ChatGPT use is picking up again, just as students head back to school – Sherwood News
Students are returning to AI chatbots in swaths after a summer lull.
Pencil case? Check. Textbooks? Check. Large language model with multistep reasoning capabilities? Check.
With the long weekend signaling the final dregs of summer, students across the country are gearing up for the new term. And, in 2025, back to school for many high school and college students means reconnecting with their study buddy: ChatGPT.
As reported by Futurism in August, daily usage of OpenAI’s flagship chatbot plummeted in early June, when summer semesters wrapped up, according to data from AI platform OpenRouter. Based on a 2.5 million-strong user base, peak usage coincided with the middle of finals season on May 27, as users generated 97.4 billion tokens (a unit for data processing equivalent to roughly four English characters).
Soon after, average monthly usage more than halved from May to June, when summer vacation began, to 36.7 billion tokens per day, and remained low throughout July. Now, as a new school year looms, ChatGPT usage is picking back up again.
Per Futurism, other drops in ChatGPT usage throughout the school year coincided with weekends; a Google report on shopping trends also outlined that searches for “AI laptops” more than quadrupled from mid-April to the end of May, during exam season; and a Pew Research survey from January found that the share of teens who said they use ChatGPT for schoolwork doubled to 26% from 2023 to 2025.
Though even the most esteemed institutes for learning advocate for supporting education with AI tools, the impact that overreliance on the tech could have on skill development, intellectual standards, and research integrity — particularly at the college level — is yet to be seen.
A recent flurry of news reports highlights how teens and users facing mental health crises turn to ChatGPT for help, but the tool lacks features needed to alert others and dissuade self-harm.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on X yesterday that “~80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus,” the company’s humanoid robots that are still under development and not yet earning revenue. Tesla, of course, still makes the vast majority of its declining revenue on cars that people drive, but Musk has been shifting the company’s value proposition to emphasize its future in autonomous cars and robots. The company’s latest “Master Plan” reiterates the concept of “sustainable abundance” from an earnings call earlier this year, but is again notably light on details.
Elon Musk’s xAI has filed suit in Northern California federal court against a former engineer, alleging that he stole trade secrets from the company just before leaving for a job at OpenAI.
Xuechen Li started working for xAI in February 2024 after receiving his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University.
In late July, Li sold $7 million worth of his xAI shares to the company as part of a liquidity grant for employees.
The complaint alleges that once the sale was complete, Li illegally copied xAI files:
“On July 25, 2025 — the same day he concluded his second sale of equity and had millions in cash on hand — Defendant betrayed the trust and faith xAI had placed in him by willfully and maliciously copying xAI Confidential Information (as defined in the Agreement) and trade secrets from his xAI-issued laptop to one or more non-xAI physical or online storage systems within his personal control (collectively, ‘Personal System’).”
Three days later, Li resigned to take a job at OpenAI.
Reuters wrote that Li didn’t immediately respond to its request for comment.
The complaint also alleges:
“Defendant, with his attorney present, admitted in a handwritten document he provided to xAI that he misappropriated xAI’s Confidential Information and trade secrets, and again, with his attorney present, admitted verbally during in-person meetings with xAI that he engaged in such misappropriation and further admitted that he tried to hide his theft.”
The complaint also alleges Li withheld accounts and credentials from forensic investigators after handing over personal devices to the company.
The complaint alleges that once the sale was complete, Li illegally copied xAI files:
“On July 25, 2025 — the same day he concluded his second sale of equity and had millions in cash on hand — Defendant betrayed the trust and faith xAI had placed in him by willfully and maliciously copying xAI Confidential Information (as defined in the Agreement) and trade secrets from his xAI-issued laptop to one or more non-xAI physical or online storage systems within his personal control (collectively, ‘Personal System’).”
Three days later, Li resigned to take a job at OpenAI.
Reuters wrote that Li didn’t immediately respond to its request for comment.
The complaint also alleges:
“Defendant, with his attorney present, admitted in a handwritten document he provided to xAI that he misappropriated xAI’s Confidential Information and trade secrets, and again, with his attorney present, admitted verbally during in-person meetings with xAI that he engaged in such misappropriation and further admitted that he tried to hide his theft.”
The complaint also alleges Li withheld accounts and credentials from forensic investigators after handing over personal devices to the company.
This week, Wired reported that things weren’t exactly humming along in Mark Zuckerberg’s AI all-star-packed Meta Superintelligence Labs, with some recent hires leaving the company after just weeks.
Today more details are emerging from the Financial Times, which reports that the team of newly minted multimillionaire AI pirates is struggling to adapt to life inside a legacy Big Tech company.
The new recruits, some of whom were reportedly offered nine-figure signing bonuses, appear to be flexing their newfound power.
One of the highest-profile recruits, ChatGPT cocreator Shengjia Zhao, reportedly threatened to return to OpenAI just days after joining Meta and had even started filling out paperwork at his old employer before Meta appeased him with the new title of “chief AI scientist.”
Avi Verma, one of the recent hires who left, didn’t show for his first full day of work after going through Meta onboarding, according to the report.
Meta told the FT that “some attrition is normal for any organization of this size. Most of these employees had been with the company for years, and we wish them the best.”
Today more details are emerging from the Financial Times, which reports that the team of newly minted multimillionaire AI pirates is struggling to adapt to life inside a legacy Big Tech company.
The new recruits, some of whom were reportedly offered nine-figure signing bonuses, appear to be flexing their newfound power.
One of the highest-profile recruits, ChatGPT cocreator Shengjia Zhao, reportedly threatened to return to OpenAI just days after joining Meta and had even started filling out paperwork at his old employer before Meta appeased him with the new title of “chief AI scientist.”
Avi Verma, one of the recent hires who left, didn’t show for his first full day of work after going through Meta onboarding, according to the report.
Meta told the FT that “some attrition is normal for any organization of this size. Most of these employees had been with the company for years, and we wish them the best.”
Earlier this month a number of AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, announced partnerships with the US government wherein federal workers would get access to their respective chatbots for ludicrously small fees. Notably absent was xAI’s Grok, which missed out on the initiative after it began praising Hitler last month. That no longer seems to be a problem for the government.
Wired reports that the White House earlier this week ordered federal workers to roll out Grok “ASAP.” It’s unclear what caused the about-face. Perhaps xAI and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is back in President Trump’s good graces, after fallouts earlier this summer.
AI companies are hoping that by offering government agencies access to their services for incredibly low prices — $1 per year for ChatGPT and Claude, and $0.47 for Gemini — they’ll be able to hook workers into relying on their products and will eventually be able to eke out more lucrative contracts.
Wired reports that the White House earlier this week ordered federal workers to roll out Grok “ASAP.” It’s unclear what caused the about-face. Perhaps xAI and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is back in President Trump’s good graces, after fallouts earlier this summer.
AI companies are hoping that by offering government agencies access to their services for incredibly low prices — $1 per year for ChatGPT and Claude, and $0.47 for Gemini — they’ll be able to hook workers into relying on their products and will eventually be able to eke out more lucrative contracts.
