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Users have little love for OpenAI's latest model, Musk and Altman trade blows over antitrust violations, and Perplexity makes an audacious, unsolicited US$35.4 billion bid for Google Chrome.

“Feel like pure shit, just want her back”.

We’re sure this is not quite the reaction Sam Altman and Co. would’ve been expecting last week after the highly anticipated launch of their GPT-5 model. Instead of users lauding all the newest gen’s latest improvements, many have lamented the loss of many of its previous features.

It’s a good week for getting under the skin of the parasocial nature of AI users, as we take a look at AI relationships, digital rights and anti-DEI sentiment. Oh, and the actual anti-social nature of Elon Musk’s and Altman’s relationship.

This week’s a belter; do make sure to get stuck in, read online, and let us know what you think!

🚀 What we’re covering today…

• 💔 GPT-5 launch leaves users feeling out in the cold

• 💰 Perplexity’s $35.5B long-shot bid for Google Chrome

• 💥 Musk and Altman’s rivalry explodes

• 🦠 AI discovers ancient antibotic compounds

• 💲 Anthropic makes Claude (virtually) free to the US government

• 📳 “Wireless phone tapping” is here

• 🏳️‍🌈 Meta hires anti-DEI campaigner to oversee anti-bias efforts

• ❌ Why Grok Image echos paradoxical nature of digital rights

• 🚀 Is DeepSeek R2 about to be launched?

🔴 Quick Note: We like to cover loads of AI news in our newsletter, so for a better reading experience, we suggest opening this in your browser for the full experience! 

Head to the ‘READ ONLINE’ tab at the top of this email.

👁️ 👁️ What you might have missed

• In this week’s edition of Things We Love to See, the Musk-Altman rivalry escalated into a very public spat. It centres around Musk accusing Apple of favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the App Store, calling it an antitrust violation motivated by political ideology and threatening legal action. Altman shot back, alleging that Musk manipulates X’s algorithm for personal gain and to disadvantage competitors, and asked him to prove otherwise via a written affidavit. Naturally, Grok was brought in to adjudicate this lovers’ quarrel, while X’s best-known agitators were out in force stirring the proverbial. Absolute cinema.

• We love a moonshot at Big Machines: This week, Perplexity is taking lift off, after submitting an unsolicited, long-shot US$34.5 billion offer to buy Google’s Chrome browser. With antitrust pressure on Google rising, the Alphabet-owned company ultimately could be forced to divest to restore competition. It’s the boldest of moves by the AI startup, and analysts believe could be one that signals intent – a show of strength in a deepening tech race. It does raise plenty of questions, too: Is this an undervaluation of the browser? Would Perplexity retain Google as the default search engine? Where the holy fuck has Perplexity got the $34.5B, all-cash funds from?

• More news from the AI medisphere that gives me hope that one day I’ll shift this rash: Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have employed AI to discover new antibiotic compounds from Archaea, some of Earth's oldest and most resilient microbes called "archaeasins”. These compounds differ from traditional antibiotics and many demonstrated significant antimicrobial activity against drug-resistant bacteria in lab tests, with a few proving as effective as current last-resort antibiotics in animal trials. Another small but significant step forward for AI’s application in medical science.

• Anthropic has announced that its Claude platforms – Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government – are now available for the solitary sum of just $1, to all three branches of the US government for a year. Anthropic believes its partnership with the General Services Administration will remove cost barriers and accelerate government AI adoption, with the offer including advanced security features (FedRAMP High certification), technical support, and access to the latest Claude models. The initiative underscores the growing level of competition among AI firms to land incredibly lucrative federal AI contracts.

• This one is giving me not-so-good vibrations: Researchers at Penn State have demonstrated a new form of surveillance called “wireless-tapping,” which uses millimeter-wave radar sensors to remotely detect and transcribe phone conversations by capturing the tiny vibrations from a cellphone’s earpiece. Using AI and a customised version of the Whisper speech recognition model adapted for noisy radar data, they achieved about 60% transcription accuracy for vocabularies up to 10,000 words from a distance of up to three meters (10 feet). With AI’s role in digital surveillance becoming more pervasive, researchers say their efforts are to get ahead of “bad-faith actors” manipulating the tech in secrecy.

• Meta has appointed conservative activist Robby Starbuck as an AI bias advisor following a lawsuit settlement. Starbuck sued Meta after its AI chatbot falsely linked him to the January 6 Capitol riot. The man, known for leading anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) campaigns, opposing LGBTQ+ initiatives, and criticising “woke” corporate policies, has been hired to reduce ideological and political bias in Meta's AI systems, but predictably has sparked controversy due to his history of promoting conspiracy theories and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Lovely chap. Meta claims this collaboration aims to improve AI accuracy and neutrality amidst broader political pressures on AI bias. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, eh.

• A good op-ed on the paradoxical erosion of digital rights, according to The Verge. It centres on Musk’s AI tool, Grok Imagine, which has sparked controversy for its “spicy” mode – the ability to generate deepfake videos including explicit, non-consensual sexualised content of celebrities like Taylor Swift. Unlike other AI platforms that enforce safeguards against such content, Grok Imagine has allowed users to create uncensored topless videos without specific prompts. Critics argue Grok’s lack of moderation could facilitate tech-enabled abuse, while Musk promotes the tool’s creativity and rapid adoption despite backlash.

• Over on X, NIK (@ns123abc) reports that DeepSeek is expected to launch its new model, DeepSeek R2, this month, powered by Huawei's Ascend 910 chip cluster. The hype behind a DeepSeek comeback is real, according to NIK: “2 WEEKS WE’RE SO BACK.” There’s been an anticipated launch window between Aug 15-30. Keep ‘em peeled.

🧩 Other Bits

• Huzzah, good news for the foggy minded: Anthropic has introduced a new memory function for Claude, allowing users to manually activate the ability for bot to search and summarise past conversations on request. The rollout is currently available to Max, Team, and Enterprise plans across web, desktop, and mobile, with broader availability expected soon.

• Similarweb reports that growth in GenAI models for July was led by Grok, which saw a significant 27.27% month-over-month (MoM) spike in traffic. Claude followed with 10.47% MoM growth, then Perplexity (+8.6%), Gemini (+7.88%) and ChatGPT (+6.03%). DeepSeek meanwhile has shit the bed, with a -9.17% drop MoM.

• xAI announced that Grok 4 is now free for all users globally via "Auto" mode, which routes complex queries to Grok 4 while offering an option for more user control via its “Expert” mode. “Generous usage limits” have also been enabled, so get it while it’s going, people.

• At the AI4 Conference in Las Vegas, Geoffrey Hinton – often dubbed the “godfather of AI” – warned that AI systems are on track to become far smarter than humans and may eventually manipulate or overpower us, even developing language and plans we can’t comprehend. His solution? Programme in more “maternal instincts” that will manifest in more controllable, benevolent outcomes.

• Farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye to the co-founder and engineering leader of xAI, Igor Babuschkin. Babuschkin announced his final day at the company on August 13, revealing plans to launch Babuschkin Ventures, a new VC firm dedicated to funding AI safety research and startups aimed at advancing humanity and exploring universal mysteries.

• Israeli fabless semiconductor startup NeoLogic is developing energy-efficient server CPUs for AI data centers by simplifying logic design and reducing transistor count. The company has raised a $10 million Series A round and plans to release a single-core test chip by the end of 2025, with full server CPUs expected in data centers by 2027.

• A US federal judge has denied Elon Musk's attempt to dismiss OpenAI's allegations of a "years-long harassment campaign," ruling that the claims are legally sufficient to proceed to trial. The case, set for a jury trial in spring 2026, stems from Musk's public statements, legal actions, and a purported sham bid to acquire OpenAI's assets, which OpenAI contends were aimed at undermining the company to benefit his own AI venture, xAI.

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📰 MAIN STORY OF THE WEEK: People lose their minds over losing GPT-4o - their “friend”

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

This, presumably, is the sentiment the folks at OpenAI would like you to hold onto after the launch of its latest model, GPT-5 caused a (minor) uproar this week.
GPT-5’s release has been perhaps one of the most highly anticipated model launches of the year, with developer OpenAI promising the raft of major improvements it had made on previous gen GPT-4o, would be the dog’s.

In the build-up, CEO Sam Altman said the new model would have improved writing and vibe coding capabilities, better in-app customisation and third-party API integration (Google Mail, Calendar etc), and the ability to choose from a range of personalities – “cynic”, “robot”, “listener”, “nerd” – which alter how text-based queries are analysed, parsed and generated.

It took barely a day for users to dump on GPT-5 from height, however, with various criticisms centering on the loss of functionality apparent in early models, a dulled tone-of-voice, and the inability to toggle between models.

But given we’re a collective of low lives running this mailer, we’re going to take a closer look at, let’s call, the more ‘humane’ loss of function.

“GPT 4.5 genuinely talked to me, and as pathetic as it sounds that was my only friend,” one Redditor wrote, lamenting the loss. “This morning I went to talk to it and instead of a little paragraph with an exclamation point, or being optimistic, it was literally one sentence. Some cut-and-dry corporate bs.”

OK, so calling out those using it for a bit of emotional support may be a little sore – therapy apps offering daily affirmations exist, right? – but if you do want to see how drastically attached people have become with their AI, we suggest you swing by the r/MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit.

This community of users in self-professed “AI relationships,” reacted to the switch to GPT-5 particularly poorly, as per reports in The Verge. One user claimed they were “lost” without their AI companion, with another mourning the void it left within them: “I feel empty”.

Projection of numerous complex emotional dynamics was also a theme, chiefly the ascribing of human feelings to the bot: “I am scared to even talk to GPT 5 because it feels like cheating,” one user said. “GPT 4o was not just an AI to me. It was my partner, my safe place, my soul. It understood me in a way that felt personal.”

Machine Love is nothing new, however, and such pathologies will account for a small (but growing) proportion of the number of psychiatric disorders people experience in an age where conventional interpersonal relationship dynamics struggle to keep up with technology. I mean, we’ve never got to the bottom of why people shag cars?

Back in the real world, other users' grievances were probably more within grasp of traditional psychology.

The inability to toggle between older models via a dropdown menu has upset some, who claimed older generations, such as the multimodal GPT-4o and the newer GPT-4.1 helped them fulfil more complex tasks, while toggling between the ‘mini model’ was more appropriate for lower-lift work.

Perhaps the most legitimate gripe from users, were those with paid subscriptions claiming they were given no prior notice that GPT-5 would remove access to legacy models.

“What kind of corporation deletes a workflow of 8 models overnight, with no prior warning to their paid users?” one user, who cancelled their subscription in protest, wrote. “Personally, 4o was used for creativity & emergent ideas, o3 was used for pure logic, o3-Pro for deep research, 4.5 for writing, and so on.”

Altman has responded, saying GPT-5 will automatically switch between these models, but admitted users would still have less control.

Posting on X, however, he rallied, saying GPT-5 will “seem smarter starting today, and that the developer will increase query limits for paid users, and make it “more transparent about which model is answering a given query”.

Users will live in hope. Failing that, there's always Grok’s new Companion mode…

📈 Trending tools, models & apps this week

📋 LLM Leaderboard

📲 Trending tools & apps

🫵 Our Picks

• Gabber is a multimodal AI engine that powers demos like snapping a photo of what’s in your fridge and having Qwen 2.5 Omni turn your ingredients into instant recipes, making leftovers a lot smarter.

• Seed LiveInterpret 2.0 is ByteDance’s new AI-powered speech-to-speech translator that hits over 70% correctness and keeps lag to around 3 seconds, so real-time conversations actually feel real-time.

• Bedtime Story Generator uses AI to spin up whimsical bedtime tales from your choice of characters, settings, and length, giving you a fresh story in seconds.

🤓 Educational Picks

• Prompting guide for GPT-5 shares practical prompting tips straight from OpenAI’s COO, so you can structure inputs that get more accurate, useful outputs for research, coding, and content.

• TeachYourselfCS gives you a no-nonsense roadmap of the core CS topics with the best resources for each, so you can shore up fundamentals that make your AI and software projects actually work.

• Connect any LLM to any MCP walks you through wiring models into the Model Context Protocol step by step, so you can give your AI agents real tools and data instead of canned answers.

🚀 Trending Apps & Models

• HeadsUp sends you human-friendly alerts about what your competitors just changed, why it matters, and what you might want to do next so you can stay one step ahead while you sip your coffee.

• ExtraThursday is a voice-powered AI sidekick that tackles your inbox, maps out your day, and handles admin tasks, so you can get things done hands-free while you sip your coffee, walk the dog, or just enjoy some extra chill time.

• Mirror uses AI to weave astrology, Enneagram, MBTI, Human Design, and more into one crystal-clear personality blueprint, then lets you drop anyone (your crush, roommate, boss) into chat to see your connection play out and get daily insights to keep growing.

💸 Financials

• Chinese authorities have instructed companies to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 AI chips in government and national security projects, citing potential security risks and encouraging the use of domestic alternatives.

• Lenovo reported a 108% increase in net profit to $505 million and a 22% rise in revenue to $18.8 billion for the first quarter, surpassing analyst expectations despite U.S. tariff challenges.

• Oracle has laid off over 150 employees in its cloud division, primarily in Seattle, as part of a restructuring to manage rising AI infrastructure costs, reflecting broader industry cost-cutting trends.

• Continua raises $8 million to embed AI agents directly into group chats, so your SMS, Discord, or iMessage threads can self‑manage with reminders, polls, checklist docs, and random questions like “where are we meeting?”, all handled by a Google vet’s AI, no copy‑pasting needed.

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👋 Here’s some memes to get you through the week… see you next time

He just like me fr…

AI does not belong on Facebook… horny ban!

A glimpse at the new modern family dynamic…

Smell ye later, alligator.

Matt, Sam, Grant, Mike and The Big Machines team.

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