UK Gives the thumbs up to AI age checks for porn

Hello Friends,

Another week, another AI update. A lot of interesting things have happened this week so let’s dive straight into it.

🧵 In Todays Edition

  • 🇬🇧 Uk

  • 🚨 Helen Toner on Altman’s firing

  • 🔍 ChatGPT getting Lazier? OpenAI confirms

  • Google backlashed after misleading Gemini Demo

  • ❤️ My Favourite AI Tools this Week

  • 🌎 AI Roundup

  • ✍ That’s a Wrap

Read Time: 5 minutes

LATEST ADVANCEMENTS

The Briefing: Ofcom, the Internet boss in the UK, just shared some new rules about AI age checking on pornographic websites. Mandated by the Online Safety Act, the regulations aim to prevent children from accessing adult content.

Here's what's up:

  • Ofcom suggests ways to check age, like using your bank info, uploading your passport with a selfie, doing a webcam check, credit card checks, or using a digital ID wallet.

  • Draft guidance indicates a potential "challenge age," requiring a second age check if the technology estimates the user's age to be under 25.

  • Ofcom is also considering automatic content restrictions on mobile devices, allowing users to remove restrictions by proving their adult status to mobile providers.

  • The guidance may influence age verification requirements for other social media platforms and other user-to-user services under the Online Safety Act.

Why It Matters: Porn addiction's cause severe impact on the brain, surpassing that of cocaine addiction. The fact that nowadays it is easier than ever to be exposed to this by a click of a fingure is truly concerning as there are hardly any restrictions. But now with the use of AI monitoring, this will no longer be a problem

The Briefing: Fresh insights into OpenAI's recent leadership changes. Helen Toner, a board member, spilled details on Sam Altman's departure in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Key Points:

  • Toner dismisses AI safety concerns as the reason for Altman's exit, emphasizing a breakdown in trust.

  • A clash arose over a crucial AI safety paper co-authored by Toner in October, which irked Altman.

  • Allegedly, Altman sought support to remove Toner, questioning her credentials and focus.

Final Thoughts: Looking into the aftermath of Altman's departure, it appears more like a power struggle than an impending AI disaster. This drama reveals internal conflicts rather than a battle against rogue AI systems.🤷‍♂️🔍

The Briefing: OpenAI acknowledged that ChatGPT is becoming less effective as users noticed a decline in the quality of its responses. Now, the question is, will users turn to alternatives like Claude, Gemini, or other AI chatbots while ChatGPT undergoes these changes?

The Details:

  1. OpenAI acknowledges a decline in GPT-4's efficiency, attributed to a lack of updates since November 11th, impacting specific prompts in ChatGPT.

  2. Investigations are ongoing to identify affected prompts, and uncertainties exist about potential performance issues in models like Microsoft’s CoPilot & Bing.

  3. OpenAI is supposedly actively working on a solution, but the timeline for the fix remains uncertain. During GPT-4’s maintenance, users may explore alternatives like Gemini, Claude, Mistral, Bard, or other AI chatbots.

Why you should care: As GPT-4 is a key player in the AI industry, its performance issues could affect a wide range of applications and users (potentially all Microsoft & Bing users)—potentially reshaping the AI chatbot landscape and distributing the user base amongst more AI models.

The Briefing: Google is under fire for confessing that its impressive Gemini demo video involved heavy editing and prompts to make the model appear more extraordinary — leaving consumers bewildered by the viral video. Say what?!

The Details:

  • The polished demo amazed viewers with Gemini's ability to recognize drawings, but Google now admits it wasn't happening in real-time.

  • In truth, frames were taken from the video, and researchers input written prompts for Gemini off-camera, shaping the interactions.

  • While some argue that a bit of demo enhancement is normal, critics contend it gives a false impression of the model's capabilities.

Why it matters: It's been a rollercoaster week for Google/Gemini, as the demo went from an incredible feat to feeling a bit like smoke and mirrors. If the model is as capable as Google says, it would have been better to showcase it transparently and let Gemini speak for itself.

❤️ My Favourite AI Tools this Week

🧠 Smartwriter AI - Generates personalized emails and automates your entire outreach process using AI. (link)

📊 Sheet AI - Put AI in your Google Sheets (link)

🎧 Xound - AI-powered tool ensuring pristine audio and pitch for content creators (link)

📚 Seamless - helps you draft literature reviews 100x faster with AI (link)

⚡️Kards - generates instant flashcards with AI (link)

🌎 AI ROUNDUP

Amazon is testing new human-like robots in its warehouses that they claim will eventually cost only $3 per hour. (That won’t calm workers fears of being replaced)

UW Medicine and partners just secured $75M to advance "DNA typewriters" — cells that self-record biological data over time. Envisioned as smartwatches for cells, the tech blends AI and biotech to leverage DNA's digital properties as a storage mechanism.

Google just opened its experimental AI note-taking app NotebookLM to everyone in the U.S., alongside new features and upgrades. Now armed with document transformation and Gemini integration, NotebookLM can summarize notes, answer questions, and even turn them into outlines or scripts.

After massive support from the employees at OpenAI, the board members were compelled to resign and Altman got re-instated as the CEO. A couple weeks after this chaos Sam Altman was named “CEO of the Year” for 2023 by The Time Magazine - What a wild ride he has been on

🎅 Ask SantaGPT 

SantaGPT, a new AI chatbot created by OpenAI for the Christmas season. SantaGPT is available exclusively to subscribers of ChatGPT Plus and aims to help users find the perfect gifts and get into the festive spirit.

It can provide Christmas cocktail recipes, gift ideas for bosses, and easy stories for kids. SantaGPT can be accessed using the ChatGPT app or website.

Tesla has just revealed a significantly upgraded prototype of its humanoid Optimus robot, featuring notable improvements in speed, Agility, and balance. These enhancements bring it one step closer to futuristic capabilities.

THAT’S A WRAP

I will read your emails, comments, and poll replies daily. Hit reply and let us know what you want more of!

Lately, I've seen some strange stuff happening in the world of big AI players, like ChatGPT lacking performance and Gemini showing a ‘fake’ demo. But don't worry, I'm here to tell you what's going on with AI.

Keep Embracing the Future, One Byte at a Time! 🔄

See You Next Week

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