Ivy: French AI darling Mistral is arguing that everything you've ever written or created should just be considered... raw material.
Marcus: I'm Marcus.
Ivy: And I'm Ivy.
Marcus: And you're listening to Broke It for Thursday, November 12th. Today we're talking about AI running headlong into... well, reality.
Ivy: Let's get to it.
Marcus: We're asking whose art feeds the machine. A major French AI lab is pushing back on copyright, and creatives are in an uproar.
Ivy: We're also digging into OpenAI's staggering financials. How can ten billion in revenue possibly lead to a ten billion dollar loss?
Marcus: And we'll explain why that giant data center planned for your town might never actually get built, as the AI boom hits some very real roadblocks.
Marcus: So let's start with Mistral. They're a powerhouse in open-source AI, but they've just picked a huge fight.
Ivy: A fight with pretty much every artist, writer, and musician in the European Union. Sifted reports they're lobbying hard against new copyright rules in the EU AI Act.
Marcus: Their argument? To innovate, they need a free pass to train on any public data they want—even if it's copyrighted.
Ivy: Let's be really clear here. They're saying all of human culture should be a free resource for them to mine and build products from.
Marcus: But isn't that how humans learn? We read, we look at art, we listen to music, and then we create something new. AI is just doing that at a massive scale.
Ivy: A person reading a book is not the same as a corporation hoovering up the entire internet to build a product that could put that author out of a job. Calling it 'learning' is a lie. It's industrial-scale copying.
Marcus: I see it as the fuel for progress. Without these huge datasets, the models can't get better. Are we really going to hobble the next wave of tech just to protect old business models?
Ivy: Or are we just giving a massive, free subsidy to tech companies, paid for by creators? They call it 'raw material'... I call that a foul.
Marcus: [sighs] So where does this go? Does the EU cave?
Ivy: It's a huge battle. Creative unions and artist groups are furious. They see it as an existential threat. This isn't just about money, it's about consent.
Marcus: So what does this actually mean for people listening?
Ivy: It means the line between inspiration and theft is about to be drawn by lawyers. And if you create anything—code, art, music, writing—this battle will decide if your work can be used to train your replacement, without your permission and without you getting paid.
Ivy: Alright, let's move on to some truly mind-bending numbers from OpenAI.
Marcus: Mind-bendingly GOOD, right? According to Dealroom, OpenAI is now on track to make ten billion dollars a year. Ten. Billion. Dollars.
Ivy: An incredible number. Almost as incredible as their costs. That same report estimates that to make that ten billion... they had to spend ten-point-nine billion.
Marcus: Wait—say that again?
Ivy: Despite record-breaking revenue, they're on track to lose almost a billion dollars. The cost of running these big models is just astronomical.
Marcus: Okay, but that's just investment. They're building the future! You have to spend money to make money, especially when you're creating a whole new market.
Ivy: There's investment, and then there's a business model where the more you sell, the more money you lose. Every single chat query costs them power and computing time. Is this a sustainable business, or is it just an expensive science fair with one very rich backer—Microsoft?
Marcus: Microsoft seems happy enough. They're getting a huge head start in the AI platform war.
Ivy: For now. But what happens when that bill comes due? And what does it mean for all of us using these tools?
Marcus: It probably means the free versions and cheap access we've all gotten used to... won't be around forever. The race to make this stuff profitable is about to get very real.
Ivy: Exactly. The price of your chatbot is going up, or the quality is coming down. There's no such thing as a free lunch, especially when lunch costs a billion dollars a quarter.
Marcus: Finally, let's talk about the physical world. All this AI has to run somewhere, and that 'somewhere' is a data center.
Ivy: Or, more and more, it's just a vacant lot with a 'permit pending' sign. A new analysis from TechCrunch shows the data center boom is hitting a brick wall.
Marcus: I've seen this in my own area. A huge project gets announced, and then the 'Not In My Backyard' signs pop up. People worry about the noise, the water usage, and just the sight of these giant, windowless boxes.
Ivy: It's not just local opposition, though. The biggest hurdle is power. These AI data centers need an insane amount of electricity. We're talking about a single building needing as much power as a small city.
Marcus: And our power grid just can't handle it. Utility companies are telling developers it could take years to get the hookups they need.
Ivy: So even if you have the land and the permits, you might not have the power to turn the lights on. It's a real-world problem you can't just code your way out of.
Marcus: It's a great reminder that 'the cloud' isn't a cloud at all. It's a factory. A loud, hot, power-hungry factory that has to be built in someone's neighborhood.
Ivy: So what does this mean for the great AI race?
Marcus: It means those exponential AI growth curves might get flattened by the very slow, very linear business of pouring concrete and stringing power lines. The future of AI might just be limited by the speed of a construction crew.
Marcus: Alright, let's do a quick recap.
Ivy: An AI company is telling artists their work is just 'raw material' for the taking. OpenAI is somehow making and losing billions of dollars at the same time. And the whole AI boom is running out of electricity.
Marcus: It's digital ambition hitting a wall of physical reality.
Ivy: Before we go, Marcus, I saw this project that felt... very on-topic today. It's an AI that generates custom bedtime stories for kids.
Marcus: [laughs] Let me guess, was it trained on every copyrighted children's book ever written?
Ivy: [dry] It's pitched as 'endless creativity.' After our first story, that sounds more like 'endless theft.' The story it made for me was about a brave little toaster who couldn't get enough electricity. It's all connected.
Marcus: [laughs] And that's our show! Thanks for listening to Broke It.
Ivy: We'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, try not to get mined for raw material.
This show is made with AI: the hosts’ voices are synthetic and the scripts are AI-assisted. Every story links to its original source.