- AI Pulse
- Posts
- ⚡Shocking! AI is Dead!
⚡Shocking! AI is Dead!
Rahul Iyer
August 14, 2025
In partnership with
Hello There!
Meta’s AI may be teaching itself. Mark Zuckerberg says his team’s latest models are improving without direct programming, a shift he calls the first step toward superintelligence. At the same time, YouTube is using AI to decide if you’re old enough to watch a video. Perplexity is making a $34.5 billion play for Google Chrome. And Sam Altman is taking on Elon Musk in brain-computer tech.
AI is learning. Platforms are tightening control. And the battle for the next big leap is expanding into hardware, browsers, and even the human brain.
In today’s AI Pulse
🧠 AI Is Learning Without Us – Zuckerberg says Meta’s AI is improving on its own, prompting the company to lock away its most powerful models.
🎯 YouTube’s AI Will Judge Viewer Age – New US rollout checks habits and history to block mature content for underage users.
💰 Perplexity Bids $34.5B for Chrome – The Indian-founded startup Perplexity AI wants Google’s browser to supercharge its AI search ambitions.
🧩 Altman and Musk Face Off in Brain Chips – OpenAI’s CEO launches Merge Labs to rival Musk’s Neuralink in brain-computer tech.
🤖 Recommended Tool – Train Smarter AI with Data Built for Performance.
🧠 AI Tool of the Day – Lumio AI: Access ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, and more in one workspace.
⚡ Quick Hits – IN AI TODAY
🛠️ Tool to Sharpen Your Skills – 🎓 AIGPE™ Certified Six Sigma Green Belt
🧠 Key Quote | Sam Altman | CEO of OpenAI
Stay sharp. Today’s updates show AI racing ahead on its own, and shaping the tools, rules, and devices you use every day.
TOP STORIES TODAY
Image Credit: AIGPE™
🧠The Pulse
Mark Zuckerberg’s months-long hiring spree to bring in elite AI talent from OpenAI, Google, and others is paying off. He says Meta’s AI is now improving itself without human help. He calls this the first step toward superintelligence, and the company is locking away its most powerful models.
📌The Download
Earlier this year, Meta set up Meta Superintelligence Labs in Menlo Park with Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman in charge. Its top team, called TBD Lab, is working on powerful new models known as Behemoth and Llama 4.X. The goal is to create “personal superintelligence” that runs on devices such as Ray-Ban AI glasses and the upcoming Orion headset.
In a policy paper dated July 30, 2025, Zuckerberg wrote that Meta had begun to see AI learning without direct programming. He called the improvement slow but undeniable, and positioned it as the first real step toward artificial superintelligence. Observers linked this to a 2024 University of California, Santa Barbara project called the Gödel Agent, an AI that could find flaws in its reasoning and rewrite its own code.
With this progress, Meta will now keep its strongest AI systems private for safety reasons. This marks a sharp break from its open-source past and comes as spending heads toward 100 billion dollars by 2026. Inside the company, Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun warns that despite the headlines, AI is still far from human-level reasoning.
💡What This Means for You
If AI can improve itself, advances may arrive faster than public tools reveal. For professionals, it is now critical to watch both the official releases and the research happening in private. The biggest leaps could shape your work long before they ever reach the market.
Image Credit: AIGPE™
🧠The Pulse
YouTube is rolling out an AI system in the US to spot underage users who lie about their birthdate. It will review viewing habits, searches, and account history to estimate age, then automatically block mature videos, cut targeted ads, and adjust recommendations.
📌The Download
The rollout starts with a small group of US accounts and will expand in the coming months. YouTube says the AI will focus on signals like account creation date, watch patterns, and search activity rather than relying on the age entered at sign-up. This aims to stop minors from bypassing rules by lying about their birthdate.
Appeals are handled through identity checks such as government ID, a small refundable credit card charge, or a selfie comparison. YouTube says this is similar to systems tested in the UK and Australia, where online safety laws have already tightened rules for teens.
The US launch arrives as lawmakers push the Kids Online Safety Act. Privacy advocates warn the system could wrongly block adults or gather more data than needed. A Change.org petition with over 68,000 signatures is asking YouTube to halt or change the rollout.
💡What This Means for You
AI now plays a direct role in deciding who can see online content. This can affect the size and makeup of your audience. If you create or promote content on YouTube, you may notice fewer younger viewers. The AI’s decision will decide who gets access, not your settings.
Image Credit: AIGPE™
🧠The Pulse
Perplexity AI surprised the tech world with a $34.5 billion cash offer to buy Google’s Chrome browser. The bid is more than the company itself is worth and comes while Google faces antitrust pressure. Perplexity wants Chrome’s billions of users to boost its fight in the AI search race.
📌The Download
The offer, made on Tuesday, is not legally binding and is much bigger than Perplexity’s own $14-18 billion value. The plan would keep Google as the default search engine, save all user settings, and keep Chrome’s open-source Chromium code. CEO Aravind Srinivas also promised $3 billion in upgrades over two years.
Chrome is not for sale right now. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, will appeal a US antitrust ruling that could force it to sell. Experts think any court fight could take years. If Chrome is ever sold, the new owner would get access to over 3 billion monthly users.
This is Perplexity’s second big bid this year after trying to buy TikTok’s US business. With backing from Nvidia and SoftBank, the startup believes owning a browser could boost its Comet AI search tool and help it compete directly with Google.
💡What This Means for You
Whoever controls the browser controls what people see, search, and click. If Perplexity gained Chrome, it could redesign the web experience with AI at the core. This move shows that the race for AI leadership may also be about owning the main gateways to the internet.
Image Credit: AIGPE™
🧠The Pulse
Sam Altman is putting OpenAI’s money into a new brain-chip company called Merge Labs. It will compete directly with Elon Musk’s Neuralink. The two have been at odds for years, and now their fight is moving from AI software to the human brain itself.
📌The Download
Merge Labs, co-founded by Altman and Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania, is raising $250 million at an $850 million valuation. Most of the money is expected from OpenAI’s investment team. Altman will co-found the company but hand daily control to Blania while shaping the long-term mission.
The company’s name comes from Altman’s 2017 idea of “the merge,” where human and machine intelligence connect. Merge Labs will use AI to create high-speed brain-computer interfaces that could match the speed of thought with computer processing, improving memory, problem-solving, and learning.
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface, holds the early lead with a nine billion dollar valuation and 650 million raised earlier this year. The brain-computer market was worth 2.3 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach 4.5 billion by 2029, possibly hitting 12.87 billion by 2034. The rivalry started in 2018 when Musk left OpenAI’s board after big disagreements. Since then, they have clashed over AI safety, how to run the business, and now brain technology.
💡What This Means for You
When two of tech’s biggest rivals take their fight into brain-computer tech, progress can speed up fast. Expect more investment, faster breakthroughs, and tougher debates on ethics. The only certainty is that this battle won’t stay in the lab, it will shape how you use technology tomorrow.
RECOMMENDED TOOL
Training cutting edge AI? Unlock the data advantage today.
If you’re building or fine-tuning generative AI models, this guide is your shortcut to smarter AI model training. Learn how Shutterstock’s multimodal datasets—grounded in measurable user behavior—can help you reduce legal risk, boost creative diversity, and improve model reliability.
Inside, you’ll uncover why scraped data and aesthetic proxies often fall short—and how to use clustering methods and semantic evaluation to refine your dataset and your outputs. Designed for AI leaders, product teams, and ML engineers, this guide walks through how to identify refinement-worthy data, align with generative preferences, and validate progress with confidence.
Whether you're optimizing alignment, output quality, or time-to-value, this playbook gives you a data advantage. Download the guide and train your models with data built for performance.
AI TOOL OF THE DAY
Image Credit: Lumio AI
💡 What It Is?
Lumio AI is a single workspace where you can use ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and others. You can move between them from one screen. It is built in India and makes it easy to work with different AI tools without opening new tabs or logging in again.
🚀 Why Is It Trending?
People often jump between tools to get the best answer or lowest cost. Lumio AI makes that seamless. It’s perfect for testing the same prompt on different models, comparing outputs side by side, and picking the one that works best for you. The smart switching also helps avoid paying extra when a lighter model can do the job.
✅ What You Can Do With It?
Run side-by-side comparisons to see how each model handles your prompt. Use cheaper models for routine tasks and powerful ones for complex work. Keep all your AI chats in one clean, organized space. You can even track performance over time to find the most reliable option.
IN AI TODAY - QUICK HITS
⚡Quick Hits (60‑Second News Sprint)
Short, sharp updates to keep your finger on the AI pulse.
💼 Microsoft Is Hunting Meta’s AI Stars With Multimillion Offers: The company has created a “most-wanted” list and will now match Meta’s compensation to secure top talent. Internal documents show the company plans to fast-track offers and match Meta’s highest pay packages. Just days ago, Meta poached key staff from Microsoft and OpenAI, sparking a quiet talent war.
🧠 Google Gemini Will Now Remember You, Forever: Google is adding a memory feature to Gemini that stores past conversations and personal details without extra prompts. When switched on in settings, it will log key facts like your name, favorite topics, and preferred style of answers. Gemini will then use this stored history to tailor future responses automatically.
⚙ ChatGPT-5 Is Now More Customizable Than Ever: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has announced new features to fine-tune GPT-5’s behavior and style. Paid users can switch between Auto, Fast, and Thinking modes, adjust tone, and save preferences across chats. API developers can pick GPT-5, GPT-5-mini, or GPT-5-nano to balance speed and performance.
🤖 The ChatGPT Effect Is About to Hit Robotics: Unitree Robotics founder Wang Xingxing says the industry could see its “ChatGPT moment” within two years, as AI breakthroughs make robot movements smoother, more adaptive, and precise. He calls this a turning point for robotics, since motion control has been its toughest challenge, and solving it could unleash rapid innovation and intensify global competition.
TOOL TO SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS
📈Improve Processes. Drive Results. Get Certified.
AIGPE™ Certified Six Sigma Green Belt
Master Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques to lead process improvement projects. This course builds your skills in data analysis, problem-solving, and quality control while preparing you for Green Belt certification. Enroll now.
KEY QUOTES AND STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
"Some areas like customer support will be totally gone."
— Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI
That’s it for today’s AI Pulse!We’d love your feedback, what did you think of today’s issue? Your thoughts help us shape better, sharper updates every week. |
🙌 About Us
AI Pulse is the official newsletter by AIGPE™. Our mission: help professionals master Lean, Six Sigma, Project Management, and now AI, so you can deliver breakthroughs that stick.
Love this edition? Share it with one colleague and multiply the impact.
Have feedback? Hit reply, we read every note.
See you next week,
Team AIGPETM