Blog
Dr. Ryan Ries here. This past week, a ton of news has come out of the AI world that I think deserves our attention.
Quick plug before we dive in: I have a couple of webinars coming up that you might be interested in. I’ll be discussing how to Deliver Measurable ROI with Generative AI on AWS on August 27th. Register here if you’re interested.
I am also giving a talk on IDP on August 20th with AWS through Connected Community. We’ll be chatting about streamlining document chaos, so if this is something you need help with, this is the perfect session for you.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming!
OpenAI’s GPT-5
OpenAI dropped GPT-5 this week, calling it their "best AI system yet." After nearly 3 years and over half a trillion dollars spent industry-wide, here's what we actually got:
The Good:
- Three specialized versions (GPT-5 Pro, mini, and nano) with an intelligent router that picks the right model for each task
- 45% fewer factual errors with web search enabled compared to GPT-4o
- Strong coding performance: 74.9% on SWE-bench (compared to Claude Opus 4's 74.5%)
- Solid math capabilities: 94.6% on AIME 2025, 88.4% on GPQA with "Thinking" mode
The Problem: OpenAI replaced everything – GPT-4o, GPT-4.5, OpenAI o3 – with this auto-routing system. Users lost the ability to choose their preferred model for specific tasks, which has caused some major problems.
Reddit's r/ChatGPT is filled with complaints about shorter, less detailed responses that burn through usage limits faster. Many suspect the auto-router favors cheaper models even when users need the heavy-duty thinking.
Innovation? Hmm.
To me, this feels like a cost-cutting move disguised as innovation.
Yes, GPT-5 shows incremental improvements, but it's not the revolutionary leap we were promised. When Grok 4 beats you on ARC-AGI-2 results, you're clearly part of the pack, not leading it.
The real story here is what this tells us about AI's evolution. We're moving from massive breakthroughs to incremental refinements, which is a good thing.
This means the technology is maturing, but we should temper the AGI hype.
AI & Creativity: Google's Genie 3 and Amazon's Hollywood Play
While OpenAI dealt with user complaints, Google DeepMind dropped something genuinely impressive: Genie 3, a world model that generates interactive 720p environments in real-time at 24fps.
When you type in a prompt like "volcanic landscape with flowing lava," Genie 3 creates a navigable world you can explore for several minutes. It handles physics, lighting, and environmental consistency remarkably well.
Genie 3 is different than what we’ve seen so far because it has:
- Real-time interaction (unlike previous models that pre-rendered everything)
- Multi-minute consistency (most AI video falls apart after seconds)
- "Promptable world events" – you can dynamically change the environment
The applications are intriguing but unclear to me. Gaming? Training simulations? Virtual tourism? Google's being cautious with a limited research preview, which tells me they're still figuring out practical use cases.
Meanwhile, Amazon's Alexa Fund invested in Fable, a startup building "Showrunner" – essentially the "Netflix of AI" for user-generated TV shows.
Their platform lets you create animated episodes by typing prompts, either from scratch or by building on existing story worlds.
Edward Saatchi, Fable's CEO (formerly of Oculus Story Studio), admits he's not sure people actually want this: "Maybe nobody wants this and it won't work." That honesty is refreshing in a space full of overconfident pitches.
Remember when Black Mirror came out with the Bandersnatch episode, allowing users to choose their own adventure and outcomes for the storyline? Showrunner seems to be a more advanced version.
Neuralink's Vision Quest
Speaking of ambitious promises, Neuralink announced Blindsight, a brain implant designed to restore sight to people who've lost both eyes and optic nerves, or were born blind.
The FDA granted it "breakthrough device" status, and Musk claims it could eventually provide "superhuman" vision with infrared and ultraviolet capabilities.
Unlike retinal implants that require functioning optic nerves, Blindsight bypasses them entirely with a microelectrode array placed directly in the visual cortex.
This sounds amazing. But, if you know me, you know that I’m often more of a skeptic than an optimist.
Musk often promises revolutionary outcomes while downplaying the challenges. He admits the initial resolution will be "pretty low, like vintage Atari graphics." Given his track record of overpromising (remember Full Self-Driving was supposed to be ready "next year" for about eight years), I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.
The competing Gennaris Bionic Eye from Monash University takes a more modest approach, using multiple small implants, and is about to start human trials.
Sometimes, the tortoise beats the hare.
What This All Means
We're witnessing AI's transition from the hype phase to the reality phase. GPT-5's incremental improvements, the unclear applications for AI creativity tools, and the ongoing challenges in brain-computer interfaces all point to the same conclusion: this technology is powerful but harder to deploy effectively than the hype suggests.
This is actually good news for organizations building AI strategies. It means you need to think strategically rather than panic-adopt the latest shiny object. Focus on clear use cases, measurable outcomes, and incremental improvements rather than betting on revolutionary breakthroughs.
As always, I'd love to hear from you and hear about the use cases you’re identifying in your organization.
Until next time,
Ryan
Now, time for this week’s AI-generated image and the prompt I used to create it.
Since I don’t have access to Genie 3 yet, I thought it’d be fun to compare Veo vs. OpenAI’s Sora with the exact same prompt.
I specified a Trader Joe’s in my prompt because I wanted to see if the models would capture the unique look of a Trader Joe’s. Both failed. Also, as you can see in my prompt, I said nothing about throwing oranges everywhere!
Create a video of a muppet running through a Trader Joe's grocery store in a panic.
(Veo is on the left, Sora is on the right)
