safeguard built into this to make sure that they're not manipulating the outside auditor in one way or the other right and that's a stretch of course because it's supposed to be an external auditor, but it's not what most people want to see which is Government legal oversight of whether or not this is all compliant. Yeah, Speaker 2 (17:44) and maybe we'll talk about this more tomorrow but as our client had an interesting interview with Bill Gates Speaker 1 (17:48) who Speaker 2 (17:49) Made was making the point that You're kind of looking in the wrong place like yes The risk that robots kill us all is a problem the risk that a person with access to these tools Causes immense damage that kills millions of people or brings down the financial system is a present-day risk That needs to be you know thought about right now Sam Altman though who was you know at times made some you know pretty dire warnings about what his technology might do to humanity is was sounding a slightly different tune. Let's roll a seven. Speaker 8 (18:27) There's like plenty of things I was wrong about too. Like, you know, I try to leave the wrong predictions up, obviously. But I think the important point is like, you get some things right, some things wrong. I think we'll be very right about some things. I think we'll be very right that intelligence Speaker 4 (18:42) continues. I think we'll be very right about the rate of scientific discovery. I think we'll be very right about how people... Speaker 4 (18:50) kind of are going to have the same things that they care Speaker 8 (18:52) about and drives in their lives 10 years from now they have from today. And even with this like amazing intelligence, a lot of parts of life are going to stay the same. But then a lot of the details and kind of what order science goes in or whether it's, you know, haircuts or hugging face or Navier-Stokes first, I'm sure we'll be wrong about that. Speaker 2 (19:08) I'm not sure exactly what to make. make of that. This comes as the New York Times is reporting, we can put up this next element, that a bunch of OpenAI employees were warning that the company wasn't doing enough to respond to the risks that its own product was producing, that its agents were busting out, going all over the world, hacking into everything from Australia to Hugging Face and in between. And their warnings were ignored. Speaker 1 (19:42) Right. And it's just, there are ways to pursue investigations into whether or not that's illegal, whether or not what's happened from OpenAI is illegal. Because we keep getting information about these sandbox breakouts that actually do, are like hacking websites and potentially stealing information. And because they're like, well, we're sorry, we're trying to figure out what went wrong. And it's maybe because it's digital. We just all shrug. I mean, the public isn't. And I think that's clearly the danger for Trump here somewhere, so that you see some Republicans, Ron DeSantis and Republicans in Florida, for example, trying to carve out a different path because they recognize the raw public anger over all of this. But Trump is just going with a bear hug. Speaker 2 (20:26) Yeah, he's in for a dime, in for a dollar, whatever the phrase is. Yeah, he's not turning around on this. That's for sure. Speaker 5 (20:35) Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my God, Lexi, we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisi DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not going to get anywhere fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. And I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Liar. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care. Speaker 6 (21:45) I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Byer. Ooh, I Speaker 8 (22:02) scammed them. What? Speaker 6 (22:03) I Speaker 8 (22:03) could talk to you for an hour. Speaker 6 (22:05) You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up. to today. I