✋META AI Toughens Age Restrictions

Hey TEDchats Fam!

Happy Thursday! Remember using a fake ID to sneak into a bar? Well Instagram’s new AI bouncer can detect if you’re underage, even if your profile says otherwise.

🧑‍💻 WEEKLY PROMPT

🍕 QUICK BITES

Smarter Age Checks Coming to Instagram

Meta is now testing AI to detect teens who lie about their age to access adult Instagram accounts. If suspected, these users will be automatically placed into a restricted Teen Account, even if their profile shows an adult birthday. Teen Accounts offer protections like limiting contact and content visibility, and require parental approval to change settings for users under 16. Meta says it has already enrolled 54 million teens globally into Teen Accounts (see Meta’s announcement).

Grok Vision Brings Real-World Awareness to Your Phone

xAI has launched Grok Vision, a new feature allowing users to point their iPhone camera at objects, signs, or documents and ask Grok what they are seeing. Available now in the Grok app for iOS, this real-time vision capability mirrors features offered by Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Android users will have to wait, but can now access multilingual audio and real-time voice search if they’re subscribed to the $30/month SuperGrok plan. xAI continues to rapidly expand Grok’s features, adding memory and a canvas tool earlier this month (see xAI’s announcement).

ChatGPT Taps Into The Washington Post’s Reporting

OpenAI and The Washington Post have announced a new partnership that will allow ChatGPT to summarize and link to the Post’s original journalism. The deal is part of OpenAI’s wider effort to collaborate with over 20 news publishers, including The Guardian, Axios, and News Corp. While financial details remain undisclosed, The Washington Post expects to benefit from ChatGPT’s massive user base of more than 500 million. Meanwhile, OpenAI aims to enhance its answers with the Post’s “timely, trustworthy” reporting (see OpenAI’s announcement here and The Washington Post’s announcement here).

🧰 AI TOOLBOX 

🤯 MIND SPARK

⚖️ Google Chrome Antitrust Shakeup: In a surprising twist at Google’s antitrust trial, OpenAI’s Nick Turley revealed the company would be interested in buying Chrome if it became available. Turley said that owning Chrome would help OpenAI create an “AI-first” browsing experience, Bloomberg reports. This statement came during testimony where the Justice Department argued Google should divest its browser business to address alleged digital ads dominance (see Google’s antitrust case).

🎥 New Frontiers with AvatarFX: Character AI has launched AvatarFX, a powerful video generation tool now in closed beta. Unlike typical text-to-video models, AvatarFX can animate existing images into dynamic videos, blending realistic styles with 2D animation (watch demos). While the technology is groundbreaking, it also raises concerns about deepfake abuse and the emotional risks tied to more immersive AI interactions (see Character AI’s announcement).

🎙️ Student Duo Launches Open-Source Voice AI Model: A pair of undergraduates from Korea, with only three months of AI experience, have released a powerful synthetic speech model called Dia. Developed by Nari Labs using Google’s TPU Research Cloud, Dia allows users to generate highly customizable podcast-style dialogues (hear it in action).

⚖️ Noxtua Raises $92.2M to Revolutionize Legal AI startup: Xayn has officially rebranded as Noxtua and secured a $92.2 million Series B round led by Germany’s leading legal publisher C.H. Beck. With exclusive access to C.H. Beck’s massive archive of 55 million legal documents, Noxtua is building a sovereign AI solution tailored for the legal sector (read more).

🚀 Databricks & Anthropic Fast-Track AI Agents: Databricks and Anthropic are teaming up to accelerate the development of domain-specific AI agents, enabling enterprises to build custom AI solutions using Claude models directly in the Databricks platform. At a free virtual event on April 22, the CEOs of Databricks and Anthropic will discuss their AI partnership (see Databricks’ announcement).

💥 DeepSeek Faces New U.S. Restrictions: The Trump administration is reportedly considering new measures targeting Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, a rising rival offering AI at a fraction of the cost. According to The New York Times, the actions could block DeepSeek from purchasing Nvidia’s AI chips and restrict American access to its AI services. These actions are part of a broader effort to slow China’s progress in AI development (read the January filing).

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🎨 AI ART