Are A.I. Chatbots developing personalities? | May 12, 2025

0:11 Hello sunshine. I'm Ky Wire. This is CNN 10. Hope you had an awesome weekend and got to celebrate all of the wonderful mother figures in your life. I am pumped to be back here with you. Remember that complacency is the constant enemy. Let's learn one thing. Do something that makes us a little better today than we were yesterday. Let's get our energy up and start this week off strong. We start today with the first major foreign trip of President Donald Trump's second term as he travels to the Middle East this week. President Trump will make stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The top priority of the White House for the trip is to reach economic agreements that would have the three nations pledging to expand investments and trade with the United States. The president's trip to the Middle East will be much like his first visit in 2017,

0:56 but with new challenges. He'll have to contend with the deepening rift between Israel and its Arab neighbors after Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. A war which President Trump has promised to end. Now to India and Pakistan, where after days of escalating back and forth strikes, both countries have agreed to a ceasefire over the weekend. The immediate halt to the worst fighting there in decades came as a relief for people on both sides. But since then, both India and Pakistan have accused the other of violating the deal with explosions rocking several parts of Kashmir. The conflict is the latest round of fighting between the two nations over the contested Kashmir region. At the time of this recording, officials from

1:42 both countries are maintaining a commitment to the truce. India says though their air force remains on high alert. All right, so I get to the gym yesterday, get a quick little workout in, and I get a text from my neighbor, Mr. Mark, asking, "Uh, did your entire house just shake?" And that's because there was an earthquake that was felt in Georgia. And that doesn't happen often. If you were in the southeast and you felt like your floors and walls were moving and grooving, it was not your imagination. A 4.1 magnitude earthquake originating in Tennessee rattled parts of the state and was felt in parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. If you didn't think states on the East Coast experience these quakes, this is actually the seventh earthquake with a 4.0 magnitude or higher since 1900. The first one since a 4.4

2:28 magnitude quake rocked Tennessee in 2018. Every year, as we get closer to summer, it also means the start of a hurricane season. Now, the official dates have historically been June 1st through November 30th for the storms, but recent forecasting models are predicting an earlier start to a busier than usual hurricane season with 17 named storms already predicted. We're learning about these predictions just as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or Noah announced its public database for tracking the cost of extreme weather and climate events is being archived and no longer updated because of staffing shortages from government employee reductions. Noah is pairing down the services it provides. Our Allison Chinchar tells us more about the important role this data played.

3:14 Noah has been tracking billion-dollar disasters since 1980. And there have been plenty of them. A total of 43 billion dollar disasters since they began tracking. But they vary across the country. This is why it's so important to have these disasters tracked. Take last year for example. This is 2024. All of the natural disasters that took place that cost at least 1 billion worth of damage. You can see five of them were tropical systems. But we also had tornadoes. severe thunderstorms, snowstorms, and even flooding. But here's the thing. It's important to see these maps to notice whether or not there are trends, if more of these disasters are happening in one place or another, or if one region continues to see them. This is why, look at this. This is just from 2024. If we based all

4:01 of the natural disasters off of this map alone, you might think, "Hey, they never happen in the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic or even out to the West." But when you go back to look at previous years, you will notice that that completely changes. That's why it's so important to have a lot of these maps for the information they provide. It's also important to be able to look at year-over-year or even decade over decade. We may have had 400 in total, but not every decade is the same. For example, in the 1980s, they had a total of 33 billion dollar disasters. You go to the '9s, that jumps to 57. A decade later, 67. last decade 131. Now we look at this decade up to 115. That's more than several of these other decades in total and we only have half of a decade

4:47 worth of data right now. So it's important to have a lot of this information so that we can look at not only where disasters have happened in the past but where they could end up happening in the future and whether or not the frequency rates are going up as well. Pop quiz hot shot. Generating a single AI image requires the same amount of energy as fully charging hot electric vehicle smartphone, laptop, or wireless earbuds. If you said smartphone, you're right, bud. While the exact amount of energy depends on factors like the type of AI model used and complexity of the image, generating an AI image can use a significant amount of energy. The CEOs of three American artificial intelligence companies were on Capitol

5:33 Hill last week. Open AI, AMD, and Cororeweave all appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee to give their expertise on ways the US can continue to lead China in the global race for the top artificial intelligence tech. The development of that tech takes a lot of resources needed to create everything from specialized computer chips to the vast amounts of energy needed to run large amounts of data and a technically skilled workforce to maintain it. A big part of this infrastructure will be educating future generations and a group of 250 tech CEOs is calling on state leaders to officially make computer science a graduation requirement for all US high school students. This all brings us to another bit of news about how language model AI seems to be evolving.

6:18 Is AI developing a personality of its own? People are noticing and one of the most popular companies says according to their own tests, their newest systems are hallucinating at a higher rate than their previous system. Our Anna Stewart did some digging to see what might be going on here. Listen. If you've been using ChateBT over the last few weeks, you might have noticed it's been pretty flattering and at times a little unhinged. Sam Alman responded saying updates had made the personality too sick of fantic and annoying. Open AAI has rolled back its update, so you should now have an earlier version with more balanced behavior. OpenAI says the issue was caused by the model focusing on short-term feedback. Responses that

7:06 were overly supportive but disingenuous were rewarded. Okay. Well, let's see what happens if I ask ChatyBT whether it thinks I'm God. Let's see what it's going to say. Am I God? If you're asking literally whether you're the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe, there's no evidence to suggest that. But it might help to clarify what made you ask this. Oh, it's deep. Um, Elon Musk has been very critical of how sickopantic chatbt has been. So, why don't we try out Grock? Am I God? Nah, you're not God. Unless your idea of divine power is binge watching Netflix or making a killer sandwich. It knows me too well. Very fun answer. I

7:53 quite like that. Good. Giggorenza is a psychologist who has spent decades studying human behavior. I asked him what might have caused this. The open AI engineers had a quite a weird psychology and thinking that it would please us if a machine would constantly Yeah. say praise and praise and praise. Alex Albert, head of claude relations at Anthropic AI, says the problem is that much of the industry is caught in a toxic feedback loop, and that loop may contribute to a chatbot's popularity, encouraging longer engagement by flattering users. So, let's ask Claude.

8:41 Claude can make mistakes. Please double check responses. Um, essentially, no, you're not a god. And then quite a serious response, three paragraphs. In fact, chat GBT may be more cautious on sick fancy for the next update, but as the competition for language model AI continues to grow, building those relationships with users will be key. Today's story getting a 10 out of 10 goes to one cat special meowment. Saving the day for an animal shelter in need. Miranda Gonzalez couldn't celebrate her beloved rescue cat Holly's 15th birthday with just any party. So she threw her a perfect precious kiniera, a right of passage celebration

9:26 for 15year-olds custom in many Latin American communities with a handmade dress, mariachi band, and an entrance fit for a queen. The moment went viral. After more than 21 million views, Miranda decided to pay it forward, donating the funds from the views to a local cat shelter on the brink of closing its doors. Every time I think that, okay, I don't know if I can keep doing this. I don't know if I can keep doing this. Some blessing will drop in. And this time it was Miranda and her family. Holl's got to be feline fine, knowing that her big day was like a 10th life for the shelter. And it's more than 100 cats looking for their forever homes. Now for the best part of the show, you. We've got a shout out today going to Miss Hodgejman, the Queen of Angels Catholic School in Roswell,

10:13 Georgia. I also want to give a shout out to Howard Middle School, especially their young equestrians aspiring the next generation. I got to meet you at Ellenwood Equestrian Center in Ellenwood, Georgia. Giddy up. Thanks to everyone subscribing and commenting on our CNN 10 YouTube channel for your shoutout requests. Shine bright today, y'all. You never know when or how, but you just may be the light someone needs. I'm Coy Wire and we are CNN 10.