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Hey, Josh here. Here is what I found interesting in the last week

The Wild Week in AI: What's Really Happening Behind the Headlines

The first week of July 2025 has been absolutely bonkers for AI news. We're talking about everything from trillion-dollar infrastructure deals to AI potentially saving the planet, plus some reality checks that might make you think twice about letting ChatGPT write your homework. Let me break down what's actually going on and why it matters.

The Money Is Getting Stupid Big

Let's start with the elephant in the room: the money being thrown around is getting genuinely ridiculous. OpenAI and Oracle just announced they're building 4.5 gigawatts worth of data centers. To put that in perspective, that's enough power to run several million homes, except it's all going to train AI models instead. Meanwhile, a startup called Thinking Machines Lab – founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati – just raised $2 billion in seed funding. Seed funding. That's more money than most countries spend on their entire tech sectors.

This isn't just Silicon Valley being Silicon Valley anymore. We're watching the formation of what might be the most capital-intensive industry in human history. The infrastructure requirements are so massive that governments are getting involved – the Trump administration is literally fast-tracking approvals for AI data centers and declaring AI growth a "national priority."

But here's the kicker: even with all this money flowing in, Microsoft just laid off 9,000 people because their AI investments are so expensive they need to cut costs elsewhere. That should tell you something about the economics here.

The Global AI Regulatory Chess Game

While everyone's focused on the flashy tech announcements, the real story might be happening in government offices around the world. The EU just told big tech companies to stop whining about the AI Act and that they're not delaying anything. Meanwhile, the US Senate voted 99-1 to preserve states' rights to regulate AI, essentially saying "sorry tech giants, you're going to have to deal with a patchwork of rules."

The UK and Singapore are forming AI partnerships, China is pushing its own AI chip companies toward billion-dollar IPOs to break free from US sanctions, and everyone's basically preparing for a world where AI dominance equals geopolitical power. This isn't just about making cool apps anymore – it's about national security and economic sovereignty.

The Reality Check Stories

Buried between all the hype are some studies that should make us pump the brakes a bit. MIT researchers found that students who used ChatGPT for writing had significantly lower brain engagement than those who didn't use AI tools at all. Their brains were literally less active when they outsourced their thinking to AI.

That's not to say AI is bad – the same week, a study from the London School of Economics suggested AI could help cut global carbon emissions by 3.2-5.4 billion tonnes annually by 2035. But it's a reminder that these tools aren't magic, and how we use them matters enormously.

The Consumer Tech That Actually Matters

While the headlines focus on billion-dollar deals, some of the most interesting developments are happening in consumer tech. Midjourney launched video generation that's supposedly 25 times cheaper than competitors. Google rolled out live voice search that lets you have actual conversations with search results. Meta and Oakley released AI-powered smart glasses that can coach you through sports.

These aren't just incremental improvements – they're fundamental shifts in how we interact with technology. We're moving from typing commands to having conversations, from static images to dynamic video, from looking at screens to wearing computers.

What This All Really Means

Here's my take: we're witnessing the birth of a new industrial revolution, but it's happening so fast that nobody – not governments, not companies, not even the people building these systems – really knows what they're doing.

The amount of money being invested suggests people believe AI will fundamentally reshape every industry. The regulatory battles show governments are starting to realize this isn't just another tech trend. The consumer products hint at a future where AI is embedded in everything we do.

But the studies about brain engagement and the massive layoffs at profitable tech companies suggest we're also creating problems we don't fully understand yet.

The next few months are going to be crucial. We've got AI chips going public in China, potential Apple acquisitions of AI companies, and the EU's AI Act starting to bite. Meanwhile, companies are burning through cash at unprecedented rates to build infrastructure for a future that may or may not arrive as quickly as they think.

One thing's for sure: boring it is not. We're either witnessing the foundation of humanity's next great technological leap, or the most expensive hype cycle in business history. Probably both.

The smart money says to pay attention to the regulations and the infrastructure investments more than the flashy consumer features. Those boring policy decisions and massive data centers are what will actually determine how this all plays out. Everything else is just the sizzle – the real steak is being cooked in corporate boardrooms and government offices around the world.