Hey neighbor,
Big week in AI — and one story in particular reads like a Hollywood drama. Let's get into it.
THIS WEEK IN AI
Elon Musk vs. OpenAI is heading to trial
Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI is heading to trial, with OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman set to be questioned under oath. PwC The core of the dispute is whether OpenAI betrayed its original mission as a nonprofit dedicated to benefiting humanity when it transitioned to a for-profit company.
What does this mean for you? This trial could reshape how AI companies are allowed to operate and who they're accountable to. If the court sides with Musk it could force OpenAI to change how it does business — which could affect the AI tools millions of people use every day, including ChatGPT.
Big Tech is spending $600 billion on AI this year alone
Total AI infrastructure spending from major tech companies is forecast to hit $600 billion in 2026 Boston Institute of Analytics — on chips, data centers, cloud capacity, and power. To put that in perspective, that's more than the entire GDP of many countries being spent in a single year just to build the backbone of AI.
Why does this matter to you? Because all of this spending is a bet that AI tools are going to become as essential as electricity or the internet. The companies writing these checks believe AI will be everywhere within a few years — and they're racing to be the ones who power it.
Over 560 Google employees signed a letter against military AI
More than 560 Google employees signed an open letter to their CEO urging him to refuse letting the U.S. government use Google's AI technology for classified military operations. PwC The employees wrote that they want to see AI benefit humanity, not be used in harmful ways.
This is a fascinating moment — regular employees pushing back against how their company's AI is being used. It shows that the people building these tools have opinions about how they should be deployed, and those opinions don't always match what their employers want to do.
PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLAINER
Why is everyone suddenly talking about "AI agents"?
You may have noticed the phrase "AI agent" showing up everywhere lately. Here's what it actually means in plain English.
A regular AI tool — like ChatGPT — is like a very knowledgeable friend you can text questions to. You ask, it answers. One question at a time.
An AI agent is different. It's more like hiring someone to handle an entire project for you. You give it a goal — "research the best family vacation spots in Florida under $3,000" — and it goes off, browses the web, compares options, reads reviews, and comes back with a complete recommendation. It does multiple steps on its own without you having to guide every move.
In April 2026, AI is moving beyond chatbots into autonomous execution systems — shifting from "Ask a question" interfaces into "Execute a workflow" systems. Humai
What this means for everyday people: within the next year or two you'll likely have access to AI that can book your appointments, fill out forms, compare prices across websites, and handle routine tasks — all by giving it a simple instruction in plain English.
TOOL OF THE WEEK
Try this: Perplexity AI — like Google, but it actually answers your question
If you've ever Googled something and gotten frustrated wading through ten ads and irrelevant links before finding what you need, Perplexity is for you.
It's a free AI-powered search tool that actually answers your question directly — with sources cited so you can verify. Think of it as a smarter, cleaner search engine.
Here are three things to try right now:
→ Ask it "what's the best free AI tool for writing emails?" and see how it compares to Googling the same thing
→ Ask it to summarize the latest news on any topic you care about
→ Ask it a health question and see how it explains things compared to a regular Google search
Go to perplexity.ai — it's completely free and no account required to start.
NEIGHBOR'S THOUGHT
The people building AI have doubts too
This week 560 Google employees signed a letter saying they don't want their work used for military purposes. That stuck with me.
We often talk about AI as if it's this unstoppable force being built by faceless corporations. But behind every AI tool are actual people — engineers, researchers, designers — who have their own values and concerns about how this technology gets used.
The fact that employees feel strongly enough to sign their names to a public letter of protest tells you something important: the people closest to this technology are thinking carefully about its implications. They're not just building and moving on. They're asking hard questions.
That's actually reassuring. It means the conversation about how AI should be used isn't just happening in government hearings and think tanks — it's happening inside the companies building these tools every single day.
UNTIL NEXT WEEK
That's your week in AI, neighbor-style. If you found this useful, the single best thing you can do is forward it to one person who's been curious about AI but doesn't know where to start.
See you next Thursday. ☀️
— The AI Neighbor Team theaineighbor.com