Hurricane Melissa & A Pregnant AI Minister

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today, we’re covering Trump’s Asia Trip, Argentina’s midterms results, Hurricane Melissa, Albania’s pregnant AI minister (seriously), a temporary end to SNAP, $100 million of Navy equipment, and ChatGPT driving people insane.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Trump Takes A Trip

This year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) is headed to South Korea. Of course, America’s deal-guy-in-chief isn’t one to miss out on one of the biggest international conferences of the year, so Trump is also headed to Asia this week. Trump’s Asia trip began on Sunday and will see him touch down in South Korea on Wednesday – he’ll hang around for a couple of days before returning to the partially-demolished White House. The U.S. president will participate in trade talks on the sidelines of the summit – including a much-anticipated meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping – but he won’t participate in any official APEC meetings.

Ahead of Thursday’s Xi-Trump meeting, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that both countries have agreed on the framework for a potential trade deal. According to Bessent, that framework includes a “final deal” on the purchase of TikTok, a postponement for China’s plans to tighten up on its rare earth mineral exports, and a promise by Beijing to buy more soybeans from American farmers. Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese exports, according to Bessent, is off the table now that a framework has been reached. 

As for the rest of Trump’s Asia trip, the president touched down in Malaysia on Sunday, signing trade deals with Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Earlier this morning, he met with newly-selected Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi – the pair finalized trade and security cooperation agreements that were worked out earlier this year, as well as a new deal which will secure U.S. access to some of Japan’s rare earth mineral exports. Later this week, Trump will work out another trade deal with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, and has left a possible meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the table. 

Money Talks, Milei Wins

How much does it cost to buy an election? In Argentina, at least, we have an answer: $40 billion. On Sunday, Argentinians cast their ballots in midterm elections that might prove pivotal for the neoliberal government of Argentine President Javier Milei. The president’s new La Libertad Avanza party won more than 40% of votes, well ahead of the opposition Peronist movement’s 31%, securing Milei’s government a strong plurality in the Argentine legislature. “Today we have passed the turning point,” Milei told a crowd of supporters in Buenos Aires. “Today we begin the construction of a great Argentina.”

Ahead of the election, the Trump administration promised to bail out Argentina to the tune of $40 billion – $20 billion from the Treasury Department and $20 billion in loans from U.S. private banks. “If he wins we’re staying with him, and if he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” Trump said after a meeting with Milei in early October. Luckily for Milei, his party gained ground across the country, outperforming predictions even in historical Peronist strongholds. “I want to make it clear that neither the U.S. government nor JP Morgan are charitable societies,” said Axel Kicillof, the Peronist governor of Buenos Aires province after the election was called. “If they come to Argentina, it is for nothing other than to take a profit.”

All Your Hydration Needs & All The Best Flavors

Hurricane Melissa Storms In 

• The strongest hurricane of the year is headed for Jamaica. According to U.S.-based meteorologists, Hurricane Melissa is expected to make landfall in Jamaica early this morning, bringing “catastrophic and life-threatening” conditions and winds as fast as 175 mph to the island nation. If the Category 5 storm maintains its current strength, it will be the strongest hurricane to hit Jamaica since storm data began being collected in 1851. 

• If all that wasn’t enough, there’s another thing making the storm even deadlier: its slow pace. Currently, the storm is moving at just 3 mph, giving it the chance to dump massive amounts of rainfall as it meanders through the Caribbean. “We've been having rain all of October. So the ground is already very saturated,” Jamaican Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon told the BBC. “And then to take that much rain means we're going to have flooding, extensive flooding and landslides in the mountainous areas.” At time of writing, torrential rains moving ahead of Hurricane Melissa have led to at least 7 deaths across Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

A Pregnant Program Is In Power

• Things are getting both weird and freaky in Albania. In September, the country appointed an AI bot to become a cabinet minister. The bot, named Diella, was tasked with handling the public procurement process, which involves private companies bidding for government contracts – the idea is that the algorithm wouldn’t be able to be bribed, threatened, or sweet-talked.

• Now on the surface, that idea sounds mostly fine if you ignore the fact that large language models like Diella lack the ability to actually use logic or reasoning. But as with all things AI, things have taken a turn for the freakier: yesterday, Albanian prime minister Edi Rama announced that the bot was “pregnant with 83 children.” Those virtual children, he said, will act as individual assistants to his party’s members parliament, helping them summarize meetings, maintaining records, and even instructing them how to react. 

Additional World News

• South Korea grapples with surge in anti-China sentiment as Xi Jinping prepares to fly in (Guardian)

• A Mystery in Trinidad as Bodies Wash Ashore After U.S. Strikes (NYT, $)

• ‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head (Guardian)

• Prince Andrew hosted Epstein, Maxwell and Weinstein at Royal Lodge (BBC)

• China and ASEAN sign expanded free trade pact (AP)

• Flights between India and China finally resume after five-year hiatus (CNN)

EBT, Ended By Trump (For Now)

• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides food assistance to over 40 million Americans, with a family of four receiving food stamps receiving about $715 in assistance per month. Unfortunately, that much-needed aid is set to expire in November as the government shutdown continues.

• Over the weekend, the Trump administration indicated that it would be temporarily shutting down SNAP benefits starting November 1. According to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, a contingency reserve set aside to keep SNAP benefits running during an emergency can’t be deployed because it can only be used in “true emergencies,” such as natural disasters.

• As the White House sits on its hands, states are rushing in to fill the gaps. California plans to deploy its National Guard to hand out food, while several other states have promised to use their own emergency funds to keep SNAP benefits flowing. The Trump administration has warned that it won’t be reimbursing those states for the emergency spending even when the shutdown ends.

Helicopter Overboard! Oops, Jet Overboard Too!

• While the federal government is cutting away at the social safety net due to spending concerns, the military is burning money like there’s no tomorrow. Over a 30-minute period on Sunday, the U.S. Navy managed to lose MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter and an F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet into the waters of the South China Sea. 

• A Sea Hawk helicopter is worth roughly $37 million, while the Super Hornet fighter is worth anywhere from $60 to $72 million, meaning the Navy will have to burn $100 million to replace the lost vehicles. Luckily, the crews of both were safely ejected and recovered before their aircraft crashed into the ocean. This marks the third time that the Navy has dropped an F/A-18F Super Hornet into the ocean this year alone – in the spring, the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier had two of its fighter jets fall overboard within eight days of each other. You’d think they’re going for some sort of world record.

Additional USA News

• Trump news at a glance: president floats a third term as Democrats vow ‘no way in hell’ (Guardian) 

• John Dickerson, Anchor and Correspondent, Will Leave CBS News (NYT, $)

• Judge says immigration detention of Chicago man whose daughter has cancer is illegal (AP)

• Transportation secretary says he will pull $160M from California over noncitizen truck licenses (AP)

• British journalist Sami Hamdi detained by ICE (BBC) 

• New College of Florida, a Conservative Bulwark, Will Sign Trump’s ‘Compact’ (NYT, $)

This Large Language Model’s Large Problem

• According to a new report released by OpenAI itself, hundreds of thousands of ChatGPT users demonstrate signs of psychosis and suicidal intent when “talking” with the chatbot. In the first report of its kind, OpenAI wrote that 0.07% of active ChatGPT users show “possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania,” while typing to the LLM, and 0.15% “have conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.”

• Given ChatGPT’s active weekly user base of over 800 million people, the report’s numbers suggest that roughly 560,000 people each month show psychosis in their messages with the chatbot, and over double that number are typing out their possible suicidal ideations to the LLM.

• OpenAI claims it’s made a handful of changes in response to people developing unhealthy “relationships” with ChatGPT. GPT-5, the company’s latest text-prediction model (that’s all ChatGPT really is), reportedly has guardrails in place that will make the algorithm express empathy while also trying to lead users away from ideas that aren’t based in reality. The changes, according to the company, have reduced “undesired responses” (as defined by OpenAI) by anywhere between 39% and 52%. 

Additional Reads

• Nike says its first ‘powered footwear’ is like an e-bike for your feet (Verge)

• Bodies keep being recovered from the bayous around Houston. Why officials are convinced it's not the work of a serial killer (CNN)

• Could the internet go offline? Inside the fragile system holding the modern world together (Guardian)

• Elon Musk Challenges Wikipedia With His Own A.I. Encyclopedia (NYT, $)

• The Lessons of an Indefensible Pardon for a Crypto Billionaire (New Yorker, $)

• These robots can clean, exercise - and care for your elderly parents. Would you trust them to? (BBC) 

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