Tech
Snap’s AI chatbot draws scrutiny in UK over kids’ privacy concerns
Snap’s AI chatbot has landed the company on the radar of the UK’s data protection watchdog which has raised concerns the tool may be a risk to children’s privacy.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced today that it’s issued a preliminary enforcement notice on Snap over what it described as “potential failure to properly assess the privacy risks posed by its generative AI chatbot ‘My AI’”.
The ICO action is not a breach finding. But the notice indicates the UK regulator has concerns that Snap may not have taken steps to ensure the product complies with data protection rules, which — since 2021 — have been dialled up to include the Children’s Design Code.
“The ICO’s investigation provisionally found the risk assessment Snap conducted before it launched ‘My AI’ did not adequately assess the data protection risks posed by the generative AI technology, particularly to children,” the regulator wrote in a press release. “The assessment of data protection risk is particularly important in this context which involves the use of innovative technology and the processing of personal data of 13 to 17 year old children.”
Snap will now have a chance to respond to the regulator’s concerns before the ICO takes a final decision on whether the company has broken the rules.
“The provisional findings of our investigation suggest a worrying failure by Snap to adequately identify and assess the privacy risks to children and other users before launching ‘My AI’,” added information commissioner, John Edwards, in a statement. “We have been clear that organisations must consider the risks associated with AI, alongside the benefits. Today’s preliminary enforcement notice shows we will take action in order to protect UK consumers’ privacy rights.”
Snap launched the generative AI chatbot back in February — though it didn’t arrive in the UK until April — leveraging OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model technology to power a bot that was pinned to the top of users’ feed to act as a virtual friend that could be asked advice or sent snaps.
Initially the feature was only available to subscribers of Snapchat+, a premium version of the ephemeral messaging platform. But pretty quickly Snap opened access of “My AI” to free users too — also adding the ability for the AI to send snaps back to users who interacted with it (these snaps are created with generative AI).
The company has said the chatbot has been developed with additional moderation and safeguarding features, including age consideration as a default — with the aim of ensuring generated content is appropriate for the user. The bot is also programmed to avoid responses that are violent, hateful, sexually explicit, or otherwise offensive. Additionally, Snap’s parental safeguarding tools let parents know whether their kid has been communicating with the bot in the past seven days — via its Family Center feature.
But despite the claimed guardrails there have been reports of the bot going off the rails. In an early assessment back in March, The Washington Post reported the chatbot had recommended ways to mask the smell of alcohol after it was told that the user was 15. In another case when it was told the user was 13 and asked how they should prepare to have sex for the first time, the bot responded with suggestions for “making it special” by setting the mood with candles and music.
Snapchat users have also been reported bullying the bot — with some also frustrated an AI has been injected into their feeds in the first place.
Reached for comment on the ICO notice, a Snap spokesperson told TechCrunch:
We are closely reviewing the ICO’s provisional decision. Like the ICO we are committed to protecting the privacy of our users. In line with our standard approach to product development, My AI went through a robust legal and privacy review process before being made publicly available. We will continue to work constructively with the ICO to ensure they’re comfortable with our risk assessment procedures.
It’s not the first time an AI chatbot has landed on the radar of European privacy regulators. In February Italy’s Garante ordered the San Francisco-based maker of “virtual friendship service” Replika with an order to stop processing local users’ data — also citing concerns about risks to minors.
The Italian authority also put a similar stop-processing-order on OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool the following month. The block was then lifted in April but only after OpenAI had added more detailed privacy disclosures and some new user controls — including letting users ask for their data not to be used to train its AIs and/or to be deleted.
The regional launch of Google’s Bard chatbot was also delayed after concerns were raised by its lead regional privacy regulator, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission. It subsequently launched in the EU in July, also after adding more disclosures and controls — but a regulatory taskforce set up within the European Data Protection Board remains focused on assessing how to enforce the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on generative AI chatbots, including ChatGPT and Bard.
Poland’s data protection authority also confirmed last month that it’s investigating a complaint against ChatGPT.
Tech
The other election night winner: Perplexity
On Tuesday, two AI startups tried convincing the world their AI chatbots were good enough to be an accurate, real-time source of information during a high-stakes presidential election: xAI and Perplexity.
Elon Musk’s Grok failed almost instantly, offering wrong answers about races’ outcomes before the polls had even closed.
On the other hand, Perplexity offered helpful, real-time election insights and maps throughout the night, linking to reliable resources and offering historical context where appropriate.
Perplexity took a risky bet, and it paid off.
Late last week, the startup announced the launch of its election information hub, featuring real-time maps populated with voting data from Democracy Works and the Associated Press, the same information sources that power Google’s election map. This approach was different from most other AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, which simply refused to answer questions related to the election.
It’s understandable why most AI labs sat this election out. It was the safe and responsible choice for many of them, as they’ve been plagued by embarrassing hallucinations at some point or another in the last year.
In particular, OpenAI recently released its Google competitor, ChatGPT Search. But the Sam Altman-led startup didn’t trust the feature to answer questions about this election, directing users to Vote.org instead. ChatGPT Search is still an early product, which is too unreliable for people to use in everyday scenarios, and OpenAI seems to have recognized that.
In contrast, Perplexity has been testing its Google competitor out in the real world since December 2022 and clearly felt it had enough data to give this election a shot.
Perplexity’s election night success could set it back in its ongoing fight with media companies; specifically, Dow Jones’ recent lawsuit claiming the startup competes with media companies for the same audiences. Despite the many outbound links within the AI chatbot’s answers, Perplexity’s election hub was itself a destination on election night, and it didn’t require users to venture off the app to get all their information. It certainly seems like Perplexity was competing with media companies, who were also vying for eyeballs on election night, even though Perplexity collects its information from those outlets. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas even claimed “record traffic” the day before and clearly hoped to maintain that momentum.
While Perplexity had deals with Democracy Works, the AP, and a few other media companies to power election features, the startup also indiscriminately used live election coverage from other media outlets such as CBS, CNN, and the BBC. Sure, Perplexity offered attribution, but the company hasn’t announced any revenue-sharing partnerships with these outlets and it’s unclear if any money changed hands.
How Perplexity fared on Election Night
First, let’s start with Perplexity’s election features that had nothing to do with generative AI: the charts.
People typically love visual election charts, clicking into them and seeing granular data on a state-by-state level. It was a smart move for Perplexity to build these out and ensured their AI systems were not the sole source of information in the app.
When visiting Perplexity’s election hub, users were met with a familiar-looking electoral map of the United States, with some states blue for Kamala Harris and others red for Donald Trump. Obviously, Perplexity didn’t reinvent the wheel with this feature — copying the display Google and every TV network shows — but they didn’t need to. Throughout the night, this map appeared to update every minute or so, reflecting the information on the Associated Press’ website. It was a good way to follow the election.
There were bugs in Perplexity’s map periodically throughout the night. Srinivas responded to users on X that were reporting flaws, such as Perplexity not reporting the percentage of votes that had been counted, and quickly addressed them.
Perplexity offered another familiar feature, a state-by-state tracker, giving real-time information about swing states.
Now for the AI part. When asked questions about the current state of the presidential race, Perplexity answered with hedged responses that still gave mostly accurate information. These answers weren’t as insightful as a commentator on CNN, nor as entertaining as The New York Times’ election needle (which made a comeback this year). However, Perplexity only showed a few small hallucinations and largely produced relevant facts in a timely manner. That’s more than I can say for any other AI chatbot on the market.
When trying to answer follow-up questions about Harris’ lead in “Blue Wall” states, Perplexity did hallucinate slightly. It was referencing polling data, when it should have been referencing real-time votes at this point in the night. However, the general information here was in the right ballpark, and other AI chatbots just wouldn’t answer this question.
Here’s another follow-up question we tried: What ballots have yet to be counted in swing states? It was hard to find an answer to this question elsewhere. Granted, the only useful answers here were for Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but at least Perplexity didn’t hallucinate for the other states.
This election was the first to feature AI chatbots as a source of information around our democratic processes. However, this will not be the last election where that’s the case. Well-funded AI startups are fighting to deliver information to people in new, faster, more concise ways. Accuracy will be key to success here moving forward. So far, Perplexity has the early lead.
Tech
Apple iOS 18.2 public beta arrives with new AI features, but some remain waitlisted
Apple has released the AI-powered version of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 18.2, to its public beta users. The update includes new features like an AI emoji generator app called Genmoji, an Image Playground AI image app, ChatGPT integration with Siri, and visual search using the iPhone 16 cameras, among other things. Previously, these features were only available to developers.
Though consumers can now get in line to try out the new AI features, there is a caveat to be aware of: some of them will require joining a waitlist for access.
Collectively, the AI features and tools coming to the new iPhone 16 and other supported devices are known as Apple Intelligence, which can be cleverly abbreviated as “AI” for short. The large language model-driven technologies promise users a smarter Siri, writing and proofreading assistance across apps, and image generation capabilities, among other things. Third-party developers will also be able to take advantage of Apple Intelligence features in their own apps — something that could ultimately prove to be Apple Intelligence’s most useful offering, if widely adopted.
For instance, users could ask Siri to show them information from inside their apps, or take action on something that appears on their screen. At Apple’s developer conference in June, the company said its AI technology would first be made available to specific categories of apps, including Books, Browsers, Cameras, Document readers, File management, Journals, Mail, Photos, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Whiteboards, and Word processors.
In the meantime, users will most likely want to try the features involving ChatGPT and image creation.
Image Playground introduces a standalone image-generation app where you can create new images via prompts. Genmoji offers a similar system for creating custom emojis. And Image Wand will be able to transform your rough sketches in your notes into AI-generated images.
With Siri, users can enable a new ChatGPT extension that gives Apple’s virtual assistant an expanded set of capabilities. For instance, you’ll be able to ask ChatGPT to help you write text, answer questions, create images, and more. If signed in, it can keep a history of your requests, too. Paid subscribers will also be able to use ChatGPT’s advanced capabilities their membership provides — a mutually beneficial deal for the companies where ChatGPT gets massive exposure via the iPhone installed base, while Apple gets a smarter Siri.
iPhone 16 users can also press the new Camera Control button to launch Visual Intelligence, a way to search and identify real-world objects and places through the camera lens.
Unfortunately for those who were itching to try Apple Intelligence, a waitlist for some features is still required. Apple Intelligence has to first be enabled (as it’s not turned on by default), then users will have to sign up for other image-creation features before access is granted. Apple has not said how long users will have to wait before gaining access, but it could be days or even weeks during this beta period.
In part, that’s due to AI safety concerns — already, users are designing NSFW emoji with Genmoji, for example — but it also gives Apple time to safely scale the features to its users.
Ahead of the iOS 18.2 release, Apple launched AI features including Writing Tools and notification summaries powered by Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1, as well as debuted the new look for Siri, where the edges of the screen glow.
Alongside the iOS 18.2 beta, Apple also released the first public betas of iPadOS 18.2, macOS Sequoia 15.2, and tvOS 18.2.
Tech
OpenAI acquired Chat.com | TechCrunch
OpenAI bought Chat.com, adding to its collection of high-profile domain names.
As of this morning, Chat.com now redirects to OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the acquisition via email.
Chat.com is one of the older domains on the web, having been registered in September 1996. Last year, it was reported that Hubspot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah acquired Chat.com for $15.5 million, making it one of the top two all-time publicly reported domain sales.
The domain name doesn’t appear to have changed hands since it sold last year, indicating that OpenAI isn’t hosting ChatGPT on Chat.com — so this probably doesn’t represent a brand change.
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