Australia news LIVE: AI chief rejects calls for regulation, US confirms it has weapons in space

What’s making news todayBy Hello and welcome to our coverage of national news for Wednesday, September 16. Here’s what is making headlines today.Labor MPs are growing uneasy about rate rises and inflation, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers works to prepare backbenchers for a report next week that will lay bare Australia’s long-term economic problems.Donald Trump has attacked the US Supreme Court, complaining that the justices he appointed in his first term failed him after the court rejected his attempt to curb mail-in voting at the upcoming midterm elections.A 27-year-old driver has been charged over the death of a three-year-old girl who was hit by a car believed to be entering a suburban driveway in Sydney’s west yesterday afternoon.An Australian mother has flown to Syria to support her son accused of murder, believing he is innocent.Falling house prices could wipe as much as $1.8 billion from the Victorian budget this year alone as banks and real estate experts predict a downturn worse than Treasury’s forecast in May.The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption continues today, with lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood to return to the witness box for further questioning. You’ll be able to follow-along on our Operation Rosny blog once the day kicks off, or you can catch-up on Bevan Shields′ or Kate McClymont’s analysis of yesterday’s proceedings.Latest Posts6.38amNvidia boss rejects AI regulationBy David SwanNvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has rejected calls for new artificial intelligence laws, telling the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this morning that safety could be solved by engineers rather than regulators.“The market forces are already there,” Huang said. “We don’t need any new laws, we don’t need any new regulations.“Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp.BloombergHis comments came days after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for a coordinated industry slowdown and independent auditing of safety work, a position backed in part by OpenAI, Google DeepMind and SpaceX.Huang said safety was “job one” but described it as an engineering problem. Companies should not release products they were not confident in, he said, and could pause voluntarily without government involvement.The chipmaker is the largest beneficiary of the AI buildout. Huang spoke a day after US President Donald Trump telephoned him mid-interview in Los Angeles to call AI safety fears “a hoax”, according to the New York Times. Some 50,000 attendees are in San Francisco for Salesforce’s annual AI conference, with around 10 million tuning in online according to the company.David Swan travelled to San Francisco as a guest of Salesforce.6.35amSydney man charged with allegedly assaulting frontline worker and patientsBy Rachel RaskerA man has been charged with allegedly assaulting a nurse and patients at a hospital in Sydney’s inner west last night.Officers were called to the emergency department of a hospital in Missenden Road, Camperdown at about 5.30pm yesterday, following reports of a 52-year-old man assaulting multiple people.Police will allege the man approached a 45-year-old female health worker and punched her to the head. He then allegedly punched a 65-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman who were also awaiting treatment.The 45-year-old female health care worker is then alleged to have restrained the man prior to the arrival of security staff and police.The man was arrested and taken to Newtown Police Station where he was charged with two counts of common assault and one count of assault frontline health worker no actual bodily harm.He was refused bail and will appear before the bail court today.6.30amUS confirms it has deployed weapons in spaceBy The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponising a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes.Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland on Monday (Tuesday AEST) that the US has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action”.US Air Force Secretary Troy MeinkBloombergMeink did not detail what the weapons were, how they work or if they were targeting other objects in space or on Earth. The US had warned two years ago that Russia was developing a new space-based, anti-satellite weapon, though the White House said the danger wasn’t imminent at the time.But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China, given that much US infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications. The US has also previously demonstrated its own abilities to shoot down satellites from Earth.What’s making news todayBy Hello and welcome to our coverage of national news for Wednesday, September 16. Here’s what is making headlines today.Labor MPs are growing uneasy about rate rises and inflation, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers works to prepare backbenchers for a report next week that will lay bare Australia’s long-term economic problems.Donald Trump has attacked the US Supreme Court, complaining that the justices he appointed in his first term failed him after the court rejected his attempt to curb mail-in voting at the upcoming midterm elections.A 27-year-old driver has been charged over the death of a three-year-old girl who was hit by a car believed to be entering a suburban driveway in Sydney’s west yesterday afternoon.An Australian mother has flown to Syria to support her son accused of murder, believing he is innocent.Falling house prices could wipe as much as $1.8 billion from the Victorian budget this year alone as banks and real estate experts predict a downturn worse than Treasury’s forecast in May.The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption continues today, with lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood to return to the witness box for further questioning. You’ll be able to follow-along on our Operation Rosny blog once the day kicks off, or you can catch-up on Bevan Shields′ or Kate McClymont’s analysis of yesterday’s proceedings.1 of 1