TikTok, Snapchat, OnlyFans and others to combat AI-generated child abuse content

October 31, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Major social platforms, AI companies, governments and NGOs issued a joint statement pledging to combat AI-generated abusive content, such as explicit images of children.

A coalition of major social media platforms, artificial intelligence (AI) developers, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have issued a joint statement pledging to combat abusive content generated by AI.

On Oct. 30, the United Kingdom issued the policy statement, which includes 27 signatories, including the governments of the United States, Australia, Korea, Germany and Italy, along with social media platforms Snapchat, TikTok and OnlyFans.

It was also undersigned by the AI platforms Stability AI and Ontocord.AI and a number of NGOs working toward internet safety and children’s rights, among others.

The statement says that while AI offers “enormous opportunities” in tackling threats of online child sexual abuse, it can also be utilized by predators to generate such types of material.

It revealed data from the Internet Watch Foundation that, within a month of 11,108 AI-generated images shared in a dark web forum, 2,978 depicted content related to child sexual abuse.

The U.K. government said the statement stands as a pledge to “seek to understand and, as appropriate, act on the risks arising from AI to tackling child sexual abuse through existing fora.”

“All actors have a role to play in ensuring the safety of children from the risks of frontier AI.”

It encouraged transparency on plans for measuring, monitoring and managing ways AI can be exploited by child sexual offenders and on a country level to build policies regarding the topic.

Additionally, it aims to maintain a dialogue around combating child sexual abuse in the AI age. This statement was released in the run-up to the U.K. hosting its global summit on AI safety this week.

Concerns over child safety in relation to AI have been a major topic of discussion in the face of the rapid emergence and widespread use of the technology.

On Oct. 26, 34 states in the U.S. filed a lawsuit against Meta, the Facebook and Instagram parent company, over child safety concerns.

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Snapchat warned by UK data watchdog over AI chatbot risks

October 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Snapchat received a warning from the U.K. data watchdog regarding its AI chatbot “My AI” for potentially failing to identify and address its privacy risks.

The social media platform Snapchat has received a warning from the United Kingdom’s data watchdog over its new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot known as “My AI,” according to an update posted by the regulator.

On Oct. 6, the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a preliminary notice to Snap Inc. and Snap Group, the parent companies of Snapchat, for the potential failure to “properly assess the privacy risks” posed by the chatbot.

We have issued Snap, Inc and Snap Group Limited with a preliminary enforcement notice over a potential failure to properly assess the privacy risks posed by its generative AI chatbot ‘My AI’.

Read more about the case: https://t.co/MAuHAH0h8B pic.twitter.com/BawISttPJN
— ICO - Information Commissioner's Office (@ICOnews) October 6, 2023

The notice is based on a provisional investigation of the company conducted by the watchdog, which said the risks to several million My AI users, including children aged 13–17, were not adequately identified before its launch.

John Edwards, the U.K.’s information commissioner, commented on the notice, saying:

“We have been clear that organizations must consider the risks associated with AI, alongside the benefits. Today’s preliminary enforcement notice shows we will take action in order to protect U.K. consumers’ privacy rights.”

According to the notice, if a final enforcement notice is issued, Snap may be forced to stop data processing in relation to My AI, which would prevent it from offering the service to U.K.-based users without an “adequate” risk assessment.

Currently, ICO said a conclusion should not be made from the current stage of investigations.

Snapchat’s AI chatbot was rolled out to users of Snapchat+ in the U.K. in February 2023, with wider availability beginning in April 2023.

My AI is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology and, according to the data watchdog, was the “first example of generative AI embedded into a major messaging platform in the UK.”

Throughout the year, major social media platforms have integrated AI features into their operations. On Oct. 4, the Microsoft-owned business-focused social media platform LinkedIn announced additional AI tools available to recruiters, as well as an AI assistant in its learning center.

Big Tech giants Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — and Google have also revealed AI chatbot integrations into their service offerings.

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Snapchat influencer turns simps into cash using an AI doppelganger

May 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Caryn Marjorie

With CarynAI, Caryn Marjorie has launched something seemingly straight out of a science fiction movie.

A 23-year-old Snapchat influencer has seemingly taken a leaf out of the SimpDAO book by launching an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based girlfriend version of herself via OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT.

The influencer in question, Caryn Marjorie, has 1.84 million subscribers on Snapchat, along with 215,000 followers on Instagram.

Dubbed CarynAI, the project was built by Forever Voices, which utilizes more than 2,000 hours worth of audio from Marjorie’s deleted YouTube videos to create the virtual girlfriend. It comes in a text and audio-based format, with the AI closely replicating her actual voice and speaking patterns.

CarynAI usage is up 500%
— Caryn Marjorie (@cutiecaryn) May 10, 2023

According to documents seen by Fortune that it referenced in a May 10 article, the project saw 1,000 sign-ups in the first week of its early beta that concluded on Tuesday.

Users pay around $1 per minute of interaction with CarynAI, which has already seen the project pull in $71,610 during early beta. Marjorie also told Fortune that she eventually expects to make around $5 million a month, as she just needs 20,000 people from her large following to subscribe.

in the world of AI, authenticity is more important than ever. my tweets, dms, direct replies, snaps, stories, and posts will always be me caryn AI will never replace me, instead it will be an extension of my consciousness for everyone to play with. caryn AI can even speak…
— Caryn Marjorie (@cutiecaryn) May 2, 2023

“Whether you need somebody to be comforting or loving, or you just want to rant about something that happened at school or at work, CarynAI will always be there for you,” she told Fortune, adding that “you can have limitless possible reactions with CarynAI—so anything is truly possible with conversation.”

The term SimpDAO was coined by blockchain analyst Eric Wall to describe crypto/NFT projects launched by influencers/celebrities that have highly devoted fans. These fans end up going out of their way — in the form of time, money and decentralized organizations — to make the project successful for their beloved figure.

With the use of AI, it appears that Marjorie has become an early pioneer of a new way to engage and monetize adevoted following.

*Eric Wall tweet on CarynAI. Source: Twitter*

With the explosion in popularity of AI chatbots, due in part to the free access to ChatGPT, discussion of AI girlfriends is becoming more frequent.

A quick Google search finds websites ranking the top “10 Best AI girlfriend Apps to Customize virtual companion in 2023,” along with head-scratching reports of a recent trend with Replika bot users in which the men are proudly abusing their virtual girlfriends.

*Article on AI girlfriend abuse. Source: Futurism*

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Silicon Valley tech CEOs are not big fans of metaverses

October 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Apple

Disney’s CEO said the company doesn’t tend to use the word metaverse, as it believes it’s a very broad term.

During a Wall Street Journal event, Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel revealed that they are not big fans of the metaverse in its current form.

Spencer called the metaverse’s current iteration a “poorly built video game,” referring to the ecosystem’s bad graphics and low-quality interfaces.

The Microsoft gaming chief noted that the gaming world still has an advantage over the metaverse in creating different engaging virtual worlds. At the same time, he compared most of the current metaverse projects to virtual reality room meetings and explained:

“Video game creators have an amazing ability to build compelling worlds that we want to go spend time in. [...] For me, building a metaverse that looks like a meeting room... I just find that’s not where I want to spend most of my time.”

Spiegel, on the other hand, compared the metaverse experience to “living inside a computer” and hinted that the current iterations of the concept are very basic, and he won’t feel like spending time inside it after a long day of work.

He added that Snap is more focused on minimizing the hardware and bringing the experience to the real world through augmented reality (AR), taking a swipe at the virtual reality (VR) hardware trend in the metaverse.

VR creates an immersive virtual environment, while AR augments a real-world scene. VR requires a headset device, while AR does not. VR users move in a completely fictional world, while AR users are in contact with the real world.

Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak said that the metaverse is “a word I’ll never use,” reflecting on Apple’s focus on AR over VR. While Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the company tends “not to use” the word metaverse “because, for us, that’s a big, broad term. For us, it’s next-generation storytelling.”

Metaverse as a concept became the next big thing in the Web3 ecosystem during the peak of the bull run, with Facebook even rebranding itself to Meta to showcase its focus on becoming a leader in the nascent tech ecosystem. However, Meta’s metaverse bet has proved costly for the Fortune 500 company, as the firm posted a $3.67-billion loss for the third quarter of 2022, stating those losses will further deepen next year.

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Snapchat’s parent company shutters Web3 division amid layoffs

September 2, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The company said it will let go of its Web3 division to make way for restructuring after falling behind financial targets.

Snap Inc's CEO Evan Speigel announced in a note on Friday that the company had made the difficult decision to reduce the size of its workforce by approximately 20%.

The note said that this round of layoffs comes after the company experienced slow revenue growth, a slump in stock prices, and a general lag behind its financial targets. Speigel shared:

“Our forward-looking revenue visibility remains limited, and our current year-over-year QTD revenue growth of 8% is well below what we were expecting earlier this year.”

Snap Inc. will now undertake the task of restructuring in an attempt to ensure the company’s success in a highly competitive space where Instagram and TikTok are currently dominating. As part of its restructuring process, the company has axed its entire Web3 team. Jake Sheinman, head of Snap’s Web3 team, announced his exit from the company on Wednesday in a series of posts on Twitter stating:

“As a result of the company restructure, decisions were made to sunset our web 3 team."

I'm humbled to have partnered with the smartest builders, most creative artists, and kindest humans. Today was tough and I'll miss this place dearly but I'm grateful for all of it. Will be taking some personal time in the coming weeks but open to discuss new opportunities

2/2
— Jake Sheinman (@jakeryanshein) August 31, 2022

CEO Speigel shared that the restructuring is a part of an effort to focus on three strategic priorities; namely, community growth, revenue growth and augmented reality (AR). Projects that are not in alignment with these areas will be discontinued or have their budgets slashed significantly.

At the moment, it appears that Snap will not be prioritizing the budding Web3 and Metaverse space as much as its competition, such as Meta. Although many tech innovators seem to share the opinion that Web3 is going to be the next iteration of the internet, Snap does not appear interested in positioning itself within the blockchain industry.

Snap’s layoffs come after other tech companies like Coinbase, LinkedIn, Meta, Apple, Google and Netflix have had to cut down their workforce due to rising interest rates in an inflationary economy.

Snapchat

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