From Copyright Battles to Job Losses: The Real AI Crisis Is Here

t's interesting to see how the battle about copyright related to AI training continues to play out. In today's settlement between authors and a $1.5b poorer Anthropic, the numbers are both eye catching and also a drop in the ocean in relation to the amount of money swirling around this industry.

In many ways though, I think this conversation that was foundational in the early days of generative AI taking hold has become old news. The current AI-related issue is not how many books or other works the models have vacuumed up, but how many jobs CEOs can claim their AI agents have vacated entirely.

It's been almost three years since ChatGPT popped up and claims about the way companies like OpenAI were using copyrighted works became part of the ongoing conversation. And over that time things have become clearer, but we are still just dipping our toes into the sea of potential resolutions that would ultimately make this 'fair use' truly feel fair to everyone with an interest.

If what we saw this week from Salesforce with their near 50% reduction in 'heads' in some areas 'because AI' becomes commonplace, then we don't have three years (or even three months) to get in front of the problem. Those 4000 'heads' are now not buying lots of stuff they were before, and it doesn't take a genius to work out what happens if that impact trickles out similarly across the entire economy.

I am incredibly pro-AI. I believe these tools have the greatest potential to positively transform work and life of any of the last several decades. But we must focus on those positive long-term effects rather than just short-termism pointed at a few extra dollars. Afterall, those $3,000 author settlements from Anthropic won't go very far if everyone who gets one is otherwise out of their job.

First posted on Linkedin on 09/06/2025 -> View Linkedin post here