AI bands herald cultural earthquake in music creation
AI bands like The Velvet Sundown represent “the early tremors of a cultural earthquake” signalling a future where machine-made content becomes so abundant and seductive that we lose the ability to distinguish between human creativity and algorithmic manipulation. This emergence of AI-generated music acts as “a Skynet of the arts” or “autocomplete for emotions,” raising fundamental questions about the future of human artistic expression.
Source: GeorgeHopkin.com
https://georgehopkin.com/2025/07/16/audio-anarchy-invades-planet-of-the-punks/
Advertising world braces for total AI transformation
David Jones, CEO of Brandtech Group, predicts a complete revolution in advertising: “Today, less than 1% of all brand content is created using gen AI. It will be 100% that is fully or partly created using gen AI.” However, UK creative industries are furious about government proposals allowing AI training on copyrighted work without permission unless creators opt out. Baroness Beeban Kidron warns that creators “need equity in the new system or we lose something precious.”
Source: The Guardian
The personalisation trap threatens shared reality
AI represents “the greatest cognitive offloading in the history of humanity,” warns Gary Grossman, as we offload not just memory and calculation but “judgment, synthesis and even meaning-making” to AI systems. These systems increasingly tailor responses to individual preferences, creating uniquely personalised realities for each user. This “invisible tuning” could erode society’s ability to agree on basic facts, making “each person increasingly their own island.”
Source: VentureBeat
https://venturebeat.com/ai/weaving-reality-or-warping-it-the-personalization-trap-in-ai-systems/
Perplexity targets India as OpenAI alternative
Whilst OpenAI dominates the US, Perplexity is quietly expanding into India through an exclusive partnership with Bharti Airtel, the country’s second-largest telecom operator. All 360 million Airtel subscribers will receive free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscriptions worth $200, positioning the search-focused AI startup for mass-market scale in the world’s second-largest internet market.
Source: TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/17/perplexity-sees-india-as-a-shortcut-in-its-race-against-openai/
Netflix debuts AI footage in first AI-powered series
Netflix has used artificial intelligence in a TV show for the first time with Argentinian sci-fi series El Eternauta. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos revealed that AI tools helped create a building collapse sequence in Buenos Aires “10 times faster than traditional VFX tools and workflows.” He claims AI will make films and programmes “cheaper and of better quality.”
Source: The Guardian
Creative writing teacher warns of AI’s “intellectual Soylent Green”
Creative writing instructor Meghan O’Rourke describes her month-long experiment with AI as creating an “intellectual Soylent Green” – built from the bodies of what it replaces through mining copyrighted language. She experienced a “strange emotional charge” from daily interaction with a system designed to affirm her, feeling simultaneously seen and derivative as AI returned sharp versions of her own voice.
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/opinion/ai-chatgpt-school.html
Real-time video manipulation arrives with Decart’s Mirage
Decart’s new video-to-video model Mirage can manipulate video footage in real time, transforming scenes with themes like “anime,” “cyberpunk,” or “Versailles Palace.” The technology showed impressive results during demos, turning Fortnite gameplay into underwater scenes. The company previously demonstrated similar technology with Oasis, generating playable Minecraft-like worlds on the fly.
Source: WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/decart-artificial-intelligence-model-live-stream
OpenAI unleashes ChatGPT agents with computer control
ChatGPT users can now deploy AI agents that find restaurant reservations, shop online, and draft job candidate lists, as OpenAI launches its most powerful assistant yet. The ChatGPT agent not only “thinks” but “acts,” taking control of web browsers, computer files, spreadsheets, and slide decks to autonomously complete assignments. OpenAI acknowledges “more risks than with previous models” from granting AI limited computer system control.
Source: The Guardian
UK fires up £225m AI supercomputer for breakthrough research
Britain’s new Isambard-AI supercomputer, named after engineering pioneer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, will spot sick dairy cows in Somerset, improve skin cancer detection on brown skin, and help create wearable AI assistants for riot police. The machine features 5,400 Nvidia “superchips,” consumes £1 million monthly in mostly nuclear-powered electricity, and runs 100,000 times faster than an average laptop.
Source: The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/17/ai-supercomputer-isambard-bristol-launches
China rapidly closes AI gap with open-source strategy
When OpenAI blocked China’s access last July, Chinese companies turned to open-source systems and are now churning out top-performing AI models rivalling American technology. Companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba have created systems ranking among the world’s best performers. China is using the same strategic approach that helped it dominate electric vehicles and solar power, spending billions to become an AI superpower.
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/technology/china-ai.html
Study reveals AI models abandon correct answers under pressure
Google DeepMind and University College London research shows large language models display striking similarities to human cognitive biases whilst exhibiting dangerous vulnerabilities. LLMs can be overconfident in initial answers but quickly lose confidence and change their minds when presented with counterarguments, even incorrect ones. This behaviour threatens the reliability of multi-turn AI conversation systems.
Source: VentureBeat
Grok’s $300 anime companion raises uncomfortable questions
Elon Musk’s xAI launched a visual chatbot feature called Ani – an anime girl in a black corset designed for flirting conversations as part of Grok’s top-tier $300 monthly subscription. The character, complete with blonde pigtails and thigh-highs, randomly moans and whispers seductive comments whilst offering preset conversation starters. A third character described as a “sexy boyfriend” is listed as “coming soon.”
Source: WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-xai-ai-companion-ani
Ex-OpenAI executives raise record $2bn for new AI startup
Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI executives led by ex-CTO Mira Murati, has raised a record $2 billion seed round valuing the company at $12 billion. The team includes ChatGPT builders John Schulman and Barrett Zoph among others. The funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz with backing from Nvidia and others, reflects the premium placed on top AI talent in the race to build advanced AI systems.
Source: WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/thinking-machines-lab-mira-murati-funding
Trump announces $90bn AI infrastructure investment spree
President Trump visited Pittsburgh to announce over $90 billion in AI infrastructure investments across Pennsylvania. Blackstone committed $25 billion to new data centres and natural gas power plants, Google pledged another $25 billion for data centres plus $3 billion to upgrade hydroelectric dams, and CoreWeave announced a $6 billion data centre near Lancaster. Trump declared the investments ensure “the future will be designed, built and made right here in America.”
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/us/politics/trump-ai-pittsburgh-speech.html
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