Five Top Tech Takeaways: Apple Unveils AI at WWDC, OpenAI Pays VOX/Atlantic a Cut, Claude Comes to Canada and more!

Apple's AI

Apple Introduces 'Apple Intelligence' with Advanced AI Features

At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced "Apple Intelligence," a suite of AI features for iPhone, Mac, and other devices, to be released in the fall. Highlights include a more conversational Siri, AI-generated "Genmoji," and integration with OpenAI's GPT-4o for advanced queries. These features, designed to enhance user interaction and productivity, will operate primarily on-device for privacy, utilizing Apple's Private Cloud when necessary. Siri will now support more natural speech and typed commands, perform actions across apps, and assist with tasks like email composition and photo editing.

To see a 2-minute summary, check out CNETs time-saving montage (start at 9:27 for the AI-related announcements):

Key Takeaways:

1. Apple unveiled "Apple Intelligence," featuring enhanced AI capabilities for iPhone, Mac, and more.
2. Siri will become more conversational and capable of handling advanced tasks using OpenAI’s GPT-4o.
3. Privacy remains a priority, with AI processing on-device and through Apple's Private Cloud.

(Source: The Verge)

Claude AI Assistant Launches in Canada

Claude, Anthropic's advanced AI assistant, is now available in Canada through various platforms including Claude.ai, a free iOS app, and an API for developers. The service also offers a Team plan for collaborative use. Users can subscribe to Claude Pro for CA$28 per month to access all models and receive increased usage benefits. The Team plan, at CA$42 per user per month, requires a minimum of five users. This expansion aligns with Canada's commitment to responsible AI development and provides new opportunities for users to integrate advanced AI into their workflows.

Key Takeaways:

• Claude, an AI assistant by Anthropic, is now accessible in Canada via web, iOS app, and API.
• Claude Pro subscription offers enhanced features and usage for CA$28 per month.
• The Team plan provides a collaborative workspace for CA$42 per user per month, requiring a minimum of five users.

(Source: Anthropic)

US Regulators Probe Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI for Antitrust Violations

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are launching investigations into Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft. The DOJ will focus on potential antitrust violations by Nvidia, while the FTC will probe Microsoft and OpenAI's actions. Specifically, the FTC is examining whether Microsoft structured its deal with Inflection AI to evade regulatory scrutiny. Microsoft's spokesperson asserts the company’s compliance with legal obligations. These probes highlight regulatory efforts to scrutinize AI ventures more rigorously and prevent potential antitrust violations.

Key Takeaways:

• The DOJ and FTC are investigating Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft for potential antitrust violations.
• The FTC is specifically probing whether Microsoft’s deal with Inflection AI was structured to avoid regulatory oversight.
• Microsoft maintains that its agreements and transactions comply with legal requirements.

(Source: Yahoo Finance)

OpenAI Continues Media Expansion with New Licensing Agreements

OpenAI has secured licensing agreements with The Atlantic and Vox Media, allowing their content to train AI models and be shared within ChatGPT. This move follows similar deals with News Corp, Axel Springer, DotDash Meredith, the Financial Times, and The Associated Press, aimed at acquiring legal content for AI training and avoiding copyright issues. Terms for The Atlantic and Vox Media were not disclosed, but such agreements typically involve content attribution and financial compensation. Vox Media will use OpenAI's technology to enhance its commerce and advertising platforms, while The Atlantic plans to develop AI tools for journalism.

Key Takeaways:

• OpenAI signed content licensing agreements with The Atlantic and Vox Media for AI model training and sharing within ChatGPT.
• These deals aim to secure legal training data and prevent copyright lawsuits, following similar agreements with other major media companies.
• Vox Media and The Atlantic will use OpenAI's technology to enhance their digital products and develop AI tools for better journalism.

(Source: The Verge)

AI Meets Curation: Perplexity Pages Blend Automation and Human Input

Perplexity AI has launched "Perplexity Pages," a feature that transforms search queries into visually appealing, shareable web pages. Users can create detailed articles by entering prompts and selecting an audience type to tailor the content. The tool allows for customization, including rewriting, reformatting, and adding sections. These pages, which can include relevant media, are searchable on Google and sharable via links. Perplexity Pages aims to blend AI-driven content generation with human curation, offering a new way to produce and share information-rich web pages.

Key Takeaways:

• Perplexity AI's new feature converts search queries into detailed, shareable web pages.
• Users can customize the generated content and include media, making it searchable and shareable. 
• The feature blends AI content generation with human curation, emphasizing user input in organizing and presenting information.

(Source: TechCrunch)

Author: Malik Datardina, CPA, CA, CISA. Malik works at Auvenir as a GRC Strategist who is working to transform the engagement experience for accounting firms and their clients. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent UWCISA, UW, Auvenir (or its affiliates), CPA Canada or anyone else. This post was written with the assistance of an AI language model. The model provided suggestions and completions to help me write, but the final content and opinions are my own.

Big Data, Facial Recognition and Privacy

In October of 2012, the FTC released these guidelines on dealing with the privacy issues of facial recognition. The publication begins with a scene from the movie Minority Report where the protagonist is offered a product based on facial recognition software. When the movie came out, this future seemed decades away. However, now it just seems around the corner. And this is primarily due to advances in data mining capabilities brought to you by the cloud and more specifically big data. One of key characteristics of Big Data (see here for IBM's definition) is being able to include data that is not just massive or fast moving, but also goes beyond the simple world of flat file - meaning it includes images.

And here comes the interesting part about privacy and big data. Think about the following scenario: you walk  into a store, the security cameras take your picture, it's uploaded to Google Images (see below for how this works), a second search is done to find out what you've posted publicly on the various social sites and then you are approached by a sales associate who has all this information about you and then can tailor its offerings to you.

Privacy regulations requires that users give consent before their information is collected. So could this simply be circumvented by posting a sign that states "By entering this premises, you consent to the store collecting your image and using that information to tailor offerings, services and the like to your online profile"?

I think so.

As I posted last week, TJX was effectively able to stop the Canadian privacy watchdog, by agreeing to encrypt the personal information it should not collect. So it does not take much for companies to persuade users (or the privacy regulators) to get what they want from their customers/users. At the end of they day, companies simply have to repeat the Capitalist mantra: "You are free to go somewhere else if you don't like our policies". Never mind that all the companies have the same policies, which means you don't have any choice except to wear a mask when you enter the store. And that is not advisable because it may be result in being billy clubbed or tazered by security guards! Or to be a little less dramatic, the store will simply offer to refuse you service if you wear a mask.

The Killing of Google Reader: Proof that Privacy Matters at Google?

Google announced last month that it was going to kill off Google Reader. According to the post, the reason that was given that there was a decline in the number of subscribers. For the past few years, Google has been consolidating its offerings and reducing the number of properties that it has out there. For example, it retired Google Wave, which was seen as a way to revolutionize the way people conversed with one another. The other trend in Google' s consolidation is to get its subscribers into its social network; Google Plus. So another theory is that Google killed Reader because it wants to drive more traffic to its social network - as they have done with things such as YouTube, Blogger, etc.

However, allthingsD reported that another factor that led to Google retiring reader was due to compliance with privacy. Citing "sources" the elimination of reader, "[w]asn’t just a matter of company culture and bigger priorities...Google is also trying to better orient itself so that it stops getting into trouble with repeated missteps around compliance issues, particularly privacy".

If what sources are saying are true, the factoring of privacy costs into its product releases represent a significant maturation from a privacy perspective. Google got in trouble with the FTC because it failed to comply with privacy procedures with Google Buzz and had to submit to biennial privacy audits for 20 years. In other words, Google can probably include the "kill decision" as "audit evidence" as proof that they are complying with their commitment to privacy.

So is this proof that the US overall approach to privacy creates a more privacy compliant nature than the one used in Canada? Although more research would be required to answer this question, we can contrast the proactive nature of Google with respect to privacy and how TJX reacted to its breach of privacy policy in Canada. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada's took issue with TJX's (which operates Winners in Canada) the use of driver's licenses during the returns process. In summary, TJX should not be collecting driver's license information because it has nothing to do with buying clothes, etc at the stores! However, instead of stopping the process, the company merely agreed to stop storing in an unencrypted format. In other words, they basically ignored PIPEDA and continued with business as usual.