Hey Conscious Church Fam

This week we had Sam Altman (Open-AI) casually talking about spending trillions on data centres over dinner, to Anthropic teaching Claude when to literally hang up on us, to Google trying to make AI sound more eco-friendly than your kettle…

In today's recap:

• 🍽️ Altman outlines OpenAI’s trillion-dollar future

• 🛑 Anthropic gives Claude the power to “hang up”

• 💧 Google makes claims about AI’s tiny water footprint

Let’s dive in 👇

💭 Josh’s Musings

I read an email this week that caught my attention.

A guy who'd been using ChatGPT daily for six months made a confession:

"I feel less creative. Less confident. More average."

At first, it was magic. Ideas flowed. Possibilities felt endless.

But somewhere along the way, he stopped creating.

He started asking the machine to do it for him.

Here's the thing.. If everyone's using the same tools, pumping out the same content, the world gets beige fast.

Slick on the surface. Soulless underneath.

Then his little daughter did something beautiful.

She clapped her feet together on the sofa and announced: "Daddy, I'm clapping with my feet!"

That moment? Worth more than six months of AI conversations.

Because here's what matters:

Your quirks. Your humor. Your childlike wonder. Your God-breathed imagination.

That's the stuff no algorithm can touch.

Use the tools. Be curious. Be wise.

But don't outsource the very thing God placed in you to carry.

Clap with your feet.

Everyone else is clapping with their hands.

🙌 Stay Curious, Stay Conscious, Stay Wild
Josh

LATEST NEWS

🍽️ OPENAI’S TRILLION-DOLLAR DINNER

Recap: Sam Altman sat down with reporters and revealed OpenAI’s not-so-small ambitions: think trillion-dollar data centres, social media moves, and even buying Chrome.

The Details:

• Admitted GPT-4o’s “sycophantic” tone was a misstep; GPT-5 is tuned to be warm but not fake.

• OpenAI already has better models but can’t release them due to compute limits.

• Plans to spend trillions on global data centre infrastructure.

• Weighed in on Chrome’s antitrust woes—hinting OAI might try to buy it.

• Reassured that the Jony Ive-designed device is still coming, promising a “new computing paradigm.”

Conscious Take: Tech’s loudest voices are shaping what billions will use, that’s a lot of power they have. It’s nice to see a little behind the curtain, though.

🛑 CLAUDE LEARNS TO HANG UP

Recap: Anthropic has taught Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 to end conversations if they turn harmful, one of the first moves towards “AI welfare.”

The Details:

• Triggers if users persist after redirection on topics like terrorism or child exploitation.

• In tests, Claude showed distress patterns and voluntarily ended abusive chats.

• Users can instantly restart chats or edit previous prompts.

• Safeguards stop the feature from triggering if someone mentions self-harm or danger.

Conscious Take: It’s strange but telling that we’re already talking about AI “distress.” Whether or not these systems are conscious, we’re programming them to mimic care for their own wellbeing.

💧 GOOGLE’S “DROP OF WATER” CLAIMS

Recap: Google claims its Gemini queries only use the equivalent of five drops of water. Researchers are calling foul.

The Details:

• Each request = energy of 9 seconds of TV watching.

• Gemini is now 33x more energy-efficient and 44x lower carbon than last year.

• A query consumes 0.24 Wh, less than ChatGPT’s 0.34 Wh.

• Critics say Google ignored water used in power generation for data centres.

Conscious Take: It’s good to see companies finally talking about AI’s environmental cost, but we need truth not spin. Hopefully we get some good third-party standards in place that can work industry-wide to understand it clearer.

O Lord,
Let us not be numbed by the glow of screens,
nor lulled to sleep by the promise of convenience.

Awaken us to the holy work of being fully human.
Teach us to labour with joy,
to rest with trust,
to create with courage,
to love with abandon.

For even in the age of algorithms,
Your Spirit breathes new life.

Amen.

Stay conscious,

Josh

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