Stargate hits a snag

Plus: A changing of the guard

May 14, 2025

Welcome back! The new pope just made AI part of his job description. Pope Leo XIV says artificial intelligence helped inspire his papal name—a nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the Church through the first industrial revolution. In his first address to the College of Cardinals, he warned that today’s AI revolution demands a similar response.

What do you think: Do AI ethics need a spiritual compass?

Stargate hits a wall with $500 million on pause

Via CNN

OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate project is facing delays, and tariffs might be to blame. The goal was to build a US-based, ultra-advanced data center to train future frontier models. But now, Bloomberg reports that investor appetite is cooling due to uncertainty around import costs and shifting AI economics.

The backstory: The White House first announced Stargate at the start of this year as part of a push to build AI infrastructure. But with cheaper models on the rise and questions about the economics of large-scale AI, momentum may be slowing down.

The big picture: Even OpenAI isn’t immune to geopolitical and financial headwinds. As more companies chase smaller, faster, cheaper AI, the era of billion-dollar moonshots might be getting harder to justify.

Trump fires copyright chief after AI report

The head of the US Copyright Office has been fired, just days after her office published a report calling for stricter rules around AI and creative rights. Shira Perlmutter, a Biden administration appointee, previously led efforts to explore how AI models interact with copyrighted material during training.

The timing: The report dropped on Friday. By Monday, Perlmutter was out. CBS News reports the decision came directly from President Donald Trump.

Why it matters: As the government wrestles with AI regulation, leadership changes could shape how (and whether) rules get enforced. Is this a sign of what’s to come under a second Trump administration?

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Jobs, announcements, and big ideas

  • Airbnb expands into services and experiences with new social and AI features.

  • TikTok launches AI Alive to animate photos in stories.

  • Audible adds AI narration and translation to audiobook catalog.

  • Vectara introduces Hallucination Corrector to improve enterprise AI reliability.

  • Spotify updates AI DJ with personalized voice command features.

  • Nvidia is sending 18,000 top AI chips to Saudi Arabia.

AI is making your videos shoppable. Vyrill’s CEO says the next Amazon is your camera roll (and Gen Z is already buying).

That’s a wrap! See you Friday.

—Matt (FutureTools.io)

P.S. This newsletter is 100% written by a human. Okay, maybe 96%.