📸 ChatGPT Geoguessr, Google Antitrust Blow, AI Tariff Fears
Good morning. It’s Friday, April 18. Today we are covering:
The latest viral ChatGPT trend is doing 'reverse location search' from photos
Google Is a Monopolist in Online Advertising Tech, Judge Says
Tech industry fears Donald Trump's trade war will hamper US AI 'dominance'
Meta blocks Apple Intelligence on Facebook and its other iOS apps
Popular Chatbot-Ranking Website Is Becoming a Real Company
Let’s dive in
The latest viral ChatGPT trend is doing 'reverse location search' from photos
By Kyle Wiggers via TechCrunch
OpenAI’s new o3 and o4-mini models can analyze uploaded images to accurately identify locations, even from blurry or cropped photos, sparking a viral trend of “reverse location search” on social media.
Users are submitting images of menus, facades, and personal photos to ChatGPT in a GeoGuessr-like game, raising privacy concerns about potential misuse for doxxing or stalking.
Despite OpenAI’s claim of safeguards against privacy violations, inconsistent accuracy and a lack of clear limits leave questions about how well these tools can prevent abuse.
𝕏: The geoguessing power of o3 is a really good sample of its agentic abilities. Between its smart guessing and its ability to zoom into images, to do web searches, and read text, the results can be very freaky. I stripped location info from the photo & prompted “geoguess this” - Ethan Mollick (@emollick)
Google Is a Monopolist in Online Advertising Tech, Judge Says
By David McCabe via The New York Times
A federal judge ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly over parts of the online advertising tech stack, violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, and harming publishers, competition, and consumers.
The ruling sided with the Justice Department on two of three key markets: tools for publishers and the ad exchange software, but dismissed claims around advertiser tools.
Remedies could include forcing Google to divest parts of its ad tech business, as regulators escalate antitrust actions across Big Tech, including ongoing cases against Apple, Amazon, and Meta.
𝕏: Huge news: Google officially found to have violated the antitrust laws - Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO)
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Tech industry fears Donald Trump's trade war will hamper US AI 'dominance'
By Christian Davies via Financial Times
Trump's global tariff regime is raising alarm in the tech sector, with experts warning it could undermine US ambitions in AI leadership by increasing costs for building semiconductor fabs and AI data centers.
Industry figures cite delays and higher prices across complex supply chains, including components used by OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, as tariffs disrupt the flow of critical hardware like GPUs.
A new Section 232 investigation into chip imports could further strain US efforts to onshore semiconductor production, potentially leading to $11B in extra annual costs for US data centers and hindering projects like Stargate and TSMC’s $100B US expansion.
𝕏: Coming direct from those working on OpenAi's multi-billion dollar project Stargate: tariffs are a direct risk to American AI development. - Matt Mittelsteadt (@MattInThemittel)
Meta blocks Apple Intelligence on Facebook and its other iOS apps
By Filipe Espósito via 9to5Mac
Meta has disabled Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools and Genmoji in its iOS apps, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads.
The block prevents iOS users from accessing AI-assisted text editing and content creation tools within these popular Meta apps.
A past AI partnership between Apple and Meta reportedly fell apart over privacy concerns, amid ongoing tensions over App Store rules.
𝕏: Honestly, this shouldn’t even be an option for devs to disable imo - Dylan (@DylanMcD8)
Popular Chatbot-Ranking Website Is Becoming a Real Company
By Rachel Metz via Bloomberg
Chatbot Arena, a widely used site for comparing AI models, is transitioning from an academic project into a commercial venture called LMArena.
The platform lets users pit cutting-edge chatbots against each other and vote, creating leaderboards closely followed by the tech community.
The new company aims to scale the platform rapidly, tapping into its popularity as a go-to destination for hands-on AI model comparisons.
𝕏: this was a fun one: Chatbot Arena (aka @lmarena_ai) is turning into a real company -- the people behind it want to grow the popular chatbot ranking website from a research project to a business. - Rachel Metz (@rachelmetz)
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