😺 Training AI is legal now?

PLUS: OpenAI wants to be the new Microsoft

Welcome, humans.

According to The Information, OpenAI is working on “collaboration software” for ChatGPT to make it more like using Google and Microsoft’s suite or tools, with file sharing and the ability to work together.

Obviously, this complicates OpenAI’s already complicated relationship with Microsoft, which has reportedly already been strained by ChatGPT’s current success in the enterprise space.

ChatGPT is also outpacing TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X in app store downloads, achieving nearly as many as downloads in the last 28 days as the rest combined.

Since we’re comparing charts, Google is apparently now the most profitable company in the world at $111B in net income over the last 12 months.

From what we’re reading, Copilot still disappoints and confuses people, and Google’s killer AI product seems to be AI Studio (not Gemini in Google Workspace, though Google Gemini did pass ChatGPT in app downloads in May.).

Sooooo I’d say there’s an opening to take some marketshare…

And with Microsoft and Google collectively generating around $60-65 billion annually from office productivity tools alone, even capturing a small slice of this market could represent massive revenue potential for OpenAI… and a whole lot of upside in success!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

Federal judge ruled AI training on copyrighted books is legal.
Tesla launched self-driving robotaxis in Austin.
Amazon rolled out new Alexa+ assistant to 1M+ users.
Recruiters saw 45% increase in AI-generated resumes.

Advertise in The Neuron here.

A federal judge just split AI copyright law in two.

In a landmark ruling that has every AI company frantically calling their lawyers, a federal judge just gave AI companies a huge win and a massive warning in the same breath.

The case: a class-action copyright lawsuit against Anthropic (maker of ChatGPT rival Claude). The verdict: training AI on copyrighted books is legal fair use, but stealing those books first? Yeah, not so much.

Here’s what happened: Judge William Alsup basically said that teaching AI how to write by showing it books is like teaching a human to write by having them read books. It's “transformative” because the goal is to create something new (a chatbot) and not just copy the books. So the training process itself = protected.

But then came the plot twist. The judge found that Anthropic knew they were using pirated book libraries to train Claude. And apparently, you can't just steal a bunch of stuff and then claim it's okay because you did something cool with it afterward.

The ruling breaks down into two parts:

Part 1: The piracy problem…

Anthropic used sketchy sites like Library Genesis (basically the Netflix of pirated books).
The court said this was straight-up copyright theft, and that there's no special “we're an AI company” exception to stealing,
Anthropic now faces a trial to figure out how much they owe authors…and TBH, it could be A LOT (we’re talking $5B to maybe even tens of billions, or MORE).

Part 2: The output issue…

Training was only deemed legal because Claude doesn't just spit out entire books.
If the AI's outputs were copying the original works, this would be a “completely different case” (meaning it’s not resolved just yet).
This sets up some massive upcoming battles. Speaking of…

Why this matters for other AI companies:

It’s bad news for image generators (like MidJourney, who is being sued by Disney and Universal). If you train AI on art to make competing art, that looks way less “transformative” and way more like just replacing the original artists.

OpenAI should probably be sweating, too. The New York Times lawsuit against it claims ChatGPT both stole their articles AND can reproduce them word-for-word (although that’s still to be proven in court). Their next court date is Thursday, June 26th…

Our take: The days of “download everything and figure it out later” are over. Building powerful AI now officially requires legally sourcing your data, which means massive licensing deals. Great news for Google and Microsoft who can afford it. Terrible news for AI startups who can't.

Bottom line? AI companies can still train on copyrighted work—they just have to actually pay for it first. Revolutionary concept, we know.

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Prompt Tip of the Day

Need help working with AI video, like Google’s Veo 3? Here’s a video from Tao Prompts with 30 tips on how to better use these tools.

Treats To Try.

*Anything marked with asterisks is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.

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ChatGPT Connectors (which lets you connect your file storage apps to GPT) are now available to Pro users; this lets you search these apps, run deep research across your files, and sync and index knowledge sources.
Softr Databases lets you build native databases to manage your data and power your apps.
Synthflow creates voice agents that handle your phone calls automatically and books appointments automatically—free trial, then $0.08/mi (raised $20M).
Slashit lets you rewrite any text with custom AI hotkeys—free to try, then $139 lifetime (new launch, mac only rn, but LOVE this idea).
Ittybit handles all your app's media processing; just upload a video, and it automatically transcodes to different formats, adds captions, or moderates for inappropriate content for you—free to try.

See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!

Around the Horn.

Tesla launched its self-driving robotaxis in Austin, and Amazon rolled out the new Alexa+ assistant to 1M+ people.
Verizon launched a Gemini-powered customer service assistant that boosted sales 40%.
Deloitte found 82% of restaurant executives planned to increase AI investments despite slow adoption.
Abridge, the AI healthcare notetaker, raised $300M, while Duke researchers are trying to develop tools for ensure AI used in real healthcare settings are accurate, clear, and bias-free.
Wanna see a household robot (what we affectionately called a chorebot) clean your toilet? Here you go!!

Midweek Wisdom

OpenElections used Google's Gemini AI to convert election result PDFs into CSV data, processing over 127 Texas counties in just six weeks with near-perfect accuracy—including damaged 653-page docs that would have cost hundreds of dollars or taken months with traditional OCR software.
Recruiters saw a 45% increase of AI resumes, which resulted in 11K submissions per minute, and its creating what Rohan Paul called an “AI vs AI” job screening arms race.
Economists say the current white collar hiring slowdown is not caused by AI replacing jobs, but actually the two-year decline in professional services hiring is due to more structural economic issues.
Fireship did a great job breaking down how the battle between Jony Ive’s company (io) and the startup suing them (iyo) is really a proxy battle between OpenAI and Google (Sam also shared some email receipts in response).
AI Explained put together a fantastic recap of the new research from Anthropic that found all AI models will blackmail you (under certain circumstances).
Evan Armstrong at The Leverage broke down what major public and private market investor Coatue got right and wrong in their new 107 page AI industry deck, which has plenty of insights of its own.

Our latest podcast episode!

Microsoft Shares Its Playbook for Surviving the AI Jobquake

Our revamped podcast is live! In this premiere episode, Grant and Corey tackle the question: Will AI wipe out half of white-collar jobs? We’ve got a great guest (Microsoft researcher Alexia Cambon), and cover 5 concrete strategies to future-proof your career. Watch on YouTube or Spotify now.