🤝Apple Exec Joins OpenAI Board!

Hey TEDchats Fam!

Happy Friday! Picture this: You’re rushing out the door and ask Siri to handle your morning routine. Within seconds, your coffee is brewing, your commute route is optimized, and your favorite podcast is queued up. This seamless experience is what Apple envisions with Phil Schiller’s appointment to OpenAI’s board.

👀 SNEAK PEEK

🚨FEATURE STORY

Apple’s Strategic Move into AI with Phil Schiller’s Appointment to OpenAI’s Board

In a surprising move that signals a deeper dive into artificial intelligence, Apple has reportedly appointed Phil Schiller, the head of the App Store, to OpenAI’s governing board. What does this mean for the future of AI and Apple's innovation strategy?

A Gateway to AI Innovation for Apple

Phil Schiller, a long-time Apple executive known for his pivotal role in marketing and overseeing the App Store, is now reportedly set to represent Apple on OpenAI’s nonprofit board — the governing body of OpenAI.

Apple's decision to join OpenAI’s board comes less than a month after the two firms announced their partnership to integrate ChatGPT into Apple experiences. Schiller’s new role, albeit as a non-voting board observer (i.e., no control in company matters), presents both opportunities and challenges for both firms. On one hand, balancing this relationship, especially with Microsoft also holding a non-voting observer position, could complicate strategic discussions and partnerships. On the other hand, it allows Apple to gain deeper insights into OpenAI’s innovations.

Siri Meets ChatGPT

Schiller’s involvement in board meetings will help Apple remain at the forefront of AI advancements, ensuring its technologies evolve with the latest innovations. This is particularly crucial for the seamless integration of ChatGPT into iOS and macOS, with a planned release later this year in U.S. English. For instance, by utilizing ChatGPT through the newly announced ‘Apple Intelligence’ program, Siri will become more natural, personal, and deeply integrated into the system. With user permission, Apple Intelligence will enhance Siri's action capabilities, enabling it to perform tasks within your apps (read more about it here and here).

Revenue Prospects from ChatGPT

Looking ahead, this partnership signals major shifts in the tech industry. With both Apple and Microsoft involved with OpenAI, we can expect accelerated advancements in AI applications across platforms. Additionally, revenue-sharing from ChatGPT subscriptions on Apple’s platforms could create new financial streams, further embedding AI into Apple’s ecosystem. This move sets the stage for an era where AI becomes a central part of everyday technology.

🧑‍💻 DAILY PROMPT

🍕 QUICK BITES

WhatsApp — Imagine Your Avatar Anywhere

WhatsApp's upcoming "Imagine" AI feature, discovered in the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.24.14.7 update, lets users create personalized avatars for AI-generated scenarios using Meta's AI Llama model. According to WABetaInfo, who made the discovery, users can simply take a photo and type “Imagine me” in the chat to generate their custom avatars in various imagined settings. While the release date is still uncertain, this feature promises to revolutionize how users interact and express themselves on WhatsApp (see more).

Google Releases Its 2024 Environmental Report — But Dodges Future AI Energy Costs?

Google's 2024 Environmental Report highlights green initiatives but avoids disclosing the future energy consumption of its AI operations. Despite showcasing several eco-friendly projects, the company remains vague about AI’s exact energy demands, stating that “predicting the future environmental impact of AI is complex and evolving”. According to the report, Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48% since 2019, mainly due to increased data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions, casting doubt on its net-zero goal by 2030. Although it may indeed be challenging to predict, this omission raises questions about the true environmental impact of their advanced technologies (see Google’s report).

ChatGPT Mac App's Security Flaw Fixed!

OpenAI recently addressed a critical security flaw in its ChatGPT macOS app that stored conversations in plain text, making them easily accessible to malicious actors. This vulnerability was discovered by Pedro José Pereira Vieito, who demonstrated how easily another app could read these conversations. OpenAI swiftly released an update to encrypt these locally stored records, enhancing user data protection and ensuring conversations remain secure. This update reflects OpenAI's commitment to maintaining high security standards as their technology evolves (see the demonstration here).

🧰 AI TOOLBOX 

🤯 MIND SPARK

New Disclosure Policies for AI-Generated Election Ads! Google advertisers must now disclose election ads with “synthetic or digitally altered content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events” by selecting the checkbox in the "Altered or synthetic content" section in their campaign settings. Google will show this disclosure in feeds and YouTube Shorts on mobile devices, as well as in-stream ads on phones, computers, TVs, and the web (see Google’s announcement).

Cloudflare's New Tool Fights AI Bots: Cloudflare has launched a free tool to protect websites from AI bots scraping data. This addresses growing concerns about AI vendors bypassing protocols like robots.txt, as seen in Perplexity AI’s recent scandal. By improving bot detection models, Cloudflare aims to block these bots effectively, helping site owners safeguard their data (see Cloudflare’s announcement).

Brazil Halts Meta's AI Training Over Data Privacy Concerns: Brazil’s data protection authority has ordered Meta to stop using Brazilian personal data to train its AI models, citing risks of serious harm to users. Meta faces daily fines of R$50,000 if it fails to comply. This move follows similar actions in the EU, highlighting growing global scrutiny over AI data practices (see the official announcement here).

🎨 AI ART