Jon Stewart meets Meta's Muse, and viewers hear Elmo
His segment on the tech industry's promise of a "better future" shared the night with an interview with former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon, and both passed a million views.
The Daily Show
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 3,575,952 views a day, 17 times a normal first day on this channel (212,846).
Jon Stewart Unpacks AI’s Dubious Promise of a "Better Future" | The Daily Show
A regular segment on The Daily Show usually opens with a little over 200,000 views on its first day. Jon Stewart's latest look at artificial intelligence passed three and a half million in that time.
"Jon Stewart Unpacks AI's Dubious Promise of a "Better Future"" moves through a run of tech headlines: President Trump bringing tech leaders to the White House, his refusal to regulate AI, the push to win an AI race against China, and executives insisting that life will get better, mostly "in the future." The description says CEOs are struggling to make human annihilation sound less frightening, and it adds, dryly, that at least Grok, the chatbot from Elon Musk's xAI, can make funny videos.
The last stretch is the part viewers talk about most. Meta's new AI agent, Muse, drops by for a chat with Stewart, billed in the description as totally cute and totally not sinister. Many commenters say Muse sounds a lot like Elmo, and a good number seem pleased to hear that voice again. The other big thread is a question: why should an industry be trusted to police itself? Much of the rest jokes that the job easiest to hand over to AI might be the chief executive's.
The comment section filled far faster than usual for the channel. The same night brought a much darker conversation on the same subject. Jacob Coxon, who trained models at Anthropic and OpenAI before speaking out, told Stewart about hacks, possible biological attacks and what he calls the industry's megalomania, and that interview also crossed a million views. Meanwhile, a new upload has Aaron Sorkin talking to Michael Kosta about "The Social Reckoning," his return to Mark Zuckerberg sixteen years after The Social Network, so Meta is still very much on the show's mind.
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What viewers say
For a moment I thought Elmo was back
@Andres.AngoraSee it on YouTubeAny excuse for Jon to use the Elmo voice. I’m so here for it 😂
@KingbimmySee it on YouTubeI'm pretty sure that CEO is one of the easiest jobs to replace with AI.
@NeilÇedillaSee it on YouTube
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- Channel
- The Daily Show
- Subscribers
- 14,000,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 53,011,004
- Channel views, pace per day
- 6,792,967 (on a normal day: 6,027,278)
- Video published
- October 6, 2026
- Video views so far
- 3,735,712 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 3,569,170
The numbers
Stewart's segment opened far beyond anything the channel's regular videos usually manage, and the Coxon interview from the same night did well too.
💡 Test your knowledge
Aaron Sorkin won an Oscar for writing The Social Network. Who directed that film?
David Fincher directed The Social Network (2010) from Sorkin's Oscar-winning screenplay about the founding of Facebook.
