Zoom has updated its terms of service, and buried in the new document there is a clause that establishes Zoom’s right to utilize some aspects of customer data for training and tuning its AI, or machine learning models. Not that this is an uncommon occurrence for companies lately, but it indicates that Zoom is jumping into using artificial intelligence with both feet. Cnbc.com reports that ‘the update comes amid growing public debate on the extent to which AI services should be trained on individuals’ data, no matter how aggregated or anonymized it’s said to be. Chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing, along with image-generation tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, are trained on swaths of internet text or images.’ A somewhat disconcerting wrinkle with Zoom is, in my opinion, that they will have hours of video of your face if you don’t block your camera. With all the talk of AI being able to use prior video and audio by actors, voice artists, TV  and radio personalities, this is a pretty disconcerting move by Zoom. 

The TikTok ‘For You’ page is about to get a little less ‘you.’ According to Mashable.com, users in Europe will be able to opt-out from the personalized algorithm based feed. TikTok is doing this to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act. The DSA requires “very large social media platforms” including TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to give users the option not to receive personalized recommendations. It also mandates that platforms are more transparent about content moderation, so TikTok will inform users about more content moderation decisions than it did previously. The DSA also imposes a ban on advertising targeted at children, so users under 18 will no longer see personalized ads on TikTok.

In the next few weeks, Meta owned Threads will be getting a web version and a search function…two of the most requested features. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement. Engadget.com points out that you can search right now, but the only result os other accounts…you can’t search for posts. The app has already updated with a chronological feed and built-in translations. The app initially rocketed to 100 million users, but then dropped off dramatically. Meta expects a lot of those original accounts to return to the app once the desktop version and search are live. 

X, the app formerly known as Twitter, apparently hasn’t been able to make promised ad revenue-sharing payouts on time. Theverge.com reports that the Musk-owned platform is blaming the volume of people signing up. Considering that they still haven’t paid severance claimed due by laid off employees, the late paying shouldn’t be a surprise. On top of this, Musk posted that he would pay the legal bills of any subscriber who posted something and got fired due to that post on X. A few talking head attorneys on TV have said that may qualify as a binding contract…and a pretty wide open one. That said, with his history of paying people, I wouldn’t hold my breath on anyone getting their legal fees paid!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now!