AI companies are sucking in YouTube subtitles for training

An investigation by Proof News found that major tech companies, including Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple, and Salesforce have been using subtitles from YouTube videos to train their AI models. The training dataset consisted of the subtitles from 173,536 videos from 48,000 channels included content from creators like MrBeast, PewDiePie, TED, and Khan Academy, among others. Those creators didn’t necessarily give permission or get paid. Earlier this year, the New York Times found that OpenAI, which has consistently avoided fessing up, also used YouTube data to train its AI.

173,536

YouTube videos used for AI training

By Anthropic, Nvidia, Apple, & Salesforce

That’s a surprise to the video makers

Like MrBeast, Khan Academy, PewDiePie

“It’s theft,” said one streaming service’s CEO

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Anthropic really doesn’t want the US to help China with AI

Anthropic made its case for freezing China out of the AI race as much as possible in a new policy paper. The company warned that letting China catch up to US AI companies could risk AI-powered mass surveillance and huge risks to monitoring AI safety.

Jon Keegan5h

Tesla finally reported un-redacted information about its Robotaxi crashes

There have been a total of 17 crashes so far among its Texas Robotaxis. Read about them all here.

Rani Molla6h

Rani Molla13h

Alphabet sold $3.6 billion in Japanese yen bonds — a record for a foreign company — likely to help its AI capex binge

We now have the value for Alphabet’s Japanese yen bond raise — 576.5 billion yen, or $3.6 billion — and it’s a record for a foreign issuer in Japan. The deal was spread across seven tranches with maturities ranging from 3 to 40 years, allowing the company to lock in rates as low as 1.965%.

The latest deal comes on the heels of Alphabet’s massive US and European bond deals, where the company has tapped global markets for nearly $60 billion in fresh capital over the last few months. In a filing earlier this week, the search giant said it would use the proceeds for “general corporate purposes.” That likely means fueling its AI infrastructure build-out, which has pushed its projected 2026 capex bill to a staggering $190 billion.

HALLUCIN-AI-TIONS

5/14/26

SYNTAX ERROR

Chris Stokel-Walker

Rani Molla5/14/26

Bloomberg: Relationship between OpenAI and Apple has deteriorated and legal action may be imminent

The two-year-old alliance between Apple and OpenAI has deteriorated, Bloomberg reports, with the AI giant now consulting legal counsel about issuing a potential breach of contract notice.

OpenAI executives allege that Apple failed to adequately integrate and promote ChatGPT on the iPhone, causing the AI firm to lose out on billions a year in subscriptions and hurt its brand, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Apple has expressed concerns over OpenAI’s privacy protection, and has been miffed that OpenAI has been working on its own hardware with former Apple design lead Jony Ive.

More recently, Apple, which has trailed its peers in developing AI, has decided to offer users their choice of AI models, rather than aligning exclusively with OpenAI’s.

Apple-OpenAI Relationship Frays, Setting Up Possible Legal Fight

Meanwhile, Apple has expressed concerns over OpenAI’s privacy protection, and has been miffed that OpenAI has been working on its own hardware with former Apple design lead Jony Ive.

More recently, Apple, which has trailed its peers in developing AI, has decided to offer users their choice of AI models, rather than aligning exclusively with OpenAI’s.

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