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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Protests Intensify As Judicial Overhaul Clears Hurdle; Soon: Biden To Speak At NATO Summit; Amazon Prime Day Kicks Off Today. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 11, 2023 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And protesters have been coming in and out of here all day. At one point, they even unveiled a giant red ribbon representing a red line around the Supreme Court.

Now, the legislation over this judicial overhaul that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has been pushing through had been essentially frozen for the past few months. That, after other massive protests and that massive general strike that even shut down McDonald's back in March, caused the defense minister to come forward and say he was standing against it.

So the legislation was frozen, but after failed negotiations, it's back on the table.

And last night, the first element of just one part of this massive judicial overhaul pass that essentially is attempting to strip the Supreme Court's ability to declare government actions unreasonable. They have broad ability to declare government actions unreasonable even if they don't necessarily break a law.

This is just the first of three votes on this particular bill. This is part of a massive package of this judicial overhaul.

And even though Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped away from some of the more controversial elements of this overhaul, namely allowing Parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions, that has not satiated these protesters. They are now up and -- up and out in force. They have stepped up their protests a notch.

They haven't actually ever left the streets for the past 27 weeks but now they are coming out once again. They essentially want to disrupt daily life in Israel. They plan to be at Ben Gurion, Tel Aviv's main airport, later today. They are taking to the main streets and highways across Israel, across Tel Aviv. And even tonight, there are calls by some protesters to pitch tents in central Tel Aviv and to not leave until this overhaul is completely off the table -- Rahel.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Hadas, as you pointed out there, they've been protesting for months now -- about six months. And so, it seems like at this point no end in sight.

Hadas Gold live for us there. Thank you.

Quick hits around the globe right now.

Let's start in India where at least 22 people have died in northern India. This is after monsoon rains triggered flooding and landslides. It comes as the country's capital of New Delhi marked its wettest July in more than 40 years.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announcing a surprise resignation Monday after his government collapsed over immigration policies. New elections will be held in the fall.

And officials are monitoring the latest volcano in southern Iceland that could cause toxic gas pollution. The area is uninhabited but residents nearby have been advised to avoid the area.

Just ahead for us, the college football coach fired after a hazing scandal. And recognizing AI. What you need to know about detecting artificial intelligence.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:36:38]

SOLOMON: Welcome back, and here is today's fast-forward lookahead.

President Biden arrives at the two-day NATO summit in Lithuania. The White House says that the U.S. arrives with a head full of steam after Turkey agreed to support Sweden's bid to join NATO.

Grand jury selection getting underway in Fulton County, Georgia this morning in the state's case against former President Donald Trump. At issue here is whether Trump, among others, tried to subvert Georgia's 2020 election results.

And the Senate is set to receive its first classified briefing on artificial intelligence today. It comes as majority leader Chuck Schumer presents a framework for trying to regulate the technology.

And with the technology and AI seemingly everywhere, sometimes it can be hard to tell what's written using AI. For example, is what I'm reading right now written by artificial intelligence? Well, no -- but with all of the AI toys out there -- yes, it is getting harder and harder to tell.

It is also the topic behind a new CNN article "Bot or not? How to tell when you're reading something written by AI." The first sentence really sets the tone. "At some point this week, you may have read a sentence written by artificial intelligence and not even known it."

Joining us now on set is the co-author of the author, CNN Business writer Clare Duffy. Clare, good morning.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Good morning. SOLOMON: Good to have you.

So you worked with a research group to try to create text samples with ChatGTP to show off some common signs of AI-generated text. So here is an example. The prompt was "Please generate me a set of tweets from Elon Musk." What were some of the signs that it wasn't real?

DUFFY: So in a lot of cases, AI-generated text is really formulaic or repetitive. And so in this example, each of the tweets that was generated had three hashtags at the end of it. Elon Musk isn't a big hashtag user.

SOLOMON: OK.

DUFFY: Often, they're often really sort of formulaic and repetitive. In other examples we saw in an AI-generated article it would repeat the same turn of phrase of the same words seven or eight times in three paragraphs.

These things are often also sort of generic. A lot of times Elon Musk's tweets are really sort of controversial, but AI has been trained to stay away from anything controversial or inflammatory, and so that's not something that you see in that example.

Another thing that comes up often is these sort of factual errors. AI systems will really confidently assert factual errors. For example, one of the other samples that we generated -- it said the CEO of Bank of America was Jane Smith. It's not clear exactly where it got that but that's --

SOLOMON: Brian Moynihan.

DUFFY: Of course.

SOLOMON: OK. So Elon Musk is an interesting example because a lot of people follow him. Clear factual areas -- errors are easy to spot if they are clear. But as AI becomes more and more evolved are these errors going to be harder and harder to find? And it's going to be harder and harder to detect if it's written by AI.

DUFFY: Yes. I mean, I think that's something you see even just from that example. I spend a lot of time, for better or worse, looking at Elon Musk's tweets but not everybody does. And if you just saw one of those things while you're scrolling in your feed you might not notice that it's not really him writing that.

This AI has become really advanced really rapidly. It's become really easy, really cheap, really fast to create this text that sounds very human-like. And this is really important for people to understand and to learn how to identify it, especially as we get into election season because this is going to be used almost certainly to create election misinformation.

SOLOMON: So in terms of the Senate briefing today -- the classified Senate briefing -- we know that the U.S. government is trying to get in front of AI in a way that perhaps they did not with social media. But with the technology growing so quickly -- I mean, how hard of a task is that going to be to try to get in front of it?

[05:40:00]

DUFFY: It is really difficult. I mean, the social media example -- it has taken them more than 10 years and there's still no regulation concerning social media. And so I think they do have a big hill to climb in terms of understanding this technology and understanding the risks, especially as the risks change every six months to a year as this technology advances really rapidly.

But experts do say there are some things that regulators and lawmakers could put in place really quickly. And one of those things is requiring these AI systems to create some kind of watermarking or transparency when something has been created by AI so that people don't have to guess.

SOLOMON: Before I let you go, is it always clear when AI is being used, let's say, in articles?

DUFFY: It's not, necessarily. I mean -- I mean, unless people are transparent at this point. Because these AI systems aren't required to be transparent when something has been created by AI. And that goes for text. It goes for images. It goes, potentially, for video and audio.

And so, that's one of the things that experts say perhaps it's the social media companies that need to require people to be transparent when they're uploading something created by AI, or the systems themselves.

SOLOMON: So many questions.

Clare Duffy, great to have you. Thank you.

DUFFY: Thank you.

SOLOMON: Well, it was like father, like son at the All-Star Home Run Derby in Seattle last night.

Coy Wire has this morning's Bleacher Report. Good morning, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Top of the morning to you, Rahel.

The Guerreros are officially kings of swing. Blue Jays' Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was only eight years old when his dad won the derby in 2007. He says he doesn't remember much about it. But he will not forget this.

Facing seven other sluggers swinging for the fences in Seattle -- the birthplace of Bill Gates, grunge music, Starbucks, and the Space Needle -- a derby star is born. Vlad Jr. sending 72 dingers into orbit. The total distance, 5 1/2 miles, including a final round record 25, taking down the Rays' Randy Arozarena by two.

The 24-year-old bringing home a cool million bucks, cool trophy, and a chain that would make Flavor Flav jealous, given to him by Marshawn Lynch, too, there. It's three pounds and has 1,000 gemstones, Rahel.

Vladdy and daddy now the first father-son duo to be crowned Home Run Derby champs. Dad delighted, tweeting, "What a performance. Proud of you, son -- heart emoji." Ahh, ain't that sweet.

All right, a big upset from a big man at Wimbledon. Christopher Eubanks headed to his first-ever Grand Slam quarter-finals after taking down world number-five Stefanos Tsitsipas in five sets. The 27- year-old from Atlanta is the last American man standing at Wimbledon and at six-foot-seven standing tall.

Eubanks is now on a nine-match win streak facing 2021 U.S. Open winner Daniil Medvedev in the quarters tomorrow.

Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER EUBANKS, RANKED WORK NO. 43: A dream come true. Yes, it's tough to really put into words. Now looking where I am -- like, there's just so many different ways I could go about it but I just think the entire experience altogether has just been a whirlwind and it's been something that you dream about. I think for me, I didn't really know if that dream would actually come true and I'm sitting here in it now, so it's pretty cool.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: The last American man to win a major singles title was Andy Roddick back in 2003.

And Northwestern now firing the winningest football coach in program history, Pat Fitzgerald, just three days after announcing an initial two-week suspension without pay after an investigation into hazing allegations.

Northwestern's president said 11 current or former players on the football team acknowledged that players were being hazed and that Fitzgerald had the opportunity to learn what was happening. Fitzgerald said Friday that he was not aware of any of the alleged activities.

The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team just flew into New Zealand and, my goodness, their arms must be tired. Fresh off their two-mil win over Wales on Sunday, Team USA went straight to San Francisco to the airport to make the 13-hour flight to Auckland ahead of the World Cup. They are the betting favorites to win it all and they have a chance to become the first nation ever to win three World Cups in a row.

Kick-off for the competition is nine days away with the U.S. beginning their quest July 21 against Vietnam.

And Rahel, if you are back in Atlanta doing some more duty here on the desk, we are going to go watch this team play. There's a place that gets raucous. You could feel the passion.

SOLOMON: Oh, I feel -- I feel so embraced. But no, I'm not coming to Atlanta -- not anytime soon. But, Coy, thank you for the invitation.

WIRE: You got it.

SOLOMON: Also, great to see Marshawn Lynch. I think we -- I think we know why he was there.

WIRE: Absolutely. Lynch-mode.

SOLOMON: Thank you, Coy.

WIRE: Um-hmm.

SOLOMON: All right. Coming up on "CNN THIS MORNING" the NATO summit kicking off in Lithuania and President Biden already has a win under his belt.

And next, right here, what's new for Amazon Prime Day this year. We'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:48:48]

SOLOMON: Welcome back.

President Biden just arriving at the NATO summit in Lithuania where we expect to hear from him soon.

CNN White House correspondent Arlette Saenz live at the summit traveling with the president. Arlette, what are you hearing from the White House now?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rahel, the White House officials have really tried to express that they hope that this NATO summit will lead to a unified and strengthened alliance that ultimately will disappoint Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Now, in just a short while we expect to see President Biden with NATO Sec. Stoltenberg. The two men are entering the summit on the heels of a win after Turkey announced that it was dropping its block of Sweden joining the alliance. Sweden had been trying to join NATO for over a year at this point but had not been able to enter due to objections from Turkey.

It really was a surprise reversal for Turkish President Erdogan and one that came after he met with Stoltenberg, as well as the leader of Sweden yesterday. President Biden, himself, placed a phone call behind the scenes to Erdogan from Air Force One as he flew from the U.S. to Europe and made clear that he wanted to see Sweden join NATO as soon as possible.

So this is a real victory heading into this summit as they're really trying to show this united front with the allied leaders.

[05:50:04] Now, also up for discussion at this summit is a possible pathway for Ukraine to eventually join the alliance. That is something that has already exposed some fissures among allied leaders. President Biden, before traveling here to NATO, said that now is not the time for Ukraine to join as the war in Ukraine against Russia still rages on. And there is concerns that if Ukraine were to join NATO at this point, that it would drive NATO countries into a direct conflict with Russia.

He -- Biden also argued that there are still some reforms that Ukraine needs to make before it joins the alliance.

Now, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy wants to see more security guarantees as well as a clearer pathway for membership.

This morning, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the NATO allies would be providing a united positive signal on membership, though he has not laid out any timeframe for when Ukraine could join the alliance.

President Biden is set to meet with Zelenskyy here tomorrow.

SOLOMON: With Sweden now seemingly out of the way and handled, all eyes turn to Ukraine.

Arlette Saenz, thank you.

And we should say that we are expecting to hear from President Biden at the top of the hour. We will, of course, bring those remarks to you just as soon as they happen. And "CNN THIS MORNING" will be covering that.

Well, got your credit card ready? You might need it as Amazon's Prime Day is underway for the next two days. Prime Day started in 2015 to celebrate Amazon's 20th birthday. Deal hunters will find everything from TVs and headphones to humidifiers and vacuum cleaners.

Let's bring in Bridget Carey. She is the senior editor at CNET. Bridget, welcome. Good morning.

So what are your top tips for people at home?

BRIDGET CAREY, SENIOR EDITOR, CNET (via Skype): I know. It feels like it's Black Friday in the middle of summer. But yes, this is something that is -- you're going to find sales everywhere. It can feel like an avalanche of deals. It can feel overwhelming. Take a breath. You don't have to go so fast.

And I would say the big thing is have a game plan in mind because it feels likes everything has a sale. But you want to go in getting things you might already need, like back-to-school shopping. You've got birthdays coming up.

You can get a lot of good tech on sale. So this is a time where, obviously, Amazon loves to push its own tech. You have all those Amazon smart speakers and tables. They get the biggest discounts.

There's also a lot of TVs on sale and Amazon has Fire TVs. So you're going to see a lot of good deals there, too.

It's strange when you're navigating it all because there are things like lightning deals where you have to act fast, and other things where it's like oh, is that really a sale because I don't normally buy a soda stream machine every day? I don't buy a face massager every day.

So do a little Googling before you just go and jump on something because oh, look, it's discounted 30 percent off. Maybe it's always discounted 30 percent off because it's an older model. Do a little Googling and see what it goes for at other places to see if that sale is really a sale.

SOLOMON: Well, as you're Googling -- I mean, it also might be worth checking some Amazon competitors, like the Walmarts of the world and the Targets of the world. Because might they be offering discounts this week as well?

CAREY: Absolutely, they are because ever since Amazon started this, now it's become a sale everywhere. Everyone's competing with Amazon. So you have Walmart, Target, Best Buy. Everyone is just going to be hitting you with deals, so it's a great time to shop around, actually.

And also, some places will price compare. If you find yourself in an actual store, people actually do that still. You can go to the cashier and say hey, I see it on sale on Amazon, and they might honor the price of Amazon and give you that discount, too.

So, yes, it's sales everywhere.

SOLOMON: Bridget, it feels like this year, Amazon did something a little bit different. Walk us through what it did differently and if you think that change is sort of this event's moving forward.

CAREY: As a reporter, I'm very interested in this whole invitation- only deal that they started. So for a while now -- a couple of days now, certain items -- maybe about 10 or so -- instead of a "buy now" button it said request an invitation to be able to buy it on Prime Day with a discount.

We're talking, like, some tech items like high-end headphones and televisions, but also lower-end items like a pair of jeans.

This is something that Amazon thinks will sell out really quickly. No one likes to say that a sale starts at midnight and the thing sells out in five seconds. That's not practical. But now people who have requested that invitation might have to hover over their inbox for the next two days and see if they get a link to even buy it if they want to buy it.

And I'm wondering are we going to see more of this? When Black Friday hits are we going to see other retailers do the same thing?

SOLOMON: And it sort of reminds me of what some of the ticket companies have done with tickets for concerts, for example, right? You have to sort of register to even be invited to buy a ticket. Just a really fascinating turn of events.

Bridget, thanks so much for being on the program today.

CAREY: Thanks for having me.

SOLOMON: All right. Coming up next, relentless flooding in the Northeast leaving people trapped and roads washed out. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:59:23]

SOLOMON: Madonna breaking her silence for the first time since a bacterial infection put her in the hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADONNA, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Singing "Like A Prayer."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Madonna thanked her fans on Instagram, saying "I have felt your love. I am on the road to recovery and incredibly grateful for all the blessings in my life."

She plans to reschedule the North American leg of her world tour, which kicks off in the U.K. in October.

And our top of the morning, the top-selling books on Amazon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BTS, BOY BAND: Singing "Dynamite."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:00:00]

SOLOMON: BTS number one with "Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS" just released Monday.

Number two, "Unbroken Bonds of Battle." That is by Johnny Joey Jones.

And number three, "Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor" by Shawn M. Warner.

And that's it for the show today. Thanks for joining us. I'm Rahel Solomon. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.