Meta has used Swedish books to train its AI models. Now authors are demanding compensation and calling on the Minister of Culture to act against the tech giant.
The magazine The Atlantic recently revealed that Meta used copyrighted works from authors around the world without permission or compensation. Swedish authors are also among them.
In an open letter, published in the Schibsted newspaper Aftonbladet, 53 Swedish children’s and young adult authors accuse Meta of copyright infringement.
“Meta has vacuumed our books and used them as a basis for creating AI texts. They have also often used translations of our books to train their AI models in multiple languages. This copyright infringement is systematic”, the authors write.
Among the affected authors who signed the letter are Anna Ahlund, who had five works stolen, Kajsa Gordon, who had eight works stolen, and Pia Hagmar, who had 51 works stolen. The authors point out that there is a wide range of authors in fiction and non-fiction who have had several works stolen, and that many authors do not yet know that they have been affected.
“Our words are being exploited”
The authors are now calling on Sweden’s Minister of Culture Parisa Liljestrand to act against Meta and demand a license fee for the use of copyrighted texts.
“We refuse to accept that our words are being exploited by a multi-billion dollar company without our consent or compensation”.
It also demands that Meta disclose which Swedish authors are used to train its AI model, and that authors have the right to deny the tech giant use of the texts.
“The Swedish government often talks about strengthening children’s reading. A prerequisite for reading is that Swedish cultural policy makes it possible to be an author”, the authors conclude
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Proton challenges ChatGPT with its new AI assistant Lumo, which promises to never store or train on users’ conversations. The service launches with end-to-end encryption and stricter privacy protections than competing AI services.
The Swiss company Proton, known for its secure email services and VPN solutions, is now expanding into artificial intelligence with the launch of AI assistant Lumo. Unlike established competitors such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, Proton markets its service with promises to never log, store or train its models on users’ questions or conversations.
Lumo can, just like other AI assistants, help users with everyday tasks such as rephrasing emails, summarizing documents and reviewing code. The major difference lies in privacy protection – all chats are end-to-end encrypted and not stored on Proton’s servers.
Privacy-focused alternative in the AI jungle
Proton’s strategy differs markedly from industry standards. ChatGPT stores conversations for 30 days for security reasons, even when chat history is turned off. Gemini may retain user queries for up to 72 hours, while Claude saves chats for up to a month, or longer if they are flagged for review.
An additional advantage for Proton is the company’s Swiss base, which means stricter privacy laws compared to American competitors who may be forced to hand over user data to authorities.
The company has not confirmed which models are used, but Lumo likely builds on smaller, community-developed systems rather than the massive, privately trained models that power services like ChatGPT. This may mean that responses become less detailed or nuanced.
Three service tiers
Lumo is available via the web as well as through apps for iOS and Android. The service is offered in three tiers: two free options and a paid version.
Guest users can ask a limited number of questions per week without an account, but chat history is not saved. Users with free Proton accounts automatically get access to Lumo Free, which includes basic encrypted chat history and support for smaller file uploads.
The paid version Lumo Plus costs approximately $12.99 per month ($9.99 with annual billing) and offers unlimited chats, longer chat history and support for larger file uploads. The price undercuts competitors – ChatGPT Plus, Gemini Advanced and Claude Pro all cost around $20 monthly.
The question that remains to be answered is how well Lumo will compete with models trained on significantly larger datasets. The most advanced AI assistants are powered by enormous amounts of user data, which helps them learn patterns and understand nuances for continuous improvement over time. Proton’s more limited, privacy-centered strategy may affect performance.
Despite the deep rift with Trump, Elon Musk is now receiving a contract with the Pentagon worth up to $200 million to deliver specially adapted language models for the US military.
Grok’s new AI model has been a major topic of conversation this past week, in establishment media primarily because after an update where certain filters were removed, it began breaking strongly against politically correct patterns, and among the general public due to the humor perceived in this.
Among other things, it has been noted how the chatbot writes that certain Jewish organizations, particularly the far-right group ADL, pursue a hostile line against European ethnic groups. For this, the chatbot has been accused of “antisemitism”.
American media analyst and political commentator Mark Dice on the controversy surrounding Grok’s new versions.
However, the criticism has apparently not prevented the US military from procuring Grok solutions for their purposes.
Graphics card giant Nvidia made history on Wednesday when the company became the first publicly traded company ever to exceed four trillion dollars in market value. The milestone was reached when the stock rose to $164.42 during trading on July 9.
The California-based tech company has experienced a meteoric rise driven by its dominant position in AI chip manufacturing. Over the past five years, the stock has risen by a full 1,460 percent, while this year’s increase stands at nearly 18 percent.
Nvidia’s success is based on the company’s near-monopolistic control over the market for AI processors. The company’s GPU chips form the backbone of machine learning, data centers, and large language models like ChatGPT.
The company’s chips have become indispensable for tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet, all of which are investing billions in AI infrastructure. This has made Nvidia one of the main winners in the ongoing AI revolution.
Jensen Huang’s wealth explodes
The stock surge has had a dramatic impact on co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s personal wealth. According to Bloomberg estimates, his net worth is now $142 billion, an increase of more than $25 billion this year alone.
Huang owns approximately 3.5 percent of Nvidia, making him the company’s largest individual shareholder. The wealth increase places him among the world’s ten richest people, with his fortune closely tied to Nvidia’s stock price.
Heaviest weight in S&P 500
Nvidia now has the highest weighting in the broad US stock index S&P 500, having surpassed both Apple and Microsoft. The breakthrough has led to optimism for continued growth, with some analysts predicting that the market value could rise further.
Loop Capital’s Ananda Baruah sees Nvidia at the “forefront” of the next “golden wave” for generative AI and estimates that the company could reach a market value of over six trillion dollars within a few years.
Nvidia’s historic success reflects the broader AI euphoria that has gripped financial markets, where investors are betting that artificial intelligence will reshape the entire economy over the coming decades.
Elon Musk’s AI company xAI presented its latest AI model Grok 4 on Wednesday, along with a monthly fee of $300 for access to the premium version. The launch comes amid a turbulent period for Musk’s companies, as X CEO Linda Yaccarino has left her position and the Grok system, which lacks politically correct safeguards, has made controversial comments.
xAI took the step into the next generation on Wednesday evening with Grok 4, the company’s most advanced AI model to date. At the same time, a premium service called SuperGrok Heavy was introduced with a monthly fee of $300 – the most expensive AI subscription among major providers in the market.
Grok 4 is positioned as xAI’s direct competitor to established AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. The model can analyze images and answer complex questions, and has been increasingly integrated into Musk’s social network X over recent months, where xAI recently acquired significant ownership stakes.
Musk: “Better than PhD level”
During a livestream on Wednesday evening, Musk made bold claims about the new model’s capabilities.
“With respect to academic questions, Grok 4 is better than PhD level in every subject, no exceptions”, Musk claimed. However, he acknowledged that the model can sometimes lack common sense and has not yet invented new technologies or discovered new physics – “but that is just a matter of time”.
Expectations for Grok 4 are high ahead of the upcoming competition with OpenAI’s anticipated GPT-5, which is expected to launch later this summer.
Introducing Grok 4, the world’s most powerful AI model. Watch the livestream now: https://t.co/59iDX5s2ck
The launch comes during a tumultuous period for Musk’s business empire. Earlier on Wednesday, Linda Yaccarino announced that she is leaving her position as CEO of X after approximately two years in the role. No successor has yet been appointed.
Yaccarino’s departure comes just days after Grok’s official, automated X account made controversial comments criticizing Hollywood’s “Jewish executives” and other politically incorrect statements. xAI was forced to temporarily restrict the account’s activity and delete the posts. In response to the incident, xAI appears to have removed a recently added section from Grok’s public system instructions that encouraged the AI not to shy away from “politically incorrect” statements.
Musk wore his customary leather jacket and sat alongside xAI leaders during the Grok 4 launch. Photo: xAI
Two model versions with top performance
xAI launched two variants: Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy – the latter described as the company’s “multi-agent version” with improved performance. According to Musk, Grok 4 Heavy creates multiple AI agents that work simultaneously on a problem and then compare their results “like a study group” to find the best answer.
The company claims that Grok 4 demonstrates top performance across several test areas, including “Humanity’s Last Exam” – a demanding test that measures AI’s ability to answer thousands of questions in mathematics, humanities, and natural sciences. According to xAI, Grok 4 achieved a score of 25.4 percent without “tools,” surpassing Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro (21.6 percent) and OpenAI’s o3 high (21 percent).
With access to tools, Grok 4 Heavy allegedly achieved 44.4 percent, compared to Gemini 2.5 Pro’s 26.9 percent.
Future products on the way
SuperGrok Heavy subscribers get early access to Grok 4 Heavy as well as upcoming features. xAI announced that the company plans to launch an AI coding model in August, a multimodal agent in September, and a video generation model in October.
The company is also making Grok 4 available through its API to attract developers to build applications with the model, despite the enterprise initiative being only two months old.
Whether companies are ready to adopt Grok despite the recent mishap remains to be seen, as xAI attempts to establish itself as a credible competitor to ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in the enterprise market.
The Grok service can now be accessed outside the X platform through Grok.com.
