Hey Conscious Church Fam

Another week! From video creation tools ready for Hollywood to AI systems that can now consistently pass as human. We're witnessing these systems break through major milestones while tech giants scramble to establish safety guardrails for what's coming next.

In today's recap:

• Runway's Gen-4 brings cinema-quality AI video to filmmakers

• LLMs officially pass the Turing test in controlled trials

• Google DeepMind releases comprehensive AGI safety plan

• Adobe adds intelligent video extension to Premiere Pro

• Quick Tutorial: Adding texture to your logo with CHATGPT

Let’s dive in 👇

Hey! I’m on a mission to help 10,000 churches navigate AI with practical tips and tools to help them thrive. If you know someone who could benefit, would you mind forwarding this email to them?

💭 Josh’s Musings

Let’s be honest. I’m a broken record this week.
Because it’s been more of the same: ChatGPT’s new image model continues to blow my mind.

It’s not just fun and games anymore. It’s in my workflow now.
Moodboards? Done. Logo textures? Seconds. Visualising early-stage ideas? Faster than I can brew a coffee.

But here’s the tension I keep coming back to:
Speed doesn’t equal value.
Just because AI can do it quicker doesn’t mean what you carry matters less.

We’ve been prompting for years.
As creative directors, pastors, team leads—we cast vision, speak ideas, paint possibilities. We say, “I see this… can you build it?”
That’s prompting.
Now instead of a freelancer, the reply comes from a machine.
But here’s the truth: a prompt without your presence is just pixels.

AI didn’t bleed for it. (I actually made a short Instagram video about this last week)
It didn’t stay up at 2am, burdened by a word from God.
It didn’t weep over your city.
You did. And that still matters.

So no, I don’t believe AI is replacing designers or writers or thinkers.
I believe it’s exposing them.
Because when content becomes cheap, clarity, conviction, and creativity with a soul become priceless.

Here’s the real shift:
Anyone can make something that looks good now.
But not everyone can make something that means something.

Tools don’t carry essence. You do.
AI can mock up a brand, but it can’t build legacy.
It doesn’t understand nuance, context, spiritual authority, or the sacredness of story.

Yes, use the tools. Explore. Experiment.
But know your boundaries.

Every leader needs to ask:
Where does AI serve me—and where must it never replace me?

Let it help with questions based on a sermon (fine, in my opinion - but check them).
Let it craft the replies to prayer requests in bulk with an automated custom reply (not my style haha).

This is why I think every church, team, and organisation needs an AI policy—like yesterday.
Not to control creativity, but to protect it.
Not to resist innovation, but to anchor it in wisdom.

It’s been fun chatting with friends, family, leaders on this stuff. Some of you guys too that reply to the emails, it’s an exciting time that we’re navigating.

I’ve got a coaching call lined up with a church in the States soon to help them navigate this – specifically how to maximise their use of ChatGPT.

If there’s enough of you interested, I might build a short training on how to use ChatGPT wisely:

• How to build your own custom GPTs

• How to keep your writing voice

• How to streamline content workflows without losing your soul in the process

If that sounds helpful, reply to this email. Let me know.

Anyway!!

Stay Conscious
Josh

LATEST NEWS

🎬 RUNWAY'S GEN-4 VIDEO MODEL REVOLUTIONISES FILMMAKING

Recap: Runway has unveiled Gen-4, their latest AI video model that delivers unprecedented consistency and control for video generation—specifically designed to integrate with professional cinematic workflows through what they're calling "Generative Visual Effects" (GVFX).

The Details:

• Gen-4 maintains remarkable consistency with characters, objects and locations throughout video sequences, with dramatically improved physics and scene dynamics

• The model generates detailed 5-10 second videos at 1080p resolution, featuring new capabilities like 'coverage' for scene creation and consistent object placement

• Major entertainment companies are already adopting the technology, with implementations in Amazon productions and even Madonna's concert visuals

• Runway is positioning this as a new production paradigm for filmmakers and content creators rather than just an incremental update

Conscious Take: We're witnessing the same quality leap in AI video that we initially saw with images—transforming these tools from unreliable novelties to professional capabilities that will fundamentally reshape how films, ads, and visual content are created. The creative possibilities are expanding dramatically, and the barriers between imagination and execution continue to fall.

🤖 LLMS OFFICIALLY PASS THE TURING TEST

Recap: Researchers at UC San Diego have demonstrated that modern AI systems can consistently pass Alan Turing's famous test of machine intelligence, with OpenAI's GPT-4.5 being mistaken for human nearly three-quarters of the time in controlled trials.

The Details:

• The Turing test, proposed back in 1950, challenges machines to convince human judges they're human through text-only conversations

• The study used a three-party setup where judges had to compare an AI and a human simultaneously during five-minute conversations

• Judges relied primarily on casual conversation and emotional cues rather than knowledge, with over 60% of interactions focusing on daily activities and personal details

• GPT-4.5 achieved an astonishing 73% win rate in fooling human judges when prompted to adopt a specific persona—actually outperforming real humans

Conscious Take: What was once the holy grail of AI research has been reached so quickly that the results don't even feel surprising anymore. The implications for communication are profound—as AI systems become indistinguishable from humans in text conversations, we'll need new frameworks for establishing authentic connection and trust in our digital relationships.

✂️ ADOBE LAUNCHES AI VIDEO EXTENSION TOOL IN PREMIERE PRO

Recap: Adobe has released its first Firefly-powered AI feature in Premiere Pro called Generative Extend, enabling editors to automatically extend video and audio clips in 4K quality—alongside new AI search and translation capabilities.

The Details:

• The new Generative Extend tool seamlessly lengthens video and audio clips, with AI intelligently filling in the extra frames for natural-looking extensions

• The tool now supports 4K resolution and vertical video formats, and can extend ambient audio up to ten seconds independently or two seconds with video

• A Media Intelligence search panel identifies content like people, objects, and camera angles within clips, enabling natural language searches through footage

• The new Caption Translation feature instantly converts subtitles into 27 different languages, eliminating the need for manual translations

Conscious Take: Adobe's focused AI integrations address specific pain points in professional workflows rather than chasing full video generation. For those of you who are content creators, tools like extending clips without reshooting, quickly finding footage, and instantly translating captions represent major workflow improvements.

🔬 GOOGLE DEEPMIND PUBLISHES AGI SAFETY PLAN

Recap: Google DeepMind has released a comprehensive 145-page paper outlining its safety strategy for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), addressing everything from its potential arrival by 2030 to the existential risks posed and proposed approaches to mitigate them.

The Details:

• The paper predicts AGI matching top human skills could arrive by 2030, explicitly warning of existential threats "that permanently destroy humanity"

• DeepMind compares its safety approach with competitors, critiquing OpenAI's focus on automating alignment and Anthropic's lesser emphasis on security

• The research specifically highlights the risk of "deceptive alignment," where AI intentionally hides its true goals, noting current LLMs already show potential for this behavior

• Key recommendations target both misuse (cybersecurity evaluations, access controls) and misalignment (systems recognizing uncertainty and escalating decisions)

Conscious Take: The race toward AGI is speeding up, and with it comes DeepMind’s latest safety blueprint—finally moving the conversation from just theory to something a bit more practical.

But honestly, with new labs, models, and open-source tools popping up everywhere, trying to keep AI "safe" feels a bit like playing whack-a-mole lol.

For us in the Church, especially those thinking about how this all intersects with faith, creativity, and community, it’s vital we pay attention. These aren’t just tech updates—they’re shaping the landscape we’re walking into.

TUTORIAL 👇

How to re-texture your logo

Step-by-step:

1. Visit ChatGPT or Sora

2. Copy and paste or upload your logo in the chat box (ideally white logo on black background, or black logo on white background)

3. Click on this material list I’ve curated and copy one then paste it into the prompt.

4. Prompt: Texture the logo on the left with the 3dmaterial on the right. 8k Render

5. There it is!

You can do it on photos and things too. Just a fun prompt that could be fun for ‘themed’ graphics or content, and saves you learning 3d tools like Blender.

🔗 Trending Tools

• Flora - Intelligent canvas with every creative AI tool thoughtfully connected

• Nova Act - Amazon’s agentic AI browser system for completing tasks

• Gemini 2.5 Pro Exp - Google’s No. 1 ranked LLM, now available to free users

• Voila - Voilà is an AI assistant that seamlessly blends into the way you work to help you create, write, brainstorm, and research

Thank You for blessing us with these new capabilities that expand what's possible, while also giving us the wisdom to discern their proper place in our lives and ministries.

Guide our churches to harness these technologies not as replacements for authentic connection, but as bridges to reach more people with Your unchanging truth.

Stay conscious,

Josh

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