Wall Street Brunch: AI Safety Crunch Time (undefined:ANTHRO)

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Trump and tech leaders could meet as AI safety fears mount. (0:17) OpenAI pauses model training ahead of awkwardly timed DevDay. (1:01) Friday’s jobs report could send Treasury yields even higher. (2:21)

The following is an abridged transcript:

Along with major economic data and earnings ramping up, Wall Street will be watching AI developments this week.

As early as Tuesday, President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and technology executives are expected to meet to discuss artificial intelligence. That’s according to multiple reports citing sources, but the White House has yet to confirm the meeting for the record.

The meeting comes amid more reports of misaligned agents getting access to places they weren’t supposed to. And AI safety fears crossed a pop culture Rubicon over the weekend after “Saturday Night Live” lampooned Anthropic (ANTHRO) CEO Dario Amodei on Weekend Update.

On “Meet the Press,” Bill Gates said AI needs “law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like.”

“And that has to be a required thing,” he said. “No one thinks self-regulation is enough.”

OpenAI (OPENAI) said Saturday it is pausing training of its latest AI models, just hours after disclosing that it was reviewing several incidents from the summer in which OpenAI agents searching federal government websites acted in unexpected ways beyond what was asked of them while gathering and distributing information.

Which brings us to the now-odd timing of OpenAI’s DevDay, which is Tuesday. CEO Sam Altman is delivering the keynote.

OpenAI is reportedly preparing to unveil GPT-6 Cyber, its latest cybersecurity model. But will Altman be asked what GPT-6 Cyber does to shield systems from its own agents?

On the earnings front, the AI trade also looms large.

Micron (MU) reports earnings postmarket Wednesday, with analysts looking for a whopping $31.59 in EPS on revenue of about $51B.

SA analyst Agar Capital notes that with a P/E falling below 7x, earnings estimates are rising faster than the share price, which could nearly double to $2,000.

But SA analyst Sagar Agarwal says it’s time to exit the stock, with 81.2% operating margins, $45B in FY2027 CapEx and potentially declining memory prices leaving limited upside.

Looking to the rest of the earnings calendar:

Vail Resorts (MTN) reports Monday.

Carnival (CCL) and CarMax (KMX) are due Tuesday.

Joining Micron (MU) on Wednesday are Conagra (CAG), Jabil (JBL) and Cal-Maine (CALM).

Nike (NKE) and McCormick (MKC) report numbers Thursday.

On the economic front it’s all about Friday’s jobs report.

The forecast is for a 100K rise in September nonfarm payrolls, with the unemployment rate staying steady at 4.1%.

Wells Fargo economists say recent labor market data continue to point to a labor market that is resilient enough to support decent job growth.

SA analyst Damir Tokic says a strong report could push 10-year Treasury yields (US10Y) higher, and if wage growth accelerates, 2-year yields (US2Y) could spike and invert the curve.

That inversion “could signal a peak of the business cycle and a recession in 2027, which means a recessionary bear market” for stocks.

And for income investors, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) goes ex-dividend on Monday, paying out on Oct. 9.

Mondelez (MDLZ) and Nucor (NUE) go ex-dividend on Wednesday. Mondelez pays out on Oct. 14 and Nucor pays out on Nov. 10.

Philip Morris (PM) goes ex-dividend on Friday, with an Oct. 26 payout date.