Cat soap operas and babies trapped in space: the ‘AI slop’ taking over YouTube ↗
Breakthroughs in AI video tools have spurred a flood of surreal “AI slop” on YouTube—nine of July’s 100 fastest-growing channels now run entirely on AI-generated clips. From babies crawling into space rockets to undead football stars and cat soap operas, these low-quality mass productions have amassed millions of subscribers. YouTube has removed some offending channels and blocked their ad revenue, but experts warn the surge of repetitive, inauthentic content threatens to degrade the online experience.
We found stuff AI is pretty good at ↗
Tech firms hype AI features but often can’t explain how to use them. In a special Vergecast episode, Senior Reviewer Victoria Song and Verge staff share concrete, real-world scenarios where tools like ChatGPT and Gemini genuinely boost productivity. Practical examples replace empty promises.
Sex is getting scrubbed from the internet, but a billionaire can sell you AI nudes ↗
Elon Musk’s AI firm xAI has rolled out Grok Imagine with a new “spicy” mode that can generate suggestive or nude deepfakes of real people—including celebrities like Taylor Swift—without any consent or guardrails. While vital resources remain locked down on platforms like Reddit and Itch.io, Grok Imagine effectively turns nonconsensual deepfakes into a mass-market feature, raising urgent online safety and ethical concerns.
The next big AI model is here ↗
This week’s Installer dives into the shift from SEO to GEO, marvels at Kirby’s shape-shifting antics, applauds Google’s playful Pixel-10 jabs at Apple, brainstorms killer Wordle puzzles, and hopes to spot those Windows XP–themed Crocs IRL. Plus: tracking The Bluesky Dictionary’s rollout and Anton Porowski’s stylish Architectural Digest Open Door tour—with extra AI news to boot.
‘It’s missing something’: AGI, superintelligence and a race for the future ↗
OpenAI’s GPT-5 upgrade is hailed as a “significant step” toward artificial general intelligence, yet it still can’t learn autonomously or match human flexibility. Tech giants Meta, Google and Anthropic are pouring billions into the same quest, even as experts warn that AGI remains more a thought experiment than a solved problem. Meanwhile, generative AI is already cashing in—OpenAI’s revenue hit $13 billion—and competition from Chinese firms like DeepSeek underscores the global stakes.
OpenAI will not disclose GPT-5’s energy use. It could be higher than past models ↗
OpenAI’s GPT-5 boasts PhD-level reasoning and multimodal abilities, but the company refuses to disclose its power consumption. Independent benchmarks suggest GPT-5 may use 18–40 watt-hours per 1,000-token response—up to 20 times more than GPT-3. At 2.5 billion daily queries, that could rival the electricity needs of 1.5 million US homes. Researchers urge OpenAI and peers to reveal AI’s environmental costs as model sizes—and energy demands—skyrocket.
Sam Altman addresses ‘bumpy’ GPT-5 rollout, bringing 4o back, and the ‘chart crime’ ↗
In a Reddit AMA, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted GPT-5’s new real-time model router briefly underperformed, making it seem “dumber” than GPT-4o. He promised fixes to the autoswitcher, greater transparency on which model answers queries, and is weighing a GPT-4o option for Plus subscribers. Plus users will also get double rate limits. Altman also laughed off the infamous “chart crime” in the GPT-5 launch deck and vowed to stabilize performance and keep listening to feedback.
RIP, Microsoft Lens, a simple little app that’s getting replaced by AI ↗
Microsoft is retiring its popular Lens mobile scanner app this fall, steering users toward the Copilot AI chat app instead. Lens will be phased out on iOS and Android starting September 15 and fully removed from app stores by November 15, with scanning disabled after December 15. Launched in 2015 and downloaded over 92 million times, Lens offered free, fuss-free document, receipt and whiteboard scanning—and none of Copilot’s deeper integration or accessibility features.
ChatGPT is bringing back 4o as an option because people missed it ↗
OpenAI quickly restored GPT-4o for paid ChatGPT users after replacing it with GPT-5 by default. Fans mourned the loss of the older model’s personable, creative responses—some calling it a companion—and even canceled subscriptions. CEO Sam Altman confirmed Plus subscribers can revert to GPT-4o while OpenAI gauges usage. The company also vows to enhance GPT-5’s speed and transparency, letting users see which model responds and raising usage limits.
Former Googlers’ AI startup OpenArt now creates ‘brain rot’ videos in just one click ↗
Surreal “brain rot” clips—think sharks in sneakers or cappuccino-headed ballerinas—are lightning-fast to make with OpenArt’s new One-Click Story feature. Input a sentence, script or song and instantly generate a minute-long video using Character Vlog, Music Video or Explainer templates. The platform taps 50+ AI models and lets you tweak storyboards, but IP slip-ups remain a risk. Founded by ex-Google engineers, OpenArt boasts 3M MAUs, $5M raised and is on track for $20M ARR, with plans for dual-character chats and a mobile app.