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In this photo illustration OpenAI icon is displayed on a mobile phone screen with the photo of Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI in Ankara, Turkiye on August 13, 2024

OpenAI’s first brand trip came with private cabins, monogrammed pajamas, gourmet outdoor dinners, and jars of honey stamped with the company’s logo. Online, the luxury getaway became a much less relaxing conversation about AI.

Over the weekend, the company flew a group of creators to Wildflower Farms, a luxury resort in New York’s Hudson Valley that bills itself as a "meaningful encounter with nature." The creators posted luxurious room tours — rates run roughly $1,500 to $3,100 per night — exploring the picturesque grounds, chatted with fellow content creators and OpenAI execs, and shared awe-struck clips with their tens to hundreds of thousands of followers.

"I'm still processing how insanely EPIC the last 72 hours has been," AI creator Justyn Warner wrote on Instagram. Warner said OpenAI flew him to New York for its "first ever brand trip," where he was surrounded by "some of the best creators on the planet and some of the brightest minds in AI."

The guest list leaned heavily toward people whose content already overlaps with technology, work, and entrepreneurship. Attendees included tech and career creator Megan Lieu; career and business creators Grace McCarrick and Avni Barman; software and fashion creator Sreya Halder (who has partnered with OpenAI before), among many other recognizable faces in the tech sphere.

For some social media users, the combination of artificial intelligence and a luxury wilderness retreat landed strangely. As posts from the weekend spread, attendees’ comment sections filled with questions about the environmental cost of AI, its effect on creative work, and why creators had agreed to help promote it in the first place.

AI summer camp meets AI's environmental footprint

OpenAI could hardly have chosen a more on-the-nose setting for the weekend. Wildflower Farms sits on 140 acres in Gardiner, New York, surrounded by meadows, woodlands, orchards, and views of the Shawangunk Ridge.

The resort, as glamorous and serene as it is, is an awkward backdrop for a company facing mounting questions about the physical infrastructure supporting its products.

AI may feel like something that lives entirely on a screen, but every ChatGPT request must be processed by servers in data centers, many of which are equipped with specialized computer chips. Those chips draw electricity and generate considerable heat. Keeping them from overheating requires additional electricity and, at many facilities, large amounts of water.

The International Energy Agency projects that global data-center electricity consumption will more than double between 2024 and 2030, with servers primarily used for AI driving nearly half of that growth. In the United States, data centers directly consumed an estimated 17 billion gallons of water in 2023.

"The concept of attending an AI brand trip surrounded by nature while it actively hurts the environment is an incredible bit," one X user wrote in response to a now-deleted post by tech influencer @meshtimes. In the r/NYCinfluencersnark Reddit thread about the brand trip, another commenter asked whether business influencer Nat Lucy was "gazing at where the new data center is gonna go," in her post. "Did they promise you fresh water when we run out?" another commenter wrote.

Communities are increasingly pushing back. At least 75 proposed data centers worth approximately $130 billion were delayed or blocked during the first three months of 2026, while a June report identified 430 local Facebook groups with more than 525,000 combined members opposing the projects.

OpenAI's latest proposal appears designed to get ahead of those concerns. On July 22, it announced Project Camellia, a data-center campus planned for rural Georgia. OpenAI promised the facility would use "minimal" water and would not increase residents’ electricity bills.

"We believe showing up early is the right way to build trust," the company said, while acknowledging that significant details about the project remain unresolved.

That emphasis on trust helps explain the value of bringing creators into the room. As psychologist and researcher Dr. Anna Kallschmidt said in a video regarding OpenAI's latest "unsurprising" brand trip, "Without trust, you have nothing. That is why these companies...are bringing these people in because they know people don’t trust them, and they’re hoping by bringing in faces that you trust, that trust will build onto [OpenAI]."

Kallschmidt added she receives an email "every other day" from an AI company interested in a brand deal, suggesting that OpenAI is part of a larger effort to find recognizable people who can make AI products feel more accessible.

That was precisely what bothered some people online: they saw OpenAI borrowing credibility that creators had already established with their audiences.

One Reddit commenter warned about "AI companies utilizing influencers who are more than willing to be talking heads for a company’s narrative that they probably know so little about." Another added, "Not all money is good money."

Creators are defending themselves

Once the backlash reached attendees’ comment sections, some began explaining why they had accepted OpenAI’s invitation. Career and business creator Grace McCarrick responded directly to people questioning her decision to attend:

"If I have the opportunity to be in the room and hear from people who are at the helm of change, I can do that," McCarrick said in one TikTok response. "It's actually well within my moral system."

McCarrick also called the backlash "shocking AI psychosis" in a longer LinkedIn post, and said she had no idea so many people felt this strongly about the technology. "It didn’t for one second occur to me that it could be controversial," McCarrick wrote.

The backlash also caught the attention of tech journalist Taylor Lorenz. "Influencers are getting cancelled for going on the OpenAI brand summer camp weekend trip, which is very interesting bc I have not seen similar criticism towards influencers who have been attending Anthropic events," she wrote on X.

In a follow-up, Lorenz noted that McCarrick already publicizes consulting work for Amazon, Uber, and DoorDash. Why, she seemed to ask, had this OpenAI retreat suddenly become the partnership that crossed the line?

OpenAI is investing in influence

This brand trip did not appear out of nowhere.

In February, OpenAI hired Charles Porch, Instagram's longtime vice president of global partnerships, for the newly created position of vice president of global creative partnerships. Porch spent more than 15 years at Instagram, Facebook, and Meta cultivating relationships with the kinds of people who can introduce a new platform or product to a much larger audience.

His résumé includes helping Beyoncé release her self-titled album exclusively on Instagram in 2013, convincing Pope Francis to join the platform, organizing activations at the Met Gala and Vanity Fair's Oscar Party, and overseeing a program that offered bonuses to creators who began posting on Instagram Reels.

That experience matters to OpenAI. Porch spent years convincing influential people to join a new platform and then turning their participation into moments that attracted everyone else. Now, he is applying that playbook to ChatGPT.

"I’m going to be the person that’s talking to creative communities around the world to figure out how we build the best products to serve them," Porch told Vanity Fair when his hiring was announced.

Porch is only one piece of that effort. On April 2, OpenAI acquired TBPN, a daily technology talk show hosted by Jordi Hays and John Coogan, in a deal worth somewhere in the "low hundreds of millions of dollars."

Often described as "SportsCenter for Silicon Valley," TBPN streams for three hours every weekday, mixing friendly executive interviews, industry gossip, and enthusiastic celebrations of new products and funding rounds. Its audience is relatively small but influential, including founders, investors, and technology executives. Guests have included Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Mark Cuban, and Altman, who has called it his "favorite tech show."

University of Washington professor Margaret O'Mara told NPR that the purchase appeared partly intended to influence how people in the industry talk about OpenAI. In the same report, tech scholar Sara Watson described the company as facing a larger "narrative change problem" as the public grows more skeptical of the industry’s promises.

The Wildflower Farms retreat brought that effort outside the Silicon Valley bubble. OpenAI is clearly aiming to surround its products with people who already know how to attract attention, explain new technology, and build loyal audiences.

The trip definitely succeeded in getting people to talk about OpenAI, though the company may have preferred a different conversation.



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Phia Saban in

Dreams and prophecies can never be dismissed in House of the Dragon, and that goes double for Helaena (Phia Saban), who has a proven track record when it comes to seeing into the future.

In Season 3, episode 7, she has a number of dreams. Some of these feel pretty straightforward — her dream about her baby being taken away from her, for instance — while others are a bit more cryptic.

So, what does she dream, and can any of these dreams offer us an insight into the future?

SEE ALSO: 'House of the Dragon': Who is Dreamfyre, and why are her eggs so important?

What does Helaena dream in episode 7?

Helaena has four different dreams over the course of episode 7. The first one happens right at the beginning of the episode, while the next three are interconnected dreams that happen over the course of the same night's sleep. You could argue that's just one dream, but as they're four very different scenes we've broken them up:

  1. Helaena's in an empty courtyard, standing next to a white horse pulling a trailer. The large doors open and light comes in, before she's woken by Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) calling her name.

  2. Helaena screams during childbirth. Her baby is handed to a guard, who immediately takes it away.

  3. Helaena sits atop a large dragon while a crowd of people rushes towards her. She cries out, "Dracarys!" and the dragon unleashes fire upon them.

  4. Helaena is sitting outside a house in the countryside with two blonde children and a white horse, feeding chickens. Snow begins to fall, and the sun is blocked by an eclipse. She stands up, looking round, as white mist rolls towards them.

Four very different, intriguing scenes. But, how do they fit in with the show and the wider Game of Thrones universe?

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'House of the Dragon' cast unpack Season 3, episode 2's biggest moments

What could Helaena's dreams mean?

Okay, let's break them down one by one. The first, in which Helaena stands beside a horse in the courtyard, seems simple enough: This is surely Helaena dreaming of leaving her current imprisonment. The doors open and light pours in, but we don't see what's outside. This likely represents Helaena's uncertainty at where she would go if she did escape King's Landing.

The next dream seems like a manifestation of her very real (and understandable) fear of what might happen when she gives birth. As she's already been made well aware by her mother, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), a baby boy would be seen as a threat to Rhaenyra's claim to the throne — hence the soldier that immediately takes the child away from her.

The third and fourth dreams are where things get a bit more abstract. We do have some clues, though: In the third dream, for instance, the building Helaena sees in the distance is the Red Keep of King's Landing. It seems likely she's in the Dragonpit, where Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) had his coronation. And the dragon she's riding? That's a little more tricky to say. It's certainly not a dragon we've seen yet in the show, at any rate, meaning this is likely a vision of something that happens in the future. Could it be a vision of Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) attacking King's landing on the back of Drogon? Possibly, but in Game of Thrones, this doesn't take place in the Dragonpit. And although the dragon Helaena rides is dark like Drogon, it looks slightly more purple in its colouring. Perhaps this is a vision of something else?

The final dream, meanwhile? Our best guess is that this is another future vision, this time of the Long Night and the coming of winter that Game of Thrones revolves around.

House of the Dragon Season 3 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes premiering Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.



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The 2026 AI Security & Cybersecurity Expert Bundle

TL;DR: Through today, Aug. 2, get the 2026 AI Security & Cybersecurity Expert Bundle for $20.99 (reg. $120).

The 2026 AI Security & Cybersecurity Expert Bundle
Credit: Oak Academy

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The 2026 AI Security & Cybersecurity Expert Bundle is available for $20.99 through today, Aug. 2. This training package includes six courses and 88 hours of instruction covering practical skills for today’s evolving security environment.

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Brad Pitt on the set of Wolfgang Petersen's movie

The Odyssey follows Odysseus on his long journey home from the Trojan War. Its viewers, however, are heading in the opposite direction...back to Troy.

Christopher Nolan’s epic has quickly become one of the year’s biggest movies. The film opened with $264.1 million worldwide, the largest global debut of Nolan’s career, and earned another $90 million domestically during its second weekend. By its 12th day in theaters, it had generated $727.9 million worldwide.

All that attention has also sent viewers toward a much older, looser interpretation of Homer’s Iliad.

Clips from Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 film have been circulating across social media. Viewers are comparing the movies’ battle scenes, costumes, performances, and versions of the fall of Troy. Some have gone further, arguing that the critically dismissed Brad Pitt blockbuster may actually be the better movie.

The renewed attention is showing up beyond social media. As of July 23, Troy ranked 12th on IMDb’s list of most popular movies and 23rd on Letterboxd, while The Odyssey held the top position on both. By the end of the month, Troy had also climbed to No. 2 on AMC+ in the United States.

Suddenly, a movie once remembered primarily for Pitt’s armor and extremely committed workout routine is receiving a full cultural re-evaluation.

Why Troy looks different in 2026

When Troy opened in 2004, Hollywood was still crowded with historical and fantasy epics. Gladiator had arrived 4 years earlier, and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy had just demonstrated how emotionally and commercially successful a massive fantasy production could become.

That competition made Troy feel less remarkable at the time. Petersen removed nearly all the gods and supernatural forces from Homer’s story and condensed years of mythology into one muscular, star-filled blockbuster.

Critics were divided by the results. Troy currently holds a 53 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus describes it as an entertaining spectacle without enough emotional resonance. Audiences were warmer, giving it a 74 percent score.

22 years later, some of what once made Troy seem conventional has become the reason viewers are praising it. Compared with The Odyssey, fans say Troy better captures the sheer scale of the war. They have also singled out its radiant colors, weathered costumes, and supporting performances from Eric Bana and Peter O’Toole.

Most of all, viewers keep returning to its action: the battles clearly show the tactics of two armies, while the duel between Achilles and Hector lets audiences follow every blow. Those qualities stand out even more when placed beside The Odyssey, according to fans.

Of course, the two movies are trying to accomplish very different things. Troy is a war movie built around Achilles, Hector, and the destruction of a city. The Odyssey follows the exhausted soldier who has to live with what happened afterward.

Still, watching them so close together has made viewers appreciate a movie has been overlooked for years.

Troy was always more popular than its reviews suggested

Despite its mixed reviews, Troy earned more than $497 million worldwide during its original theatrical run. Nearly three-quarters of that total came from international audiences.

The irony is that viewers now seem more eager to defend Troy than some of the people who made it.

Pitt said he appeared in the movie because he had withdrawn from another Warner Bros. project and remained obligated to make something for the studio.

"I was put in Troy," Pitt told The New York Times in 2019. He said the experience convinced him to begin following his instincts when selecting future roles.

Bloom was even less nostalgic about playing Paris. "I think I just blanked that movie out of my brain," he told Variety in 2024, explaining that he never wanted to play the Trojan prince.

Christopher Nolan nearly made Troy himself

The most unexpected connection between the movies belongs to Nolan, actually. More than two decades before directing The Odyssey, he was originally hired by Warner Bros. to make Troy.

Petersen had begun developing the movie before leaving to work on a planned Batman vs. Superman project. When Warner Bros. abandoned that film, Petersen asked for Troy back. Nolan agreed, although he later told Empire that Homer’s world remained in the back of his mind. He was especially interested in how he would depict the Trojan horse.

Losing Troy worked out reasonably well for him. Nolan instead directed Batman Begins, which screenwriter David S. Goyer later jokingly described as Warner Bros.’ "consolation prize." The movie launched Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and helped establish the blockbuster career that eventually allowed him to return to Homer on an even larger scale.

That history makes the current comparison feel almost too good to be true. Nolan finally got to create his version of Homer’s world. And though Odysseus needed 10 years to find his way home, Troy needed 22 to get its retrial.



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Wordle game on a smartphone

Today's Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you're a rule breaker.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for August 2, 2026

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

SEE ALSO: NYT Pips hints, answers for August 2, 2026

Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

Punishable.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no recurring letters.

Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...

Today's Wordle starts with the letter P.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL.

The Wordle answer today is...

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to today's Wordle is...

PENAL

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints. Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.



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Hurdle game on a smartphone

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

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If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers

Hurdle Word 1 hint

Meaner.

SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air is $300 off at Amazon. And yes, I’m tempted.

Hurdle Word 1 answer

RUDER

Hurdle Word 2 hint

Peanut butter brand.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for August 2, 2026

Hurdle Word 2 Answer

JIFFY

Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today

Hurdle Word 3 hint

Cozy restaurant.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for August 2
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for August 2, 2026

Hurdle Word 3 answer

DINER

Hurdle Word 4 hint

Junk.

Hurdle Word 4 answer

SCRAP

Final Hurdle hint

Fad.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable

Hurdle Word 5 answer

TREND

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.



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The All-in-One American Sign Language Bundle

TL;DR: Become a sign language expert with help from The All-in-One American Sign Language Bundle, on sale now for just $10.49 (reg. $104) with code COURSE30 until Aug. 2.

The All-in-One American Sign Language Bundle
Credit: The All-in-One American Sign Language Bundle

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Right now, you can score The All-in-One American Sign Language Bundle for only $10.49 with code COURSE30 until tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. PT.

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