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The U.S. may soon scrap the penal import tariff on Indian goods and also cut the reciprocal tariff to 10-15% from the existing 25%, India’s Chief Economist Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran said on Thursday. “My personal confidence is that in the next couple of months, if not earlier, we will see a resolution to at least to the extra penal tariff of 25%,” Nageswaran said at an event in Kolkata. “It may also be the case that reciprocal tariff of 25% may also come down to levels, which we were earlier anticipating somewhere between 10% and 15%.” India and the U.S. held “positive” and “forward-looking” trade discussions on Tuesday, New Delhi said, raising hopes for a breakthrough after President Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs on the South Asian nation for buying Russian oil. Trump slapped a punitive 25% levy on India from August 27, doubling overall tariffs to 50%, as part of Washington’s efforts to step up pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said they spoke by phone on Tuesday with the U.S. president saying he thanked Modi for his help in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. Neither gave any detail of any agreement on Ukraine, but the call appeared to be a sign of further thawing of U.S.-Indian tensions, which blew up in recent months raising questions about the future relationship between the partners, which share concerns about China. Trump also struck a more conciliatory tone in statements last week and expressed optimism that they could finalise a trade deal. Indian stocks extended gains after Nageswaran’s comments on easing trade tensions, with the benchmark Nifty 50 hitting one-week highs and notching it’s highest close since July 9. Swati Bhat, Reuters
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The remaining late-night talk show writers have their work cut out for them in coming up with material suitable for Thursday nights episode. And every other episode in the foreseeable future. Now that ABC has yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air, following a conservative pressure campaign over a recent monologue, its unclear what Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and the hosts of The Daily Show can even say about the incident without crossing an undefined line of offense. On Monday night, Kimmel kicked off his show with a monologue touching on the latest developments in the reaction to Charlie Kirks assassination. We hit some new lows over the weekend, the host said, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it. Kimmel went on to lampoon Trump for his seeming lack of grief over Kirk, airing a widely circulated clip from last Friday, in which the president quickly pivoted from a reporters question about Kirk to happily hyping up renovations at the White House. The reaction was quiet, until suddenly it wasnt. Anyone not paying close enough attention to right-wing influencers over the following 36 hours might not have even noticed. There certainly wasnt the kind of instant widespread backlash that led to ABC canceling Roseanne in 2017 roughly eight hours after the shows creator and star tweeted an arguably racist remark about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. Primarily pushing the backlash was Benny Johnson, a right-wing influencer and podcaster who was a personal friend and peer of Kirks. Johnson zeroed in on the part of Kimmels monologue that could be construed as a formal declaration of the alleged shooter being confirmed as a MAGA activistan inaccurate representation of events. Something demonstrably evil happened on Jimmy Kimmels show, Johnson said at the top of his Wednesday episodean episode entitled Jimmy Kimmel LIES About Charlie Kirk Killer, Blames Charlie For His Murder!? Disney Must Fire Kimmel. Later on the show, Johnson had an unlikely guest for a video podcast: Trumps hand-picked chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr. The FCC chair weighed in on Kimmels segment, which at that point had seemingly not yet become controversial outside of the conservative media ecosystem. Carr described Kimmels comments as part of a concerted effort to try to lie to the American people about the nature of one of the most significant newsworthy public interest acts that weve seen in a long time. Carr went on to describe FCC broadcasting license-holders as having an obligation to operate in the public interest. Lest there be any confusion that he was suggesting ABC had defaulted on this obligation by airing Kimmels Monday night monologue, Carr added: I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or theres going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1968359685045838041/video/1 Kimmel had indeed made a mistake. Like many other public figures on both sides, hed commented on a still-unfolding situation with details that could be easily contradicted pending further information. The hosts remark about alleged shooter Tyler Robinson being one of their own came after a moment where it seemed as if Robinson was part of the far-right groyper movement. Although some ambiguity remains, evidence now points to the shooter acting against Kirks hatred, which many have interpreted as suggesting a left-leaning motivation. No definitive answers have yet been determined to fully explain the shooters actions. A clarification on Kimmels part was reasonable to expect, following the backlash, and he reportedly planned on delivering one Wednesday night. He never got the chance, however. Following Carrs appearance on Johnsons show, which the host quickly hyped to his nearly four million followers on X, Nexstar, which runs 32 ABC affiliates and happens to be awaiting FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger, signaled it would not broadcast Kimmels show for the foreseeable future. (Carr subsequently thanked Nexstar for doing the right thing in a tweet.) ABC responded soon after, announcing Kimmels show was on an indefinite hiatus, without explaining the decision. ABCs move eerily echoed CBS parting ways with vocal Trump critic Stephen Colbert back in Julyat a time when the company was awaiting FCC approval for a merger. It also fulfilled a prophecy from Trump at that moment: I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. More recently, Kimmels indefinite suspension follows a wave of firings that has hit journalists, cable news pundits, professors, and many others whose comments about Kirk were deemed offensive in certain circles. Kimmels sidelining, however, is by far the most high-profile, and may have a chilling effect on what people feel comfortable saying on TV going forward. The ongoing, wide-ranging blowback should be reminiscent of the censorial post-9/11 atmosphere, for Aericans old enough to remember it. Bill Mahers Politically Incorrect (also an ABC show) was cancelled in June 2002 following the hosts controversial comments about 9/11 terrorists not being cowards. (Mahers replacement? Ironically, it was Jimmy Kimmel.) The following year, when the U.S. officially invaded Iraq, Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines told a London audience she was ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas, a statement that led to death threats, radio boycotts, demonstrations of bulldozers running over Dixie Chicks CDs, and the effective end of the superstar groups career. Several prominent voices have already called out Kimmels indefinite suspension as a similar threat to free speech, including Governor JB Pritzker, the Writers Guild of America, and comedian Wanda Sykes, who had been scheduled to appear on Kimmels show Wednesday night. (He didnt end the Ukraine War or solve Gaza within his first week, Sykes said of President Trump in an Instagram reel. But he did end freedom of speech within his first year. As for Trump and his allies, they are celebrating the outcome. Fox News host Sean Hannity called Kimmels sidelining long overdue, which is difficult to reconcile with the idea that Kimmels primary offense was his inaccurate comment from Monday night. Johnson went a step further and took credit for the firing, quote-tweeting a 2017 Kirk tweet expressing distaste for Kimmel, adding: We did it for you, Charlie. More ominous was the next line in Johnsons tweet: And were just getting started
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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. New data makes OpenAI look more like a consumer tech company During its early years, OpenAI looked like it might build a business selling access to its increasingly powerful AI models to Fortune 500 companies. But when ChatGPT launched (almost by surprise) in late 2022, the startup suddenly had a breakout consumer productone that raced to 100 million users in just a few months, faster than any app in history. Overnight, OpenAI became a consumer tech brand and, most importantly, the poster child for generative AI in the minds of everyday users. Today, ChatGPT has more than 700 million weekly active users worldwide, according to OpenAI. And the way those people use the chatbot suggests the company may be drifting further toward the consumer market. This week, OpenAI released a study of 1.5 million user chat logs between May 2024 and June 2025, revealing that nearly three-quarters (73%) of chats were personal rather than work-related. Just a year earlier, in June 2024, personal and work prompts had been roughly equal. (That data excludes OpenAIs API customers, who are largely developers and enterprises.) The report comes at a time when, across industries, many enterprises are growing skeptical about howand whenAI tools might deliver the efficiencies they were promised, the kind executives can tout on earnings calls. Despite the hype, by most objective accounts, the AI transformation hasnt yet materialized. An August MIT report, for example, found that 95% of enterprise AI pilot projects have stalled. Meanwhile, talk of an AI bubble continues, with critics raising an eyebrow at bullish startup valuations and tech stock prices. OpenAI still projects enormous revenue growthup to $12.7 billion in 2025 and $29.4 billion in 2026but the company is expected to keep losing billions annually. Thats fueling concerns about sustainability unless its enterprise business begins to generate significantly more revenue. Ultimately, that will depend on factors largely outside OpenAIs control: macroeconomic conditions, credit markets, infrastructure investment, and the reskilling of the workforce for AI. OpenAI maintains that it has three core businesses: ChatGPT subscriptions, enterprise access to its models, and long-term research on artificial general intelligence. None are likely to disappear. Still, tech companies are often forced to follow the money, and right now the money points to consumers. If ChatGPTs massive user base keeps growing while enterprise adoption lags, OpenAI could feel pressure to devote more of its researchers and engineers to consumer featuressay, paymentsthat might entice free users to pay for subscriptions. Are the legal tides turning in AI’s favor when it comes to data copyright? The biggest potential roadblock to the AI boom so far is lawsuits over AI training data. The major labs have routinely scraped vast amounts of online content to train their models, operating under the assumption that the practice falls under the fair use clause of the Copyright Act. That assumption is now being tested in lawsuits from publishers and creators, many still moving through the courts. Some key cases, however, have already been decided, and on the core question of whether scraping copyrighted data for training counts as fair use, the momentum appears to favor the AI companies. The most consequential decision to date came this summer in Bartz v. Anthropic, which Anthropic plans to settle. Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropics use of digitized books as training data qualifies as fair use under the Copyright Act. Crucially, he determined that Anthropics use was transformativethe models werent simply regurgitating the books content and format, but instead using the text to learn how to predict the next most likely word in a sequence. Thats the basic mechanism by which LLMs generate language. Judge Vince Chhabria reached a similar conclusion in Kadrey v. Meta (a class action in which Sarah Silverman and two other authors sued for copyright infringement), finding that Metas use of the books was transformativethe fair use clauses primary test. But Chhabria also cautioned that transformative use alone may not always be sufficient to secure fair use protection. The effect on a works market value could also factor in. His ruling suggested some reluctance to set a broad precedent for future AI training cases. Even so, the combined weight of Bartz and Kadrey seems to be shaping industry behavior. One media executive told me publications are now hesitant to sue AI firms for using their content without permission, fearing an expensive loss. That caution reflects not only the outcomes of those cases but also the relatively modest remedies seen in other recent federal decisions, such as the Google search monopoly case, and a broader judicial mood in the current political climate. Still, the most significant test casethe New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoftremains unresolved. OpenAI has tried repeatedly to have the case dismissed, without success. In May, a judge ordered the company to preserve millions of chat logs and transcripts that could prove relevant. If the Times prevails, the question of fair use in AI training could be thrown wide open again. More AI coverage from Fast Company: AI is bad at data. This startup can fix that Whitney Houston is going on tour 13 years after her death, thanks to AI AI scraping is inevitable. Can publishers turn it into revenue? AI nostalgia is the new comfort food for an anxious internet Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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