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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. New data makes OpenAI look more like a consumer tech company During its early years, OpenAI looked like it might build a business selling access to its increasingly powerful AI models to Fortune 500 companies. But when ChatGPT launched (almost by surprise) in late 2022, the startup suddenly had a breakout consumer productone that raced to 100 million users in just a few months, faster than any app in history. Overnight, OpenAI became a consumer tech brand and, most importantly, the poster child for generative AI in the minds of everyday users. Today, ChatGPT has more than 700 million weekly active users worldwide, according to OpenAI. And the way those people use the chatbot suggests the company may be drifting further toward the consumer market. This week, OpenAI released a study of 1.5 million user chat logs between May 2024 and June 2025, revealing that nearly three-quarters (73%) of chats were personal rather than work-related. Just a year earlier, in June 2024, personal and work prompts had been roughly equal. (That data excludes OpenAIs API customers, who are largely developers and enterprises.) The report comes at a time when, across industries, many enterprises are growing skeptical about howand whenAI tools might deliver the efficiencies they were promised, the kind executives can tout on earnings calls. Despite the hype, by most objective accounts, the AI transformation hasnt yet materialized. An August MIT report, for example, found that 95% of enterprise AI pilot projects have stalled. Meanwhile, talk of an AI bubble continues, with critics raising an eyebrow at bullish startup valuations and tech stock prices. OpenAI still projects enormous revenue growthup to $12.7 billion in 2025 and $29.4 billion in 2026but the company is expected to keep losing billions annually. Thats fueling concerns about sustainability unless its enterprise business begins to generate significantly more revenue. Ultimately, that will depend on factors largely outside OpenAIs control: macroeconomic conditions, credit markets, infrastructure investment, and the reskilling of the workforce for AI. OpenAI maintains that it has three core businesses: ChatGPT subscriptions, enterprise access to its models, and long-term research on artificial general intelligence. None are likely to disappear. Still, tech companies are often forced to follow the money, and right now the money points to consumers. If ChatGPTs massive user base keeps growing while enterprise adoption lags, OpenAI could feel pressure to devote more of its researchers and engineers to consumer featuressay, paymentsthat might entice free users to pay for subscriptions. Are the legal tides turning in AI’s favor when it comes to data copyright? The biggest potential roadblock to the AI boom so far is lawsuits over AI training data. The major labs have routinely scraped vast amounts of online content to train their models, operating under the assumption that the practice falls under the fair use clause of the Copyright Act. That assumption is now being tested in lawsuits from publishers and creators, many still moving through the courts. Some key cases, however, have already been decided, and on the core question of whether scraping copyrighted data for training counts as fair use, the momentum appears to favor the AI companies. The most consequential decision to date came this summer in Bartz v. Anthropic, which Anthropic plans to settle. Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropics use of digitized books as training data qualifies as fair use under the Copyright Act. Crucially, he determined that Anthropics use was transformativethe models werent simply regurgitating the books content and format, but instead using the text to learn how to predict the next most likely word in a sequence. Thats the basic mechanism by which LLMs generate language. Judge Vince Chhabria reached a similar conclusion in Kadrey v. Meta (a class action in which Sarah Silverman and two other authors sued for copyright infringement), finding that Metas use of the books was transformativethe fair use clauses primary test. But Chhabria also cautioned that transformative use alone may not always be sufficient to secure fair use protection. The effect on a works market value could also factor in. His ruling suggested some reluctance to set a broad precedent for future AI training cases. Even so, the combined weight of Bartz and Kadrey seems to be shaping industry behavior. One media executive told me publications are now hesitant to sue AI firms for using their content without permission, fearing an expensive loss. That caution reflects not only the outcomes of those cases but also the relatively modest remedies seen in other recent federal decisions, such as the Google search monopoly case, and a broader judicial mood in the current political climate. Still, the most significant test casethe New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoftremains unresolved. OpenAI has tried repeatedly to have the case dismissed, without success. In May, a judge ordered the company to preserve millions of chat logs and transcripts that could prove relevant. If the Times prevails, the question of fair use in AI training could be thrown wide open again. More AI coverage from Fast Company: AI is bad at data. This startup can fix that Whitney Houston is going on tour 13 years after her death, thanks to AI AI scraping is inevitable. Can publishers turn it into revenue? AI nostalgia is the new comfort food for an anxious internet Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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When we make mistakes at work, it can lead to a cycle of negative thinking.The damaging thoughts swirl: “I’m an impostor.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m failing at my job.”Feeling like an impostor doubting one’s own abilities despite a track record of success is common, especially among women and members of marginalized groups. Even on days when everything’s going right, it can be hard to shift out of a cycle of self-doubt.But there are ways to interrupt that downward spiral.Many people have found cognitive behavioral therapy, a form of talk therapy, helpful to examine internal monologues such as “I’m going to say the wrong thing” or “I’m not good enough” and replace them with neutral or positive mantras.“What we do in cognitive behavior therapy is help people identify these negative thoughts, and then we teach them to evaluate those thoughts and see how accurate they are,” said Judith Beck, president of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, based in Pennsylvania.“If they’re not accurate, we discuss what’s a more realistic perspective on this,” she said.To reach students with social, emotional and behavioral challenges, Randolph Public Schools, a district outside of Boston, held a recent seminar about helping children reframe their negative feelings using cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT.“We want our students to really have the mindset that they can do things confidently,” said Alpha Sanford, chief of development and student services, who started the initiative.During the training, Christin Brink, an assistant principal for special education, thought to herself, “Wow, I need this just as much as the kids do.”“Being a younger administrator in this role, it’s something new to me,” Brink added. “A lot of times I’ll have impostor syndrome, and I’ll make a choice that I later regret.” Why we might focus on the negative If you find yourself having negative thoughts frequently, you’re not alone. There are evolutionary reasons for it.“When we were cavemen, it was very important for us to be alert for danger,” Beck said. Preparing for the worst possible outcome helped people stay alive. Some worries such as “I don’t have enough time to complete this project” can motivate people to get things done, she said.But lingering on what’s going wrong can be unhealthy. We sometimes filter out positive reinforcement, downplaying recognition we’ve received and overemphasizing mistakes, said Kristene Doyle, director of the Albert Ellis Institute, a psychotherapy training organization based in New York.Practicing your positive beliefs by saying them to yourself with force, vigor and frequency can help you build a healthier thinking muscle, she said. Hold that thought. Is it really true? One of the first steps to reframing unhelpful thoughts is to identify those that are recurring in your mind. Examine whether they have any validity. What evidence is there to support them?“Telling myself ‘I’m not good enough to be here’ is only going to lead me down a path of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you make that worst-case scenario happen,” Doyle said. “What makes somebody good enough to be in the room? What makes somebody good enough to have a job?”When someone is thinking they’re an impostor, “look for reasons why they’re not an impostor. What are their strengths? Why were they hired?” Doyle asked.For example, when high school teacher Catherine Mason of New York was asked to reexamine a section of her lesson plan, she had some damaging self-doubt.“I just heard, ‘You’re a terrible teacher. You’re so bad at this. Why can’t you just get it?’ And that was all internal,” Mason said. Acting out of fear, she rewrote the entire lesson plan, when she only needed to make minor changes.Now, instead of jumping to the worst conclusion, she pauses to examine the thought. “What did they actually say to you?” she asks herself. “Did they say the actual words, ‘You’re terrible?’ Did they actually say, ‘You have to throw out the whole lesson?'”People who are thinking “I’m not good enough” can challenge that thought by asking, “What does ‘good enough’ actually mean?” Doyle suggested. Throw it under a microscope Some therapists get creative when working with clients to identify negative feelings or beliefs. Avigail Lev, a psychologist with the Bay Area CBT Center in San Francisco, has clients write down the phrases, such as “They don’t value the work that I’m doing” or “I haven’t done enough to get a raise.”After that, she leads clients through exercises to diffuse the strength of those thoughts, such as reading the sentences backward, counting the words in the statement, or writing the phrases on a cloud.It can take time and practice to successfully reframe negative thoughts that have been replaying in our mind for years. When Renee Baker was studying architecture in college, professors and instructors frequently tore into her work. The critiques were designed to thicken her skin. But they had a lasting impact.“There’s the self-doubt that comes with being told, literally, ‘You’re not good enough. Your ideas aren’t good enough. Your work isn’t good enough,'” said Baker, who’s now director of project management at Inform Studio, a design firm. “At the heart of a lot of my self-doubt is feeling like my voice, and what I think, what I believe, what I am passionate about, isn’t as important as the next person’s.”So Baker worked with a therapist to challenge her damaging core beliefs, exchanging them for more neutral thoughts. At work, she practiced speaking up even when her throat felt tight with anxiety. Over time, she became less anxious and more comfortable sharing her ideas. Find a replacement thought You can get specific when you’re searching for alternative, healthier mantras.“When we look at this sentence, ‘They don’t value the work that I’m doing,’ do you have any examples of when you felt your work was valued? Do you have examples of when people appreciated your work?” Lev asked.You can also reframe your thoughts about other people who are part of your workday.Eleanor Forbes, a social worker in Randolph Public Schools, helps teachers and administrators learn to apply CBT techniques. When staff members complain that a young person is being manipulative, she helps them reframe the thought. “How about we just say that this young person is just using survival skills?” she said.Brink, the assistant principal, learned to reframe her own negative thoughts, saying to herself: “I made a lot of great choices today,” or “This was what went well,” and “Tomorrow we can try again with x, y and z.”Having scripted phrases ready togo helps when negative thoughts resurface, she said.“I’ve got this,” she tells herself. “One step at a time.” Have you overcome an obstacle or made a profound change in your work? Send your workplace questions and story ideas to cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well. Cathy Bussewitz, Associated Press
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Alphabet’s Waymo will offer its autonomous rides on Via Transportation’s public transit platform, starting with Chandler city in Arizona, the companies said on Thursday. The service will be introduced this fall in the city’s on-demand small-scale public transportation service, Chandler Flex, which is powered by Via’s software. The transit technology makers suite of software and technology-enabled services powers public transportation systems in hundreds of cities across more than 30 countries, the company said. “We’re delighted that this partnership with Waymo paves the path for AVs (autonomous vehicles) to become accessible to millions of global public transit riders, enhancing mobility, lowering operating costs, and improving safety outcomes,” said Daniel Ramot, Vias co-founder and CEO. Waymo has been ramping up operations in the U.S. as the robotaxi race heats up. On Wednesday, it said that it plans to start offering autonomous cab rides in Nashville, Tennessee, next year in collaboration with ride-hailing firm Lyft. After starting in Phoenix in 2020, Waymo now offers paid driverless rides to the public in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with parts of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. EV maker Tesla deployed a limited robotaxi service in Austin in June. The company has said it plans to expand the service to the San Francisco Bay Area. Yazhini MV, Reuters
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