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Welcome back to The Prompt by Kuro House, your daily dose of AI news. Today, we’ve got some big moves in AI partnerships, cutting-edge hardware announcements, and a fascinating look at human versus machine coding. So, let’s dive right in.
First up, a major legal development with Anthropic’s $1.5 billion book piracy settlement now on hold. A federal judge has raised serious concerns about the fairness of the deal, especially how authors might be pressured into accepting terms. This comes after Anthropic agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over training its AI models on copyrighted books, with about 465,000 works covered. Authors were set to receive roughly $3,000 per covered work, but the judge wants more clarity on the claims process and better notification for class members. Bloomberg Law and the Associated Press reported that the judge will revisit the settlement later this month, leaving the outcome uncertain for now.
Microsoft is shaking up its AI strategy by adding Anthropic’s AI to Office 365 apps alongside OpenAI’s models. The Information broke the story that Microsoft sees Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 as outperforming OpenAI in some tasks, like crafting better PowerPoint presentations. This move signals Microsoft’s effort to diversify its AI partnerships amid a growing rift with OpenAI and ongoing contract negotiations. Microsoft is also developing its own AI models, aiming for more self-reliance in the long run. TechCrunch highlighted that despite this new deal, Microsoft remains committed to its partnership with OpenAI for frontier models.
Apple’s recent iPhone 17 event was surprisingly light on AI, especially compared to previous years. According to The Verge, AI was mostly mentioned as a background power behind features like live translation and health monitoring, rather than as headline-grabbing tools. The company focused heavily on hardware improvements and subtle AI enhancements in the new AirPods and Apple Watch. Meanwhile, Apple faces criticism for lagging behind competitors in AI innovation and has seen significant departures from its AI research teams. This cautious approach contrasts with more aggressive AI showcases from Google and Samsung earlier this year.
Nvidia just unveiled the Rubin CPX, a new GPU designed specifically for long-context AI inference tasks. TechCrunch reports this chip can handle context windows larger than one million tokens, which is huge for applications like video generation and software development. The Rubin CPX is part of Nvidia’s push toward disaggregated inference infrastructure, promising better performance on complex AI workloads. It’s expected to hit the market by the end of 2026, continuing Nvidia’s streak of dominating the AI hardware space with massive data center sales.
Finally, a fascinating story from Wired about a “Man vs. Machine” hackathon in San Francisco. Over 100 coders competed in teams either using AI tools or coding solo, battling for a $12,500 prize and API credits from OpenAI and Anthropic. The event revealed that AI-assisted teams generally had the edge, but human-only teams delivered impressive projects, including a writing tool that tracks story consistency without AI help. Judges and attendees were often challenged to guess which teams used AI, highlighting how intertwined human and machine creativity are becoming. Wired’s coverage paints a nuanced picture of AI’s role in coding — a powerful helper, but not an outright replacement yet.
That’s a wrap for today’s edition of The Prompt. We’re seeing AI’s influence deepen across legal battles, corporate strategies, hardware innovation, and even creative coding competitions. It’s clear the AI landscape is as dynamic and complex as ever. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you tomorrow with more updates.
