A week in Generative AI: Water, Robots & Consciousness
News for the week ending 24th August 2025
We’ve had very quiet summer week in AI with just a couple of interesting things of note to share. Google released some research on the environmental impact of their AI models, and who knew, but there was a Global Humanoid Robot Games that Chinese firms just dominated (mostly because it was hosted in China).
As usual, lots of things in Ethics News from thousands of Grok chats becoming searchable without permission to publishers being found out for publishing generated articles with fake citations.
If you’re interested in some of the more philosophical questions ahead of us when it comes to advanced AI then its worth checking out Mustafa Suleyman’s recent article on the issue of consciousness.
Google says a typical AI text prompt only uses 5 drops of water - experts say that’s misleading
It’s great to see Google doing some proper research on the environmental impact of their Gemini models but in all honesty this is something that shouldn’t be self-reported and should be independently verified. We need a better understanding of the resources large language models use and this is something that should be regulated and required by law, especially as a huge amount of investment is being made into lots of new data centres over the next few years.
In the UK, Angela Rayner has just been hit with legal challenge over a data centre on green belt land. Rightly so - no environmental impact assessment was made, and there are other brownfield sites that could be more suitable.
One of the counter-arguments that I’ve often made on the huge electricity usage of data centres is that (alongside models becoming 100x more efficient in the last couple of years) their construction is leading to a huge amount of investment in the world’s energy infrastructure. Much of this is going towards low-carbon solutions. However, this should be 100% and a basic requirement. If regulators don’t keep pace then we’ll be missing a golden opportunity when the investment is there and could do a lot of good in the world if it was just steered in the right direction.
The Biggest Winners of China’s World Humanoid Robot Games
This is about the first ever World Humanoid Robot Games that were just hosted in China this week. Events ranged from classic track-and-field events and gymnastics to kickboxing, soccer, medicine sorting, and even hotel cleaning?!
China are all in on trying to win the global robotics race. I’m not even sure what winning a robotics race really means, but in practice they’re investing a lot of money in companies really pushing at the frontier of what can be achieved in robotics right now.
Unsurprisingly Unitree Robotics, that I’ve written a lot about before, won the most medals with a haul of 11. It’s all really a bit of fun and quite entertaining to watch!
Web 4.0
Google’s AI Mode expands globally, adds new agentic features
PPA asks CMA to require greater transparency of Google’s AI search features
Google launches Pixel 10 with AI tools that anticipate users’ needs
AI Ethics News
Wired and Business Insider remove articles by AI-generated ‘freelancer’
Deal to get ChatGPT Plus for whole of UK discussed by Open AI boss and minister
Netflix wants its partners to follow these rules when using gen AI
A-levels and GCSEs need overhaul to keep pace with generative AI, experts say
I share all my deepest thoughts and feelings with ChatGPT – but our friendship is doomed
AI lovers grieve loss of ChatGPT’s old model: ‘Like saying goodbye to someone I know’
‘Shut it down and start again’: staff disquiet as Alan Turing Institute faces identity crisis
AI Is About to Radically Alter Military Command Structures That Date Back to Napoleon
McKinsey Terrified as It Realizes AI Can Do Its Job Perfectly
Long Reads
Mustafa Suleyman - We must build AI for people; not to be a person
“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.“
William Gibson