Trump Bans “Woke AI” 👨‍⚖️!

Well, that’s a header we never thought we’d put up there. 😅

Forward thinkers, welcome to issue #117 of the Neural Frontier!

Look: you’re itching to read this, and we’re itching to tell you all about it. So, how about we skip the lines and dive straight in? 

Sounds good? Let’s go! 🏃‍➡️

In a rush? Here's your quick byte: 

👨‍⚖️ Trump bans “Woke AI”

🤖 OpenAI prepares to launch GPT-5!

🔍 Google tests Web Guide, its experimental AI-organized SERP!

🎭 AI Reimagines: Ancient Rome meets AI glitch art!

🎯 Everything else you missed this week.  

⚡ The Neural Frontier’s weekly spotlight: 3 AI tools making the rounds this week.

👨‍⚖️ Trump bans “Woke AI”

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at banning “woke AI” from government contracts, potentially reshaping how American tech companies build and deploy AI models.

Here's a comprehensive breakdown:

⚖️ What the Order Says

• Signed: July 23, 2025

• Objective: Ban AI models from federal contracts that are deemed not "ideologically neutral" or infused with what the administration labels as "woke" ideologies.

• Specifically targets DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives, labeling them “pervasive and destructive.”

• Lists prohibited concepts, including:

  • Critical race theory

  • Transgenderism

  • Systemic racism

  • Intersectionality

  • Unconscious bias

📌 Context and Motivation: Trump's administration argues such "woke" ideologies distort AI outputs, and declares the need for AI tools that promote “truth, fairness, and strict impartiality.” The order accompanies the release of Trump’s new AI Action Plan, focusing on national security, infrastructure, and competition with China.

🚧 Impact on Tech Companies: Could create a chilling effect among developers, pressuring them to tailor their datasets and AI model outputs to align with administration-defined “neutrality.” Additionally, companies relying on federal funding might be compelled to modify their AI models to avoid losing lucrative government contracts.

⚠️ Criticisms and Concerns: Experts widely argue that true objectivity in AI is a myth.

This could unintentionally encourage a conservative bias by promoting AI that adheres specifically to Trump administration-approved positions.

🎯 Potential Winners & Losers

• xAI, led by Elon Musk, might be best positioned to benefit from this executive order. Its chatbot, Grok, explicitly embraces “anti-woke” and “politically incorrect” stances, although it recently drew controversy for antisemitic and racist outputs.

• OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, which have historically emphasized diversity and inclusion, may face pressure or scrutiny in future dealings with federal contracts.

🔍 Broader Implications

• Trump's administration is exerting federal purchasing power as leverage, pushing tech firms toward aligning more closely with its ideological stance.

• This could drive deeper polarization in the AI sector, influencing not only federal contracts but also the consumer market as tech companies attempt to appease regulators.

• Raises serious concerns about potential governmental influence over free speech, information accuracy, and technology neutrality.

🤖 OpenAI prepares to launch GPT-5!

OpenAI is gearing up to unveil its next-generation language model, GPT-5, as soon as August 2025, according to recent reports. This highly anticipated release follows months of speculation and testing delays.

Here’s the 411: 

📌 What's New with GPT-5?

• Enhanced Capabilities: GPT-5 integrates OpenAI’s advanced o3 reasoning technology, previously offered separately, into a single unified model, providing more sophisticated and coherent outputs.

• Mini and Nano Versions: Alongside GPT-5’s main model, OpenAI will also launch smaller, specialized versions (GPT-5 Mini and GPT-5 Nano) available through its API, catering to a broader range of use cases and computational needs.

🎙️ CEO Sam Altman Teases Capabilities: In a recent podcast interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman demonstrated GPT-5’s impressive capabilities.

He described GPT-5 as significantly outperforming his own understanding, marking a "weird feeling" of human inadequacy compared to the model's swift accuracy.

🌐 Availability and Deployment

• Release Date: Early August 2025 (projected)

• Deployment: Microsoft engineers have already prepared substantial server capacity to support GPT-5’s rollout.

• API Access: Developers will gain API access to GPT-5, Mini, and Nano models upon release.

🔍 Why GPT-5 Matters: GPT-5 represents a significant milestone in OpenAI’s AI progression:

• It consolidates advanced reasoning into one coherent system.

• Marks a leap forward in AI’s capacity to assist, surpassing human knowledge in certain areas.

• Reinforces OpenAI’s leadership role in the highly competitive industry, amid intensifying rivalry from companies like Google, xAI, and Anthropic.

🔍 Google tests Web Guide, its experimental AI-organized SERP!

Google is introducing Web Guide, a new experimental feature in Search Labs that leverages AI to intelligently organize search results, making it easier and quicker to find the information you need.

Here's what you should know:

🚀 What is Web Guide? Web Guide is an experimental AI tool that reorganizes search results by grouping related web pages based on different aspects of your query.

It's powered by a customized version of Google's Gemini AI model, designed to interpret queries better and surface more relevant, diverse web pages than traditional search results.

🎯 How It Works: Web Guide uses the "query fan-out" technique, simultaneously performing multiple related searches to uncover relevant content that traditional searches might miss.

Results are displayed in clearly defined, grouped sections, each focusing on a different aspect of the original query

🧑‍💻 Use Cases

• Open-ended queries: Take a query like "How to solo travel in Japan," for example.
  Results are grouped into comprehensive guides, safety tips, and personal travel experiences.

• Complex, multi-sentence queries: "My family is spread across multiple time zones. What are the best tools for staying connected and maintaining close relationships despite the distance?" Organized results highlight:

  • Tools and apps recommendations

  • Communication best practices

  • Articles on maintaining family relationships remotely

⚙️ How to Try It: Currently accessible through Google's Search Labs for users who opt in. Initially, results appear under the "Web" tab in Google Search, but you can quickly toggle back to standard results anytime.

In the future, AI-organized results will expand into other tabs, including the default "All" results tab, based on user feedback and experimentation outcomes.

Web Guide could significantly improve search experiences by quickly surfacing diverse, detailed, and highly relevant content. Additionally, ot helps users find comprehensive answers, even for complex queries, by grouping related web resources efficiently.

🎭 AI Reimagines: Ancient Rome meets AI glitch art!

We just had to show ya’ll this one! While we don’t entirely know what to make of this mix, it takes us back to some of the early Assassin’s Creed aesthetics 🥷. 

Over to you, what do you make of this week’s showcase 😅?

🎯 Everything else you missed this week.

 🧑‍🎨 Figma Make is out of beta and available for everyone.

🤖 ChatGPT users send over 2.5 billion prompts daily, according to OpenAI.

🪟 Windows 11’s update adds several new AI features. 

⌚ Amazon acquires AI wearable, Bee.

🍎 iOS 26 beta 4 is here.

👚 Google’s new feature lets you virtually try on clothes.

⚡ The Neural Frontier’s weekly spotlight: 3 AI tools making the rounds this week. 

1. 💼 Apply AI: Apply AI is a comprehensive job search platform that creates tailored CVs and resumes that match specific job descriptions, generates professional cover letters, and provides AI-powered mock interview practice with real-time feedback. 

2. 🛠️ Capable: Capable is a team-focused prompt management platform designed to streamline repetitive business tasks through reusable AI prompt templates. 

3. 📄 Pagey: Pagey is a streamlined portfolio and CV creation platform designed for professionals who need to quickly build personal websites without technical expertise. 

Wrapping up… 

This has been a pretty eventful week, to say the least. From Trump’s ban to Google’s experiment and GPT-5 on the horizon, there’s a lot to anticipate in the coming months. 

As always, we’re on the lookout for how these policies and product updates will affect the industry. Till then, stay curious, hit that Subscribe button, and share this issue with a friend (or three 😏). 

We’ll catch you next week!