The President of Turkey hosted leaders from Hamas to discuss the ongoing situation in Gaza. This meeting underscores Turkey's active role in Middle Eastern diplomacy and highlights its engagement with Palestinian issues.
In unrelated tech news, Apple has confirmed that the Chinese government has mandated the removal of the 'WhatsApp' and 'Threads' apps from its Chinese App Store.
The tech giant, known for its iPhones, communicated to The Wall Street Journal and other US media on Thursday evening that China's internet regulatory authority justified this decision citing national security concerns.
Previously, despite China's stringent internet censorship system, famously known as the Great Firewall, users could still download and use these apps via virtual private networks (VPNs).
This new directive from Beijing effectively closes a significant loophole in its firewall, preventing local access to these foreign apps.
The tension over mobile applications continues to strain US-China relations. Countries including the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK have already banned the Chinese-owned app TikTok on government devices, fearing data harvesting by Chinese authorities and intelligence agencies—a claim vehemently denied by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance.
Separately, Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp and Threads, unveiled an enhanced version of its AI-based assistant built on the new 'Llama 3' language model.
The company announced that this iteration of Meta AI is smarter and faster, benefiting from advancements in the publicly available Llama 3 program.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Meta, stated in an Instagram video, "We believe Meta AI is currently the most intelligent and freely usable AI-based assistant available."
He highlighted that the open-source nature of Llama 3 allows developers outside Meta the freedom to modify it, and the company may integrate these enhancements into future versions.
Meta expressed enthusiasm about the potential generative AI technology holds for its product users and the broader ecosystem.
The company is committed to developing and deploying this technology in a way that anticipates risks and reduces them.
This includes incorporating safety measures in the design and release of its Llama models and being cautious when adding AI features to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
Meta’s AI models are known for occasionally producing inaccurate or peculiar responses, described as "hallucination."
In one noted instance shared on Facebook, Meta AI claimed to have a child in a New York school during an online forum conversation.
The company emphasized its continuous effort to update and improve Meta AI since its initial release last year. "Meta's cautious approach in building its own AI tools has lagged in terms of consumer awareness and application use, but there's still time to catch up," said Debra Aho Williamson, chief analyst at Sonata Insights.
She added, "Meta's social media apps provide a vast user base that can be leveraged to test AI experiences."
By integrating AI across its suite of applications, Meta aims to quickly enhance features for billions of users and benefit from observing user interactions with the technology.
Meta also noted improvements in how its AI programs respond to questions on political or social issues, aiming for a balanced presentation of related points rather than promoting a singular viewpoint.
The company mentioned that Llama 3 has been improved to better discern if requests are non-offensive and have logical responses.
Meta has also announced plans to start labeling AI-generated videos, sounds, and images from May onwards, ensuring users are aware when they interact with AI-generated content.
Llama 3 currently operates in English, but Meta plans to release more multilingual models in the coming months.
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