(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
TikTok challenges US law
TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, have filed a lawsuit challenging a new American law. The law mandates the sale of the popular video-sharing app unless it’s to an approved buyer. TikTok alleges the law unfairly targets the platform and constitutes an unprecedented assault on free speech. ByteDance argues that the law vaguely labels its ownership of TikTok as a national security risk, violating the First Amendment. Despite the absence of evidence supporting such claims. ByteDance contends that the law’s sponsors are attempting to justify it as a measure to regulate TikTok’s ownership, concealing its glaring unconstitutionality. The law, which President Joe Biden signed as part of a larger foreign aid package, marks the first time the U.S. has singled out a social media company for a potential ban.
Apple introduces new AI-focused M4 chip in iPad Pro upgrade
Apple unveiled its newest chip, the M4 on Tuesday. The chipset boasts superior artificial intelligence capabilities surpassing those of typical personal computers. Surprisingly, this powerhouse chip found its home not in a laptop but in the iPad Pro model. While Apple traditionally debuts its latest chips in the Mac lineup, where M3 chips made their debut last fall, analysts suggest the company’s motivation is to provide app developers early access to these advanced chips, known for their enhanced power efficiency and dedicated AI processing capabilities. This move precedes Apple’s upcoming annual software developer conference, indicating the company’s commitment to accelerating innovation in AI technology.
OpenAI’s image detection tool release
OpenAI is releasing a tool that can detect images created by its text-to-image generator DALL-E 3, the Microsoft-backed startup said on Tuesday amid rising worries about the influence of AI-generated content in this year’s global elections. The company said the tool correctly identified images created by DALL-E 3 about 98% of the time in internal testing and can handle common modifications such as compression, cropping and saturation changes with minimal impact. The ChatGPT creator also plans to add tamper-resistant watermarking to mark digital content such as photos or audio with a signal that should be hard to remove.
