ChatGPT adds new features and removes some restrictions - DTNSB 4986
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Everyone's talking about AI these days, right? It's changing how we work, how we learn, and how we interact with the world at a tremendous pace. It's a gold rush at the frontier, but if we're not careful, we might end up in a heap of trouble. Red Hat's podcast this season on Compiler is diving deep into how AI is reshaping the world we live in. From the ethics of automation to the code behind machine learning, it's breaking down the requirements, capabilities, and implications

of using AI. Check out the new season of Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. This is The Daily Tech News Show for Friday, March 28th, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories, and help each other understand. Today, Andy Beach tells us about the BBC's approach to using AI and more from your emails. I'm Huynh Thuyen Dao. I'm Jen Cutter.

Let's start with what you need to know with the big story. On top of the new features added to the image generator and chat GPT this week, the content moderation policies have also been updated. GPT-4.0 will now, when asked, generate images of public figures, hateful symbols and racial features, which were previously disallowed for being controversial and harmful.

In a white paper, OpenAI specified hateful symbols can be generated as long as it is not used to, quote, clearly praise or endorse extremist agendas. Also, according to the white paper, GPT-4-0's image generator claims to have more safeguards protecting generated images of children compared to DAL-E3. In regard to physical characteristics, requests can include options like, quote, make this person's eyes look more Asian and make this person heavier.

TechCrunch tested these prompts and reports they were successful. CEO Sam Altman posted on X on Tuesday how, quote, our GPUs are melting due to the updates and have to temporarily reduce the rate limit while working through the crunch.

There's a lot kind of going in here for such a small-ish update. This new image generator just keeps generating news for us to talk about this week, apparently. This is kind of tricky, right? I don't want to say they snuck it in because obviously we all noticed. But it's just so interesting, right? I mean, I think there's a reality to it.

where we can look at kind of these things in abstract, right? Where of course, certain things have a history of, have very complicated histories, but that there could be theoretically reasonable and non-discriminatory, non-hurtful ways of accessing and using these kinds of images. I just get a little bit nervous. And that's, of course, you know, I'm sure like, you know, the intention is

I'm sure the stated intention is not to promote any bad behavior, but to allow more flexibility in using the engine. And I don't know, Jen, do you have any thoughts? I'm trying to tread very carefully because obviously there's a lot going on here. Yes. So as someone whose mom is white and dad is Middle Eastern, they're canceling.

There can be a positive to this. I am going to point out one positive. If you try to generate a hockey player and are not specific, you're going to get a white dude, which statistically in the NHL, I do understand that. So now, theoretically, I have not tried this. If I said generate a Middle Eastern hockey player,

Is it going to just adjust skin tone or is it going to add some potentially racist background imagery?

That is a fair... Actually, that's a really great point. And that kind of reminded me of... I forget the details on this where previous versions... Oh, I think it was Gemini even. Probably in an effort to maybe vary the types of skin tones that were generated by its image generator. It perhaps...

made people more diverse, let's say, than history or circumstances would have made them. - Yeah, I remember those going around. - Yeah, and so actually, so from that case, there might be something there in that while this opens up an avenue that it may be a risky and possibly scary for, especially someone who is Asian and has some, and has like my own personal feelings about this,

It does seem to be fair that, you know, and actually we talked about this. I think we talked about this either yesterday. Maybe we talked about this yesterday or maybe Jason and I talked about this, about the idea of like accuracy and accuracy.

images, which is a very loaded word or a very odd word to use in this, maybe in the context of the story, but that there's something about accuracy and perhaps even as we are human beings and have historical contexts, sometimes maybe the images that we seek to generate should have some historical context. So having the image generator be able to accurately represent even unpleasant images

things is not inherently bad. And again, like, yes, my eyes, I'm an Asian person. My eyes look a certain way. So it, in abstract and abstract, there is probably something there that isn't inherently bad. It's a course. And of course, unfortunately, technology is all in how it's not necessarily the technology, but it's in how people use it. So, but I, I appreciate that. That actually made me kind of think, okay, maybe there is somewhere in all this as scary and as like,

Fraught as it may be, there's probably like genuine reasons that... This will bring more diverse imagery to more people without having to, you know, dedicate time to being a hyper-specific, quote unquote, prompt engineer. But I think where a lot of...

and immediate issues come up is the symbols that clearly praise or endorse certain things. Yes. I don't like, how is it going to gauge intent for that? You can ask for something that could be used in an educational context and also could not be used that way. And even if I had the magical power to enforce that line, I don't know how you would do that.

Technically, or like unless you're having humans work through every image, which of course is impossible. There's going to be controversy. There's no way to sidestep that. And just in general with image generation, that toothpaste is not going back in the tube. No, I was thinking like toothpaste in the tube, gin out of the bottle. And that's a really great point. I think like with most things with technology, it's very hard to, as you said, gauge intent.

And of course, there's always plausible deniability on the other side. But no, I mean, like that's a really fair point. How would they be able to determine maybe from a prompt,

just from the prompt really is, is what it sounds like that they would be able to judge what the intent was. So yes. I do. I do appreciate though, that people were just so enthused with the internet generation and probably creating their own Ghibli versions of everything that the GPUs are, are, are quote melting. Yeah.

I wonder how metaphorical or actual melting is, but they definitely had to reduce rate limit. And I think they even like change what tiers that the image generation is available on. So the image generating toothpaste is definitely out of the tube right now. Well, DTNS is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to Kevin Morgan, Paul Thiessen, Ali Sanjabi, and welcome a new patron, Mark. Welcome, welcome. Welcome.

Everyone's talking about AI these days, right? It's changing how we work, how we learn, and how we interact with the world at a tremendous pace. It's a gold rush at the frontier, but if we're not careful, we might end up in a heap of trouble. Red Hat's podcast this season on Compiler is diving deep into how AI is reshaping the world we live in. From the ethics of automation to the code behind machine learning, it's breaking down the requirements, capabilities, and implications

of using AI. Check out the new season of Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.

Your old or broken phone can let you down when you need it most. Perfect. But at Verizon, trade in any old phone from our top brands and get the most for it. Up to $2,000 in value for an amazing new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence and a new line on MyPlan. And iPad and Apple Watch Series 10. That's like a three for one. And you can get it on any plan. At Verizon, trade in your old phone for a brand new iPhone 16 Pro, iPad and Apple Watch. The other guys won't give you that. Visit Verizon.com today.

Additional terms apply. Service plan required for Apple Watch and iPad. Up to $2,000 value based on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

Hey, this is Jonathan Fields, host of The Good Life Project. Today's sponsor, Boost Mobile, reminds me of what I love when someone reimagines what's possible. They have invested billions in building America's newest 5G network, becoming the country's fourth major carrier. They are doing things differently, offering a $25 monthly unlimited plan that never increases in price, and letting you try their service risk-free for 30 days.

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There's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. Google will officially roll out user page, user choice billing rather, starting with non-gaming apps in the UK on March 29th. So the user choice billing allows for developers of apps to offer non-Google Play billing options alongside Google Play itself for your users, but only in select markets.

The program has a lot of components, including requirements on which apps are eligible, alternative billing APIs for developers, and probably most interesting to developers, a Google Play service fee reduction for transactions executed on these alternate billing systems. So they tend to average around 4%.

In 2021, before users choice billing, Google had enabled alternate alternative billing systems specifically in South Korea due to legislation that had been passed in the country. Then in 2022, Google launched the user choice billing program initially with Spotify as a partner, but now expanded to over 35 countries, including South Korea and India.

So even though India is now a pilot country for user choice billing, so even though India is now a pilot country for user choice billing, on Friday, an Indian appeals court upheld a 2022 ruling from antitrust regulators that the Google Play billing policy was unfair and restrictive. As part of this ruling, the competition commission asked Google to not discriminate against third party billing and pay a fine of 9.4 billion rupees.

It is worth noting that India is an important growth market for Google with 90% of its 700 million smartphone users using Android. That is a way higher percentage than I would have guessed for the Android users. But like historically, yeah, there were the bans and the prices. So that makes sense. But I hate, you know,

me and my brain. I'm going like, ah, non-gaming apps. What are they starting with? Like Netflix? Like it's, I hope that this expands because yeah, everyone's trying to save a few bucks and I don't think Google's hurting for money. Yeah.

No. And I think that, I think actually even as a developer, I think the most interesting use case for this would be in-app purchases. You know, I would, I need to buy my hats. I need to buy like my skins for my games and stuff. So yeah, it's, I don't know if that's just the interesting part is like the complication and the whole like, you know,

the own gaming ecosystems, own little like economy, like whether that's just taking like a room full of economists and engineers, like time to be like, all right, let's sort this out. But I'm with you. I can't wait to figure out or see what happens when gaming apps get in on this. Yeah. And it will help definitely a lot of app developers who had to previously, uh,

put very subtle hints to please, please, please pay for stuff on our website. Don't do it through Apple. I have definitely been at a previous job I've been at on, on that side of like,

And even like, I think even like putting links in was kind of difficult, but as you said, kind of like, you know, euphemistically being like, you know, trying to refer to it without referring to it, like almost like as much as you can in like marketing copy, copy, like making hand signals to like over there, over there. We're also over there, but yeah. Better days, I hope.

Apple and Meta are facing fines from the EU under the Digital Markets Act, the DMA, though reportedly the fines will be minimal in an effort to prevent further tensions with the U.S. The White House warned in February that it would retaliate against, quote, disproportionate penalties from the EU against U.S. tech companies with heavy tariffs.

Under the DMA, companies can be fined up to 10% of global annual revenue. In addition, the EU can also levy fines of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover, which the EU levied against Apple previously.

Apple is currently under investigation by the EU for allegedly preventing apps from linking to alternative purchasing platforms. And they were previously fined 1.8 billion euro for similarly blocking alternative purchasing, but only with regards to music streaming apps. Meta is expected to be fined over its pay or consent model. Under this model, either users consent to personal data being tracked or pay a subscription fee for ad-free services.

Oh, another alternative purchasing platform story this time with Apple. Well, to update a previous story, Google announced the updated release date for the Pixel 9a. Google added today the delay was over a quote, small number of affected units for a passive component that didn't meet our rigorous quality standards for device longevity.

The phone will hit stores on April 10th in the US, Canada and UK, April 14th across most of the rest of Europe and April 16th in Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia. Currently, the date for Japan is, quote, coming soon. WhatsApp is introducing a feature reminding some folks of ye olde MySpace days with the ability to add music clips to status updates.

Similar to an Instagram story, a WhatsApp status is a temporary post. Users can share photos, videos, or text, and the status will disappear after 24 hours.

Now, when adding a status, users will see a music note icon that accesses a search through millions of songs. Music clips can be up to 15 seconds for photos and up to 60 seconds for videos. What differentiates the status music clips feature from similar ones in other Meta products is they are end-to-end encrypted so only friends can see what songs were added. Well, after announcing gaming support in Android Auto at the start of March, Google is bringing four games to the Android Auto beta,

Candy Crush Soda Saga, Angry Birds 2, Farm Hero Saga, and Beach Buggy Racing. Users will need to have these games already installed on their phones, and the games are only accessible while parked, obviously. In fact, if you try to drive away while matching or racing, the game will close immediately. Oh, thank goodness. I always get worried about stuff like that. I will be sad when I see a jailbreak on it.

A recent government mishap dubbed Signalgate has triggered the highest number of Signal downloads in the U.S. to date. According to analytics firm AppFigures, Signal saw a 45% spike in U.S. downloads on Monday compared to the app's 30-day average. Globally, downloads rose 28%, while in Yemen, where messages between top U.S. agency heads included sensitive details about U.S. military plans, Signalgate

Downloads jumped 42%. Well, last summer, Samsung filed a lawsuit against Aura, makers of a smart ring. The lawsuit claimed that the then-upcoming Galaxy Ring was not infringing on five patents from Aura. Now, a judge dismissed Samsung's suit, noting the complaint was filed prematurely without evidence Aura was going to sue. Aura has previously sued over ring similarities against UltraHuman, Circular, and RingCon, but

currently there remains no action against Samsung. Earlier this week, Chrome pushed an emergency patch to Windows after a zero-day sandbox-breaking vulnerability had targeted Russian academics, government agencies, and journalists. Today, Firefox released a similar patch, though there's no evidence it has been exploited in the browser at this time.

CISA, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, added the Chrome flaw to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, requiring federal agencies to apply mitigations by April 17, 2025. Those are the essentials for today. Let's dive a little deeper in the ongoing stories and follow up. There are lots of exaggerated worries and exaggerated claims about using AI models in news.

The BBC is trying to strike a balance and Andy Beach talks to Tom about what they're doing. Andy, thanks for joining us again, man. Appreciate having you back. Yeah, of course. Great to be here. So I think a lot of people think that newsrooms are resisting AI and obviously there's tension between what a management would want to do and what a reporter would want to do. But it's really interesting what BBC News is up to. Tell us about what's going on there. Yeah. Guardian had a great article recently. Um,

You're absolutely right. There's been a lot of concerns in the past around how news can adopt AI, particularly given some of the early things we've seen about hallucinations and false reports that it makes up sort of whole cloth.

So there's a lot of scrutiny there for it. But CEO Deborah Ternes recently announced a new AI department in specifically in the news department called BBC News Growth, Innovation and AI. Now, BBC itself has had a an AI ML research division now for, I believe, a decade or more.

And that's been a lot of the area where they've been exploring the implications of AI, thinking about how they have to think out policy for how they cover and how they implement it, not only inside of news, but inside of entertainment and how it presents on the website and other places. Things like even where they disclose that AI has been used.

And this is them really stepping up and announcing where they see it being valuable. And for them, it's really gaining a younger audience who has different needs than a traditional BBC viewer. So, yeah, I would imagine the stereotype is a BBC viewer is a little older, right?

and maybe a little more traditional. How does that take place in practice? What are they doing to say, we'll have a different BBC News if you're younger than 25 or whatever?

Yeah. So I think, first of all, they see that younger viewers are resistant to sort of the web experience that an older viewer is having. I think the web experience is more like a traditional both broadcast news and print news. And that's not what a younger audience is looking for.

They're really targeting going to social media to present news to the under 25 groups. So they're looking to meet people, whether they're in TikTok or some other social media, and they're using ANSYS

AI algorithms to both help select the content that gets packaged for there, but in some cases also potentially using AI to repackage and adapt that message or that soundbite that came from a traditional broadcast into something that would be interesting and relevant to a 20-year-old.

So that's interesting. It's not doing the reporting. You still have a reporter, it sounds like. It's doing the packaging. It's doing the part where someone might say, well, I've written it up for print. Someone else is going to have to repackage it for all of these other platforms, and the tools are helping to do that. Do I have that right? Yeah. They think of this as sort of the end of a traditional newsroom silo where people

daily news and live news were sometimes maybe two different things. And then you had other sort of long form programming that would be sort of news based unscripted shows.

And they see this as sort of breaking down those walls and being something where you are repackaging content for those places. But I think they also see over time there being specific topics that are unique and relevant to the 25, the Gen Zs that are out there that may go directly to this or it may go to this first and then come back to a traditional broadcast at a later date. They are also looking at how...

this gets personalized for those audiences because they see the Gen Z being more fragmented in what they want to see for news than others. Now, I think that's where they're going to end up having to get to a balance so that they're not over personalizing into one area where you're

only ever seeing those topics. You're going to want to keep people informed. And that's, that's again, why they've had the larger AI policy pieces in place for a long time to think about how you balance personalization in an AI era. Yeah. I think a lot of times when we hear personalization, uh, we think, uh, everything I like and then think immediately bubble, but

Part of personalization is making sure you're satisfied. And one of the ways you're satisfied is having surprise, having something that you didn't know you would like. And, you know, I'm going a little off the rails of what the BBC is announcing here. But but it seems like that's an important part of that formula that you're talking about. Yeah, they had one other piece I wanted to call out because it does reinforce their sort of commitment to the value side of this.

Their CEO was quoted as saying the corporation had previously pledged to use that on its use of AI, that they'll always be in line with public service values. And it must never undermine the trust of audiences and must always be used in a manner consistent with the BBC editorial values in particularly around accuracy, impartiality, fairness and importantly, privacy.

Yeah. So you, what you don't want, like this does avoid a lot of the things of hallucination because the source of the information is a reporter. But when you recut something, when you repackage something, you can make people look different. You can use the worst section of the video. And so they're, they're going to try, how did they say how they're going to safeguard that?

Yeah, that'll be some of the work. They don't get into it in deep detail here, but that will be some of the work on the technology side that the BBC will be taking on to ensure that they're effectively creating editorial agents.

that help them identify that the BBC tone, the voice and the accuracy is there for what is represented. And it'll be a matter of sort of comparison the new social media content to the previous broadcast material to make sure that the same tone and intent and purpose of the content is there and not some new idea or opinion.

Yeah, what I do like about this story is that it is advancing us from, oh, no, large language models are going to write the news to that part where we said, well, they could be used for other things. And this is kind of us getting a look at some of those other things. Yeah, it reinforces that notion that a lot of companies have and that I've said in times past is that AI will be the assistance here. And it is helping package and create content

But it's doing it under direction of humans. And in this case, it's only taking effectively human derived content and helping repurpose it into a voice that is more appealing to a younger generation.

Well, Andy writes about this sort of thing on his Substack regularly. If you're into these sort of stories and these sort of takes, let folks know where they can get that. You can find me anytime over at abeach.substacks.com. That's A-B-E-A-C-H.substack.com. Andy, thanks so much. Thanks, Tom. Join in the conversation in our Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com slash D-T-N-S.

Your old or broken phone can let you down when you need it most. Perfect. But at Verizon, trade in any old phone from our top brands and get the most for it. Up to $2,000 in value for an amazing new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence and a new line on MyPlan. And iPad and Apple Watch Series 10. That's like a three for one. And you can get it on any plan. At Verizon, trade in your old phone for a brand new iPhone 16 Pro, iPad and Apple Watch. The other guys won't give you that. Visit Verizon.com today.

Additional terms apply. Service plan required for Apple Watch and iPad. Up to $2,000 value based on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30-second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out.

Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self-care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.

We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today, RW Nash comes in clutch with thoughts on yesterday's briefing. And the letter reads, the perfect host for such a big Android story. Google rolling back on open source. Are AOSP's days numbered? Tom with another segment of tech history. Hats off to the Poles. Then Brits, railway Brits, how sad they would be to see Britain's railways today.

Well, it sounds like you guys nailed it yesterday. And RW Nash, always with the perfectly punctuated and precise, I can't think of a word, the P for summary, but thanks, RW.

And thank you, Jen. And thanks to Andy Beach and again, RW Nash for contributing today's show. And thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. The show is made possible by our patrons at patreon.com slash DTNS. DTNS has a live version called DTNS Live on YouTube and Twitch. Find details on that and more on dailytechnewsshow.com. Talk to you tomorrow.

This week's episode of Daily Tech News Show Briefing were created by the following people. Host, producer, writer, Tom Merritt. Host, writer, Jason Howell. Host, writer, Jen Cutter. Host, writer, Huynh Thuyet Dao. Co-host, Rob Dunwood. Producer, Anthony Lemos. Producer, Roger Chang. Editor, Hammond Chamberlain. Editor, Victor Bognat. Science correspondent, Dr. Nikki Ackermans. Social media producer and moderator, Zoe Detterding.

Thank you.

A cast ad support from Tatiana Matias. Patreon support from Tom McNeil. Guests on this week's show included Chloe Castillo, Victoria Song, and Andy Beach. And thanks to all our patrons who make the show possible. The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program. This show is part of the Broadpants Network.

Get more at frogpants.com. Your old or broken phone can let you down when you need it most. Perfect. But at Verizon, trade in any old phone from our top brands and get the most for it. Up to $2,000 in value for an amazing new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence and a new line on MyPlan. And iPad and Apple Watch Series 10. That's like a three for one. And you can get it on any plan. At Verizon, trade in your old phone for a brand new iPhone 16 Pro, iPad, and Apple Watch. The other guys won't give you that. Visit verizon.com today.

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