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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. Could generative AI be just a minor revolution? On a recent episode of the TBPN podcast, Jordi Hays asked his cohost John Coogan whether his life would really be that much worse if he couldnt access generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude. Would AIs absence be as disruptive, he asks, as the sudden disappearance of smartphones, or TVs, or electricity? Coogan conceded it wouldnt. The real-life impact of AI variessomeone going through a hard time might find relief in the counsel of a chatbotbut its reasonable to judge the technology in societal and historical terms, because thats how its biggest cheerleaders and hype-spreaders frame it. So the question becomes, What is the real progress of the AI revolution? Based on the past two years and nine months since ChatGPTs debut, should we believe generative AI will change the world on the scale of the industrial revolution, the internet, or the mobile revolution? As Financial Times politics and culture columnist Janan Ganesh notes in a recent op-ed, those predicting that generative AI will usher in abundance and well-being are the ones working closest to the technology and presumably understand it best. But they are also the ones with the most to gain from overselling it, and the most reluctant to admit theyve dedicated their careers to something with only modest impact. To be sure, generative AI is an amazing technology. Anyone who has used ChatGPTs Deep Research, Anthropics Computer Use feature, or Googles Veo 3 video generator can see that. Its also the fastest-adopted technology in modern history: Gen AI apps reached 39.4% adoption among U.S. adults in just two years, compared to the four years it took for smartphones to hit 35% adoption following the iPhones 2007 launch. Yet adoption hasnt translated to willingness to pay. Only about 3% of users subscribe to premium tiers, according to Menlo Ventures State of Consumer AI report. (Mobile computing, by contrast, always required buying a handset and a cellular plan.) Globally, AI apps are bringing in only about $12 billion in annual revenue from 1.8 billion users. Two of generative AIs biggest players, OpenAI and Anthropic, remain far from profitability. Meanwhile, Nvidia, which sells the chips that power AI, made $130 billion last fiscal year. OpenAI and Anthropic remain far from profitability. In the late summer of 2025 generative AIs honeymoon period may be coming to an end. Consumers and businesses are less interested in being dazzled and more focused on actually being helped by it. The attention has shifted to whether AI can actually overhaul aging business practices. And AI is indeed making some tasks, like coding, more efficient, saving time and sometimes payroll. But few CTOs are claiming generative AI is transforming their business, at least not yet. Large enterprises are pouring money into AI projects, but many stall. An MIT report last week shook investors by finding that 95% of enterprise AI projects fail to substantially improve efficiency or profits. The research shows that the models arent the problem; the challenge is integrating them into company data, workflows, and infrastructure. In other words, it’s an application problemone thats lingered since 2023. AI companies seem to recognize this. Covering them, I hear less talk of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and superintelligence, and less emphasis on monolithic models that can do everything. In reality, most AI workloads are handled by teams of specialized models. (OpenAI even described GPT-5 not as a model but as a system of models.) Generative AI is technically complex and hard to grasp in detail. But that shouldnt mean its impact can only be judged by those inside AI labs or big tech companies. What really matters is whether it measurably boosts productivity in business, and whether it leaves societies healthier, better educated, freer, more prosperous, more creative, and less bored at work. Anthropics settlement with authors could set a precedent in future copyright cases Anthropic is poised to settle a lawsuit brought by a group of authors who alleged the company trained its Claude models on their copyrighted books. A court filing Tuesday shows the parties have agreed on preliminary terms. Judge William Alsup gave them until September 5 to finalize the details and submit the proposed settlement. In June, Alsup ruled that Anthropics use of digitized books qualified as fair use under the Copyright Act, but that the company had obtained the works unlawfully from a shadow library (including the notorious LibGen site). In late July, he certified that the class could include any author whose copyrighted book Anthropic downloaded from such libraries, meaning the company could have faced damages of $150,000 per book across potentially thousands of titles. Instead, Anthropic opted to settle. Like its peers, Anthropic relies on vast amounts of online text to pretrain its large language models (LLMs). These models process data for weeks or months to build an understanding of language and context, forming a basic knowledge of how the world works. Content owners continue to sue AI companies over this practice, with several major cases still ongoing. In his June ruling, Alsup addressed the broader issue at the heart of these lawsuits, writing that AI companies use copyrighted content in a transformative wayeven when an LLM is just meorizing textand therefore in a manner protected by fair use. That reasoning could become the defining legacy of Bartz v. Anthropic. More AI coverage from Fast Company: Want to disguise your AI writing? Start with Wikipedias new list How large language models can reconstruct forbidden knowledge Elon Musk has only one chance of forcing Apple to promote Grok Runways AI can edit reality. Hollywood is paying attention 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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Russian oil exports to India are set to rise in September, traders said, as producers cut prices to sell more crude because they cannot process as much in refineries that were damaged by Ukrainian drone attacks on energy infrastructure. India has become the biggest buyer of Russian oil supplies that were displaced by Western sanctions after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. This has allowed Indian refiners to benefit from cheaper crude. But the purchases have drawn condemnation from the government of U.S. President Donald Trump, which increased U.S. tariffs on Indian imports to 50% on Wednesday. New Delhi says it is relying on talks to try to resolve Trump’s additional tariffs, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also embarked on a tour to develop diplomatic ties elsewhere, including meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. officials have accused India of profiteering from discounted Russian oil, while Indian officials have accused the West of double standards because the European Union and the U.S. still buy Russian goods worth billions of dollars. The Indian oil ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Without India, Russia would struggle to maintain exports at existing levels, and that would cut the oil export revenues that finance the Kremlin’s budget and Russia’s continued war in Ukraine. Three trading sources involved in oil sales to India said Indian refiners would increase Russian oil purchases in September by 10% to 20% from August levels, or by 150,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. The sources, who cited preliminary purchases data, could not be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue. The two biggest buyers of Russian oil for India, Reliance and Nayara Energy, which is majority Russian-owned, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia has more oil to export next month because planned and unplanned refinery outages have cut its capacity to process crude into fuels. Ukraine has attacked 10 Russian refineries in recent days, taking offline as much as 17% of the country’s refining capacity. In the first 20 days of August, India imported 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude, unchanged from July but slightly below the average of 1.6 million bpd in January to June, according to data from Vortexa analysts. The volumes are equal to around 1.5% of global supply, making India the largest buyer of seaborne Russian crude, which covers some 40% of India’s oil needs. China and Turkey are also big buyers of Russian oil. India set to carry on buying? India’s increased buying of Russian oil over recent years has been to the detriment of more expensive supplies from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC’s share edged up in 2024 after an eight-year drop. Russian exporters sold Urals crude loading in September at discounts of $2 to $3 per barrel to benchmark dated Brent, the three traders said. The levels are cheaper than discounts of $1.50 per barrel in August, which were the narrowest since 2022, the traders said. “Unless India issues a clear policy directive or trade economics shift significantly, Russian crude will likely remain a core part of its supply mix,” said Sumit Ritolia from Kpler. Brokerage CLSA in a note also predicted only “a limited chance of India stopping Russian imports” unless a global ban is imposed. It also said that if Indian imports of Russian crude were halted, the knock-on impact could be to reduce global supplies by around one million bpd and lead to a short-term spike in global prices to nearly $100 a barrel. Traders said the full impact of sanctions and tariffs may only be visible in cargoes arriving to India in October, which will begin to trade in the next few days. In addition to the U.S. tariffs, the European Union has also tightened its price cap designed to limit Russia’s oil revenues, which will complicate sales later this year. The EU has set the cap at $47.60 per barrel from September 215% below the Russian crude market pricerestricting access to Western services for cargoes sold above the cap. Reporters in Moscow, London, and New Delhi; Additional reporting by Seher Dareen, Reuters
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They look, move, and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots.It’s the latest effort by the South Florida Water Management District to eliminate as many pythons as possible from the Everglades, where they are decimating native species with their voracious appetites. In Everglades National Park, officials say the snakes have eliminated 95% of small mammals as well as thousands of birds.“Removing them is fairly simple. It’s detection. We’re having a really hard time finding them,” said Mike Kirkland, lead invasive animal biologist for the water district. “They’re so well camouflaged in the field.”The water district and University of Florida researchers deployed 120 robot rabbits this summer as an experiment. Previously, there was an effort to use live rabbits as snake lures but that became too expensive and time-consuming, Kirkland said.The robots are simple toy rabbits, but retrofitted to emit heat, a smell, and to make natural movements to appear like any other regular rabbit. “They look like a real rabbit,” Kirkland said. They are solar powered and can be switched on and off remotely. They are placed in small pens monitored by a video camera that sends out a signal when a python is nearby.“Then I can deploy one of our many contractors to go out and remove the python,” Kirkland said.The total cost per robot rabbit is about $4,000, financed by the water district, he added.Pythons are not native to Florida, but have become established in the swampy, subtropical Everglades by escaping from homes or by people releasing them when they become overgrown pets. A female python can lay between 50 and 100 eggs at a time with a gestation period of 60 to 90 days, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.It’s not easy to find definite estimates of the number of pythons in Florida. The U.S. Geological Survey recently reported a ballpark number of “tens of thousands,” while other official estimates run as high as 300,000 snakes. They have few natural enemies, although there are occasional confrontations with alligators, and other predators, such as bobcats and coyotes, will eat their eggs.Since 2000, more than 23,000 of the snakes have been removed from the wild, the wildlife commission says. The robot rabbits are the latest attempt to tackle snakes that average between 10 and 16 feet (3 to 5 meters) in length when fully grown.“Every invasive python that is removed makes a difference for Florida’s environment and its native wildlife,” said Ron Bergeron, a member of the water district governing board.Pythons can be humanely killed year-round on private lands and on lands managed by the wildlife commission across the state.Each year the commission holds a Florida Python Challenge that carries cash prizes for most pythons caught, the longest snake and so forth. This year, 934 people from 30 states took part in the effort in July, capturing 294 pythons with a top prize of $10,000 to a participant who bagged 60 of the reptiles.It’s too early to determine how successful the robot rabbit project will be, but officials say initial results are a cause for optimism.“This part of the project is in its infancy,” Kirkland said. “We are confident, though, that this will work once we are given enough time to work out some of these details.” Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida. Curt Anderson and Cody Jackson, Associated Press
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