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Anthropic CEO Calls for A.I. Slowdown Amid Safety Concerns; Trump Shrugs Off A.I. Warnings, Cites China Competition; Lawmakers Return to Washington Under Pressure to Act on A.I. Safety; Pennsylvania Women Dies of Measles Complication Amid Outbreak; Family, Friends Plead for Help in Finding Missing D.C. Mother. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 14, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

LAURENT DELAUNAY, WINEMAKER: For the U.S.. The U.S. market is our first export market. So it's very important for us, for my region, for Burgundy, it's about 20 percent of our sales, which are normally going to the U.S.. And we know that we have probably lost probably about 5 percent of them so far.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: While it's hitting you hard, it's hitting the consumer by putting the prices up.

I do appreciate you coming on and discussing this with us, Laurent Delaunay. Appreciate it.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So overnight, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman puts out a new statement talking about guardrails potentially for the A.I. industry after Anthropic CEO really pushed this conversation forward, calling for a slowdown in A.I. development and more. He spoke exclusively with CNN's Anderson Cooper. We will bring you more of that.

And the measles outbreak spreads with a third measles related death in Pennsylvania. The clash, though, this has created between state and federal officials now. And tonight, it's known as TV's biggest night, the 78th Annual Emmy Awards, kicking off Hollywood's awards season.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, happening now, the stunning new warning really from inside the house that A.I. is at risk of developing faster than humans can control. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says A.I. companies need to slow the pace for improving their models, giving safety measures time to catch up. Other industry leaders, including Elon Musk, OpenAI's Sam Altman they seem to agree, albeit with conditions.

Overnight. Altman wrote, quote, "When we talk about pacing, we do not mean stopping. Where we'll need the help of our government is for international coordination. But first we should do what we can ourselves."

With us now, CNN's Anderson Cooper, who spoke exclusively with Dario Amodei. This was a fascinating conversation because I have to say this essay landed like a thunderclap as it were?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Yes.

BERMAN: So what did he say to you that he's asking for?

COOPER: Well, obviously they are under intense pressure. As you know, several -- one former Anthropic employee has come out saying that, you know, he believes and many people within the company and other these companies believe there's a chance that A.I. will wipe out humans. And another current employee of Dario Amodei's company said it's a greater than 10 percent chance that this could possibly happen.

Obviously, that was my first question to him. Does he believe, as the CEO of this massive company and one of the leaders, if not the leader right now in A.I., does he believe that this will wipe out the human race? I asked him three times. He didn't say yes, but he also did not say no. And if he doesn't believe that it's going to wipe out the human race, you would think he would say no very clearly.

He did not say that. What he said is that there are great dangers, obviously, and that if things go well and things go right and we make the right moves, then the chance of something terrible happening is very low. He said, if we do not do this, if we do not make the right moves and we take the wrong path with this, the chance of something terrible happening or very bad happening is actually could be higher than a 10 percent chance. So, some caution there, but certainly not saying no, which is frightening.

BERMAN: Yes. Look, when the question is, can A.I. destroy the human race, the only comforting answer is no. Everything else is extremely unsettling.

COOPER: Yes. You don't want to hear any of these people saying no, that there's no way that can happen.

BERMAN: Let's listen to more of your conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: At the end of the day, the industry has to work together and it's harder but to some extent, the world has to work together. If we go too slow, I still believe that the wrong people will be in charge of the technology. And you know, that again will bring the probability of things going wrong very high.

COOPER: So what you're proposing is called pacing the frontier of the A.I. industry. And you write, "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of A.I. models. Progress will seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain." And there's three parts to this. One is embedded evaluators. Part two is democratic coordination and part three is global coordination.

Sam Altman at OpenAI just endorsed the idea of embedded evaluators. Essentially, you are suggesting, I don't know, are they observers inside your company and these other A.I. companies, ideally globally, but certainly in the U.S., who would monitor it, they would have employee access? What power would they have?

AMODEI: Yes. So, so before I even get to that, I'm just -- I'm very grateful to see, you know, support for this proposal just in the first few hours of having put it out by Sam Altman, by Elon Musk, by, you know, various legislators and government officials.

[09:05:14]

I think it's a positive sign about, you know, our ability to make something that looks like this plan work. But to get to your question, yes, embedded evaluators. So there is precedent for this. If you look at how banks are regulated, right? There's all kinds of, you know, there's all kinds of rules about, you know, how banks are allowed to do their business, right? Because, you know, we don't want to have financial crises. And one of the things that are done in some cases is I think they're called supervisors in the financial industry, but they're folks who are independent of a company who are embedded in the company day to day to check their practices. And I think we can do the same thing in -- I think we can do the same thing in A.I..

COOPER: The other thing you were calling for in this three-part proposal is democratic coordination, which is essentially democracy. All the companies that are under democracies, having these evaluators, having this coordination, and probably the most important, because the argument is, well, if the U.S. companies are the only ones regulating themselves, what about does China get ahead? You're calling for global coordination. That's obviously a lot more difficult.

AMODEI: Yes, yes. You know, in this three-step proposal, each step is more difficult than the one before. And Anthropic was kind of getting the ball rolling by committing to the first step. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that these next two steps are going to be more difficult. And we may not succeed. And so my proposal is a proposal that we should try.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Remarkable conversation. Is it clear to you how much government regulation, U.S. government regulation he's asking for, if any?

COOPER: He's certainly -- I mean, he has been more on the side of publicly at least saying he would like regulation. He is certainly saying the U.S. government needs to do a better job and a job of actually trying to regulate this. And these companies need to come to some sort of understanding with the government, elected officials he's calling on and voters to vote people -- elected officials accordingly.

He says he wants that this needs to be regulated. Obviously, he has concerns about what the regulation is, what that means for the arms race, which is not a term he uses, but which is a term a lot of people use for the competition between American A.I. companies and Chinese and others. But the U.S. government, certainly the Trump administration, has not shown any desire, really, for any form of regulation.

BERMAN: It sounds like he thinks this is a crucial moment and one that may not last very long here. So if action is going to happen, he seems to take --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Yes, I mean, he says in this thing that his concern is in the next six to 12 months, there could be another swarm A.I., swarm like there was in the Hugging attack that takes over the entire internet.

BERMAN: That's not a lot of time.

COOPER: No.

BERMAN: To get the situation under control.

Anderson Cooper, it was a great conversation. Everyone can watch more of this exclusive interview with Dario Amodei tonight on "AC360." That begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN, or stream it with your "All Access" subscription. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Those concerns that you and Anderson are just talking about over A.I., putting a lot of pressure on Washington. But so far, President Trump has taken a hands-off approach, brushing aside the warnings and pointing to the A.I. race with China.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is live this morning at the White House.

What are you hearing from the president on this? Because he's been pretty dismissive about these dire warnings that we are hearing.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And he is essentially in the full speed ahead camp of all of this, really sort of downplaying the need for the government to put a check on some of these companies. And actually just yesterday saying that the warnings about the speed of this development were coming from what he called negative forces, which he didn't identify.

But it is kind of remarkable, just given that those voices are now coming from the industry itself. Now, we've also heard from one of the administration's top A.I. advisers, David Sachs. He is saying that if these companies want to slow down their development, they're free to do that. He says the easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to not to agree to build it. And so all in all, from the administration, it really is kind of a full speed ahead that does put the president at something of an odds from other Republicans.

You also hear, frankly, from some White House officials speaking privately who are growing uneasy at the president's dismissiveness on all of this. And it has created an opening for Democrats. You heard President Obama, former President Obama, tell a private fundraiser last week that he thinks Democrats should make the issue of A.I. and the issue of A.I. safety the very center of their campaigns heading into the midterms.

[09:10:09]

Now, even though the president is voicing an apparent lack of concern here, what you do hear from White House officials, including Kevin Hassett, the top White House economist, is that they plan to convene meetings this week with top technology and top A.I. officials here at the White House. You've also heard from Mike Johnson, the House speaker, saying that he wants to get President Trump and lawmakers and industry officials all in the same room to try and hammer out some sort of path forward here.

The other very critical date on the calendar that's coming up is President Trump's meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. That will take place here at the White House next week. A.I., of course, will be a topic of conversation there. But the last time the two of them met back in May, they were unable to come up with any sort of path forward. So clearly, I think a race and a test of Washington to come up with a plan here. But obviously at this point, there's no consensus on what to do or even whether anything is needed.

SIDNER: Kevin Liptak, thank you so much for your reporting there from the White House for us. Kate?

BOLDUAN: That's a view from the White House. Lawmakers are returning to Capitol Hill today and facing this new pressure around A.I. as well.

Let's get to CNN's Lauren Fox. She's got the view of it.

I mean, what are you hearing from folks? Yes, we've heard about commissions. Yes, we've heard about panels. But how real is it and how fast can they really move on this?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I would point you, Kate, to the calendar, which tells you that there's not a lot of time for Congress to take any action on any comprehensive legislation, even if it was sitting in a drawer in Congress with bipartisan votes ready to go, which it isn't. So at this moment, what you have is the House in town for one week.

You have the Senate scheduled to be in town for a total of three weeks. Then everyone goes home to campaign until the midterms, which just doesn't leave a lot of time on the clock. Meanwhile, you have some Democrats in the House, Sam Liccardo, as well as Lori Trahan, sending a letter to the speaker of the House on Friday demanding that Congress stay in session longer to handle this and to ensure that there are safeguards on A.I. companies to ensure that this technology doesn't move faster than humans can actually control it.

The speaker, meanwhile, has dismissed this, arguing that this is a, you know, private company issue that they need to move forward in a way that is responsible and putting a lot of the onus back on those tech companies. I will just note that when you are talking about issues that Congress

is good at dealing with, typically they respond to a crisis. I think of the pandemic. I think of the financial crisis. They don't always take action preemptively. And that is something that the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, is trying to get ahead of. He said in a letter to his colleagues, quote, "The American people deserve better from their government at such a consequential moment. I have long argued we must keep the U.S. as the global leader in A.I. innovation and security, but that innovation must be coupled with serious guardrails that earn the trust of the American public. Warning bells are ringing louder than they ever have, and the Trump administration is looking the other way. Well, if they won't hold themselves accountable, we will. And if Trump does not act, Congress must."

But we would just point out that this is coming from the minority leader of the Senate. This isn't coming from the majority leader. And right now, the schedule is the schedule. They're in town for a couple of weeks, and then they head out for the midterms. So not a high likelihood that they're going to be able to deal with this in just a matter of days -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and to your point, if things are good at is dealing with crises also, let's do the flip. Things have traditionally not been good at his dealing with regulating tech and just general in staying on top of that.

So, Lauren, thank you so very much, John?

BERMAN: All right. A new person has died after measles complications in Pennsylvania. Where this fits in the federal government's battle with states about how this all is counted.

A new record high for diesel prices. Oil with a big jump overnight and gas at the pump up in ways we haven't seen in an election season this century. And then lost for days on an island in Lake Superior, a hiker finally lifted to safety.

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[09:13:58]

BOLDUAN: Officials in Pennsylvania now say a third death is linked to a measles outbreak there. The Jefferson County coroner confirmed just Sunday, just yesterday, a 40-year-old woman died of complications associated with the virus, also said she was not vaccinated against the disease. But this outbreak and the deaths have exposed real tension here between state and federal officials over the count, the death count, and the response to the measles outbreak in general.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard is watching this one, and has been watching this very closely.

What are you picking up here?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. Well, first, a lot of people may think of measles as a childhood illness, but this third death in an adult is an important reminder that measles can have severe outcomes even for adults. So what we know about this third person who sadly has died, the 40-year-old woman we know was not vaccinated against measles and she did have underlying health conditions like COPD and asthma. And she was using supplemental oxygen before getting measles.

[09:20:07]

And in a Facebook post, the Jefferson County coroner, Greg Furlong, said this, quote, "This is a heartbreaking loss for the family and an unfortunate reminder that measles can be a serious and potentially life-threatening disease."

And now that we do have three deaths tied to this ongoing outbreak, Kate, that gives us a clue that there might be more cases out there. Our case numbers may possibly be an undercount because so far there have been a total of 676 cases reported tied to this ongoing outbreak. 124 people have been hospitalized, but there have been three deaths. And typically when you see that number, it's estimated that for every one to three deaths, there may be about 1,000 cases.

So this is an active outbreak that health officials are continuing to monitor. And we also know that while this outbreak is statewide, the epicenter is really in Lancaster County. And this outbreak itself, Kate, is the first in the state in 35 years. I mean, keep in mind, in the year 2000, the United States eliminated the measles virus. So we are seeing recently these outbreaks popping up in pockets of unvaccinated communities.

And I will say, Kate, we reached out to the CDC to get their response on this third death. Like you mentioned earlier, there has been some tension between state health officials and federal health officials and whether certain cases or deaths are getting counted. The CDC claims it has not received information about this death yet. The CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, says, quote, "CDC was not notified by Pennsylvania officials of this death. Despite repeated offers of assistance Pennsylvania has not requested a CDC Epi-Aid, which would deploy epidemiologists and provide on-the-ground measles outbreak support," end quote.

And this statement comes after when the first deaths in the outbreak emerged, there was some back and forth comments between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on whether the deaths should be counted. So it's interesting to see, as this outbreak continues, the political tension continuing as well -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Jacqueline, thank you very much for your reporting on this. John?

BERMAN: All right. This morning, following developments in the search for a Washington, D.C. woman missing now for more than a week. The family of 53-year-old Antoinette Forbes is pleading for her help in finding her.

Let's get right to CNN's Dianne Gallagher for the latest on this.

Dianne, what are you hearing?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, John, loved ones say that Antoinette Forbes is a dedicated single mom to her 10-year-old son who would never just vanish like this on her own accord. And it has been more than a week since anybody has seen or heard from the 53-year-old public relations executive.

Now her family and friends have called the circumstances surrounding her disappearance alarming. They held a vigil on Saturday night as a way to kind of come together and support each other, but also to try and get more information out about her case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALISON WILLIAMS, FRIEND: It's been harrowing, and I know so many other families have gone through similar experiences. It doesn't change how difficult it is, not only for her friends, but especially for her family, who are so desperate to see her back.

RACHEL CLARK, FRIEND: Antoinette is deeply loved. She's a devoted mom, sister, friend. She's family to a lot of us who are here tonight as friends organizing this. We miss her deeply. We are eager to bring her home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, Antoinette was last seen on Friday evening at her home in the 3200 Block of Nebraska Avenue Northwest in Washington, D.C.. Her sister Eileen tells me that she last spoke with Antoinette around 9:30 in the morning on Saturday, September 5th. It was something the sisters did all the time. They were on Facetime. She said Antoinette was at home and there was nothing out of the ordinary about that call.

What was unusual, Eileen says, is that Antoinette stopped responding. She didn't answer text messages or calls. She didn't make other scheduled phone calls that she had with her family. And Eileen began to get worried when she didn't even respond when she told Antoinette she had COVID. So family friends went over on Monday. They had a key to the house, but they didn't need it because the house was unlocked, John.

Her keys, her -- both of her phones, her laptop and her car was outside and her beloved dog Max was inside as well. Now the family tells us that her son is safe. D.C. Police say that it is under investigation, but they will not give any additional details at this time about it.

[09:25:01]

BERMAN: Such a mystery right now and so confusing, I think, for that family.

Dianne Gallagher, thank you very much for your reporting on this. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, John.

Today is the day former staffers of Senator John Fetterman promised to dump more inside information about him on social media. Their first posts were made with things like text messages in an effort to show that Fetterman is uninterested in actually performing his duties as a senator. Well, the new social media post was scheduled to coincide with the first day members returned to the Senate. We will update you on what is put out there.

And we're just minutes away from the Opening Bell on Wall Street. Let us take a look at futures. All of them trending lower this morning as we start the week. Wall Street is weighing rising oil prices, growing tensions in the Middle East, and a crucial Federal Reserve meeting later this week. Tech stocks are expected to lead the declines, with A.I. companies facing scrutiny, perhaps from Capitol Hill, certainly from inside the house as well.

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