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YouTube CEO Neal Mohan has said that using the videos on the platform to train an artificial intelligence (AI) model would be a “clear violation” of YouTube’s terms and conditions after OpenAI’s CTO “didn’t know” whether the tool was trained on YouTube videos.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Mohan made his first public statements on OpenAI’s Sora, which was announced earlier this year to much fanfare and excitement.
“From a creator’s perspective, when a creator uploads their hard work to our platform, they have certain expectations. One of those expectations is that the terms of service is going to be abided by. It does not allow for things like transcripts or video bits to be downloaded, and that is a clear violation of our terms of service. Those are the rules of the road in terms of content on our platform.”
In March, the CTO of OpenAI, Mira Murati, talked to The Wall Street Journal about the new generative AI tool that can apparently create videos several minutes long. When asked about the training data for Sora, Murati said, “We used publicly available data and licensed data,” but the CTO did not know if that included content from YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
OpenAI has already faced questions about its training data
OpenAI has been opaque when it comes to the training data it uses to create its large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools. This has resulted in several lawsuits.
Comedian Sarah Silverman and a collection of other authors are suing OpenAI under California’s unfair competition law, accusing the firm of using copyrighted materials in the training data.
The New York Times has also filed a lawsuit against the AI company for copyright infringement, asserting that OpenAI be held responsible for damages caused by their unlawful use of copyrighted material.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that OpenAI plans to use YouTube video transcripts to train ChatGPT-5, suggesting that they are not perturbed by the lawsuits.
Featured image credit: Ideogram
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Apple has axed more than 600 jobs after effectively abandoning its plans for self-driving cars.
The cuts will mostly impact workers at the iPhone maker’s site in California where it was discreetly working on ambitions to build electronic vehicles (EVs), having never publicly acknowledged the project.
Last month, a report indicated Apple would endeavor to shift workers to its artificial intelligence (AI) division but many will now be heading for the exit after the Golden State’s employment department was informed on 28 March that 614 staff will be laid off in May. 
The decision to mothball efforts on the EV market was heralded as a shrewd decision by Ray Wang, the founder and chief executive of Silicon Valley-based consultancy firm Constellation Research. The call came after the tech giant had spent billions on its self-driving car project with a fully developed vehicle still thought to be years away.
Wang told BBC News, “This is a smart and long-awaited decision.”
“The market demand for EVs is not there and AI is where all the action is,” he added.
Apple not immune to industry cuts

Apple has avoided mass staff cuts in recent times, unlike other blue-chip firms that have acted to cull hundreds of thousands of roles since the pandemic.
Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the company did not envisage significant staff reductions.
“I view that as a last resort and, so, mass layoffs are not something that we’re talking about at this moment,” he said.
Times and circumstances change, as evidenced in this development but Apple has not been impacted by cuts in the same way the likes of Amazon have decimated its workforce headcount.
27,000 jobs were lost at Amazon in 2022, continuing through to this year, with Amazon Web Services announcing a fresh round of cuts this week, affecting hundreds of workers.
Elsewhere, Microsoft, eBay and PayPal are said to have ditched an estimated 34,000 positions recently, in a pivot to artificial intelligence as companies revise their resources.
Image credit: Ideogram

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In case you were getting worried that there hadn’t been a sale in the world of video gaming for, ooh, about 20 minutes, Microsoft Xbox is on hand to allay those fears.
The Xbox Spring Sale is offering loads of games with discounts “up to 50%”, so if you have any cash left over from all those other sales that have recently finished, well this might be able to relieve you of that burden.
It looks as though there are considerably well over 1,000 titles that are discounted so picking through them all would be a mission for anybody. Fortunately, we are here to cherry-pick a few options that you should grab if you don’t already have them present and correct in your Xbox game libraries by now.
Best deals in the Xbox Spring Sale
Remember that AAAA game they were charging $70 for? Skull and Bones, yes we know you forgot about it even though it was only a few weeks ago. Well if you want a little High Seas action you can snap that up now for $33% off which brings it more in line with where it should have been priced in the first place.
If you have been hanging off Baldur’s Gate 3 then a) you are a fool and b) you are a clever fool because it now has a discount, albeit only 10%, but that cash is always better in your bank account.
Another game that has struggled to get traction and indeed favorable press is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League which has a whopping 50% off in the sale. Again, how it had the brass to be a $70 game in the first place, but ours is not to reason why.
Every September people jump on board the FIFA (now EAFC) hype train and splash out around $90 to get the latest release. Without fail. Every six months later you can pick it up in a sale for, in this case, 80% off…that isn’t a typo, it is under $20 right now.
The last biggie to suggest is the excellent Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown which has a more than healthy 40% off right now and is definitely worth adding to your basket the second you read this if you missed out on its original launch.
The Spring Sale starts today (April 5th) and will run until April 18th, so you have plenty of chance to make your minds up.
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Samsung Electronics is expecting to record a whopping 931% increase in first-quarter operating profit thanks to a firm rebound in chip prices.
On Friday (5 Apr), the company released a preliminary statement detailing an almost tenfold increase in operating profit from the same period, last year. For January to March 2024, profits spiked to 6.6 trillion Korean won ($4.89 billion), a massive increase compared to 0.64 trillion won for Q1 in 2023.
Samsung is the world’s biggest manufacturer of various random-access memory (RAM) chips, which are commonly found in consumer devices such as smartphones and computers.
Company chiefs at the South Korean multinational will be delighted with the turnaround after its operating profit nosedived a year ago, as the downcycle of the semiconductor market began in earnest.

Samsung Electronics Announces Earnings Guidance for First Quarter 2024https://t.co/7HVnl6ld1I
— Samsung Electronics (@Samsung) April 5, 2024

Positive outlook ahead for Samsung
The positive update comes as the United States is set to award Samsung over $6 billion to expand the company’s presence in the country, with funding resulting from the 2022 Chips and Science Act. It already enjoys a sprawling operation in Austin, but a new strategic $17 billion plant is set to emerge in Taylor, also in the Lone Star State.
Samsung’s major rivals are Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker. Both firms are also to benefit from US Government investment in a bid to make the bulk of their chips in the states.
That will not diminish the intense competition between the companies, after Intel emerged last month as the biggest earner from semiconductor manufacturing, ousting Samsung from the top spot.
Meanwhile, Japanese investment bank Daiwa Securities has forecast an encouraging outlook for Samsung, backing its turnaround to continue further into 2024.
Daiwa analyst and executive director SK Kim stated in a March 27 report, “We forecast Samsung Electronics will post solid earnings for Q1 24 driven by memory price hikes and robust S24 sales, beating market estimates.”
“We expect the strong AI-driven memory upturn cycle will drive earnings in 2024-25E,” added Kim.
Samsung Electronics is expected to provide a full breakdown of detailed earnings later this month.
Image credit: Omar Markhieh/Pexels

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China is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) powered forms of misinformation to interfere in foreign elections, according to a new report from Microsoft.
Deepfakes and other forms of AI-generated content are reportedly being deployed by Beijing to meddle in the affairs of the United States and Taiwan, with the research finding specific examples of manipulated imagery being pushed to fuel conspiracy theories that the US government intentionally caused a train derailment in Kentucky and wildfires in Maui, Hawaii in 2023.
With geopolitical tensions between Taiwan and China ongoing, the recent elections in the East Asian island provided the backdrop for interference. Microsoft detailed in the report how it observed Chinese actors creating AI-generated news broadcasts with fake presenters to spread misinformation to influence the elections.
Some of the content was said to be made using CapCut, an AI editing tool owned by ByteDance, the same parent company of TikTok which is currently the subject of action from US lawmakers with proposed legislation to effectively ban the popular video-hosting app in the states.
On the interference in Taiwan, the report noted “This was the first time Microsoft Threat Intelligence has witnessed a nation-state actor using AI content in attempts to influence a foreign election.”
Examples of Chinese hackers’ disinformation tactics
The campaign also honed in on individuals, with Microsoft finding “a notable uptick” in material featuring political figures in Taiwan, including prominent politicians such as Lai Ching-te. The president-elect and leading light in the country’s pro-independence party was at the center of various dirty tricks, including AI-generated memes showing him being charged and the party mired in corruption.
Another video depicted a woman claiming Lai had several mistresses and illegitimate children.
China-based campaigns are also said to have used sockpuppet social media accounts to create noise around topical issues such as climate change, immigration, and US foreign policy in Ukraine and Israel. Impersonation of American voters and the use of online polls to better understand the US electorate are tools being used for further exploitation ahead of the presidential election later this year.
However, the Microsoft report does not conclude the current level of AI-inspired disinformation is a game changer or of critical impact.
Image credit: Ideogram
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