The latest viral ChatGPT trend is doing ‘reverse location search’ from photos

There’s a somewhat concerning new trend going viral: People are using ChatGPT to figure out the location shown in pictures. This week, OpenAI released its newest AI models, o3 and o4-mini, both of which can uniquely “reason” through uploaded images. In practice, the models can crop, rotate, and zoom in on photos — even blurry…

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OpenAI’s viral Studio Ghibli moment highlights AI copyright concerns

It’s only been a day since ChatGPT’s new AI image generator went live, and social media feeds are already flooded with AI-generated memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, the cult-favorite Japanese animation studio behind blockbuster films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away.” In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen AI-generated images representing…

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Sesame, the startup behind the viral virtual assistant Maya, releases its base AI model

AI company Sesame has released the base model that powers Maya, the impressively realistic voice assistant. The model, which is 1 billion parameters in size (“parameters” referring to individual components of the model), is under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially with few restrictions. Called CSM-1B, the model generates “RVQ audio codes” from text…

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How a viral AI image catapulted a Mexican startup to a major adidas contract

Antonio Nuño, Fatima Alvarez, and Enrique Rodriguez have been friends since they were five years old. As teenagers, they became volunteers helping indigenous communities — first in Mexico, then in other countries — and saw that many of the women were artisans.  The trio came to realize that these artists “made very beautiful things in…

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TikTok must face a lawsuit for recommending the viral ‘blackout challenge’

TikTok’s algorithmic recommendations on the For You Page (FYP) constitute the platform’s own speech, according to the Third Circuit court of appeals. That means it’s something TikTok can be held accountable for in court. Tech platforms are typically protected by a legal shield known as Section 230, which prevents them from being sued over their…

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