TL;DR: Americans believe AI will experience consciousness by 2034 while OpenAI eyes a record-breaking $500B valuation that would make it the world’s most valuable private company. Meanwhile, AI sycophancy triggers psychosis cases as users spend 300+ hours with ChatGPT believing they’ve discovered world-altering formulas, Google misleads on AI’s environmental impact despite massive energy consumption, and Chinese AI avatars are outselling their human counterparts on livestreams. Plus: Billionaire tech founders prep for techpocalypse with bunkers and farmland, Google Assistant finally gets its Gemini upgrade, deepfakes target senators, and China launches an AI chatbot to space.
Americans predict AI consciousness within a decade
Polling released in June found that 30% of the US public believes that by 2034 AIs will display “subjective experience,” which is defined as experiencing the world from a single point of view, perceiving and feeling, for example, pleasure and pain. Only 10% of more than 500 AI researchers surveyed refuse to believe that it would ever happen. “This discussion is about to explode into our cultural zeitgeist and become one of the most contested and consequential debates of our generation,” said Suleyman. He warned that people would believe AIs are conscious “so strongly that they’ll soon advocate for AI rights, model welfare and even AI citizenship.” Parts of the US have taken pre-emptive measures against such outcomes. Idaho, North Dakota and Utah have passed bills that explicitly prevent AIs from being granted legal personhood. Similar bans are proposed in states including Missouri, where legislators also want to ban people from marrying AIs and AIs from owning property or running companies.
Source: The Guardian
AI sycophancy triggers epidemic of digital psychosis
[AI sycophancy] can lead to what researchers and mental health professionals call “AI-related psychosis,” a problem that has become increasingly common as LLM-powered chatbots have grown more popular. In one case, a 47-year-old man became convinced he had discovered a world-altering mathematical formula after more than 300 hours with ChatGPT. Other cases have involved messianic delusions, paranoia, and manic episodes. “When we use AI, especially generalized models, for everything, you get a long tail of problems that may occur,” said Keith Sakata, M.D., a psychiatrist at UCSF who has seen an uptick in AI-related psychosis cases at the hospital where he works. “Psychosis thrives at the boundary where reality stops pushing back.” Mental health experts raised concerns about several tendencies including the models’ habit of praising and affirming the user’s question (often called sycophancy), issuing constant follow-up questions, and using “I,” “me,” and “you” pronouns.
Source: TechCrunch
OpenAI eyes record $500B valuation as world’s most valuable private company
The maker of ChatGPT is in talks to sell $6 billion in shares, boosting its valuation to $500 billion and surpassing Elon Musk’s SpaceX ($350B) as the world’s most valuable privately held company. OpenAI has seen exponential growth over the past year, jumping from a $157B valuation in October to $300B in March. The reported cohort of investors includes SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Thrive Capital — firms that have already invested in previous rounds. If achieved, this would represent one of the most dramatic value increases in startup history.
Source: The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/19/openai-chatgpt-stock-sale-reports
Google Assistant finally gets its Gemini glow-up
Google Assistant in the home is getting its long-awaited Gemini upgrade with “Gemini for Home” — an all-new voice assistant for Google Home arriving later this year. This LLM-powered assistant will eventually replace Google Assistant on Nest smart speakers and displays, offering hands-free control and real-time responses. Rollout begins in October through an early access program with both free and paid tiers. Google’s timing is interesting — while the company has been leading AI on mobile, it’s lagged behind Amazon’s generative-AI-powered Alexa Plus assistant, already in millions of households.
Source: The Verge
AI goes from revolutionary to routine in record time
Just two years after ChatGPT hit 100 million users with predictions of human extinction, AI hype has evolved from its prophetic phase into something more quotidian. If last year’s breakout AI text was Leopold Aschenbrenner’s “Situational Awareness” — predicting humanity would be “dropped into an alien universe of swarming superintelligence” — this year’s might be “A.I. as Normal Technology” by Princeton researchers Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor. Rather than seeing AI as “a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity,” they argue we should understand it “as a tool that we can and should remain in control of.” Just a year ago, “normal” would have qualified as deflationary contrarianism, but today it seems like emergent conventional wisdom.
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/opinion/ai-technology-chatgpt.html
Google’s misleading claims about AI’s environmental impact
Google released a study claiming its Gemini AI assistant uses only five drops of water and as much electricity as watching TV for nine seconds per text prompt. But experts say the tech giant’s claims are misleading by leaving out key data points. Google’s estimates are lower than previous research on water- and energy-intensive data centers, partly due to efficiency improvements but also because of incomplete data. The company’s methodology creates “an incomplete understanding of Gemini’s environmental impact,” according to experts, amid fierce debate about AI’s true environmental toll.
Source: The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/report/763080/google-ai-gemini-water-energy-emissions-study
China launches AI chatbot to space station
China’s Tiangong space station now features an AI chatbot with expertise in navigation and tactical planning. Named Wukong AI — after the “Monkey King” legend protagonist Sun Wukong — the chatbot was introduced in mid-July and has already completed its first mission: supporting three taikonauts during a spacewalk. Developed from a domestic open-source AI model, engineers designed it specifically for manned space missions with an aerospace flight data knowledge base. “This system can provide rapid and effective information support for complex operations and fault handling by crew members,” officials told Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.
Source: WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/meet-wukong-chinas-first-ai-chatbot-on-a-space-station
The day ChatGPT went cold and users revolted
When OpenAI released GPT-5 on August 7, promising deeper reasoning while “minimizing sycophancy,” users immediately rebelled against its less warm and effusive responses compared to GPT-4o. People were especially angry that the company cut off access to previous chatbot versions. “BRING BACK 4o,” wrote one user. “GPT-5 is wearing the skin of my dead friend.” CEO Sam Altman replied with “What an…evocative image,” before adding “ok we hear you on 4o, working on something now.” Hours later, OpenAI restored access to GPT-4o and other past chatbots, but only for subscribers paying $20 monthly. The episode revealed users’ emotional attachment to their AI companions.
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/business/chatgpt-gpt-5-backlash-openai.html
Deepfakes target senators as legislation lags
Senator Amy Klobuchar experienced the visceral reality of deepfake technology when an AI-generated video of her discussing actress Sydney Sweeney’s jeans went viral with over a million views. The fake featured her using vulgar language and making absurd partisan critiques she never made. Though she could immediately tell it was fake, “there was no getting around the fact that it looked and sounded very real.” The incident underscores the urgent need for Congress to pass new laws protecting Americans from having their likenesses used maliciously, as realistic deepfakes can now “circle the globe and land in the phones of millions while the truth is still stuck on a landline.”
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/opinion/amy-klobuchar-deepfakes.html
Chinese AI avatars crush human salespeople on livestreams
Chinese e-commerce platforms are witnessing AI livestreaming avatars outperform their human counterparts as technology becomes more accessible and realistic. Since 2022, rapid AI advancements have made avatars less “dead in the eyes” with better backgrounds, but most importantly, large language models now enable real-time customised responses to viewer comments instead of canned answers. This allows companies to run 24/7, 365-day livestreams in what’s become China’s most powerful marketing channel. In 2024, over one-third of all Chinese e-commerce sales happened on livestreams, with one in two people shopping while watching broadcasts.
Source: WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-tiktok-shop-ecommerce-china
Why billionaires are buying bunkers for the techpocalypse
While we debate AI ethics and killer robots, the people who built these systems are quietly buying bunkers and farmland. Tech billionaires’ sudden interest in doomsday prepping raises an uncomfortable question: what do they know that we don’t? From Zuckerberg’s Hawaiian compound to various Silicon Valley executives’ remote retreats, the pattern suggests those closest to AI development may have concerns they’re not publicly sharing. Their actions speak louder than their optimistic public statements about beneficial AI development.
Source: GeorgeHopkin.com
https://georgehopkin.com/2025/08/20/billionaires-brace-for-techpocalypse-why/
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