TikTok CEO Shou Chew will testify in a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce this Thursday, March 23, at 10:00 a.m. ET.

As CEO, Chew is responsible for TikTok’s business operations and strategic decisions.

The “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms” hearing will be streamed live on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s website.

According to written testimony submitted by Chew, the hearing will focus on TikTok’s alleged commitment to transparency, teen safety, consumer privacy, and data security.

It also appears to broach the topic of misconceptions about the platform, such as its connection to the Chinese government through its parent company, ByteDance.

Chew shared a special message with TikTok yesterday from Washington, D.C., to thank 150 million users, five million businesses, and 7,000 employees in the U.S. for helping build the TikTok community.

@tiktokOur CEO, Shou Chew, shares a special message on behalf of the entire TikTok team to thank our community of 150 million Americans ahead of his congressional hearing later this week.♬ original sound – TikTok

The video has received over 85k comments from users, many describing how TikTok has allowed them to interact with people worldwide and find unbiased news, new perspectives, educational content, inspiration, and joy.

TikTok Updates Guidelines And Offers More Educational Content

TikTok has been making significant changes to its platform to address many of these concerns before this hearing to evade a total U.S. ban on the platform.

Below is an overview of some efforts by TikTok to rehab its perception before the hearing.

Updated Community Guidelines – TikTok updated community guidelines and shared its Community Principles to demonstrate commitment to keeping the platform safe and inclusive for all users.

For You Feed Refresh – TikTok recommends content to users based on their engagement with content and creators. For users who feel that recommendations no longer align with their interests, TikTok introduced the ability to refresh the For You Page, allowing them to receive fresh recommendations as if they started a new account.

STEM Feed – To improve the quality of educational content on TikTok, it will introduce a STEM feed for content focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Unlike the content that appears when users search the #STEM hashtag, TikTok says that Common Sense Networks and Poynter will review STEM feed content to ensure it is safe for younger audiences and factually accurate.

This could make it more like the version of TikTok in China – Douyin – that promotes educational content to younger audiences over entertaining content.

Series Monetization – To encourage creators to create in-depth, informative content, TikTok introduced a new monetization program for Series content. Series allows creators to earn income by putting up to 80 videos with up to 20 minutes in length, each behind a paywall.

More Congressional Efforts To Restrict TikTok

The TikTok hearing tomorrow isn’t the only Congressional effort to limit or ban technologies like TikTok.

Earlier this month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the RESTRICT Act (Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology), which would create a formal process for the government to review and mitigate risks of technology originating in countries like China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.

Organizations like the Tech Oversight Project have pointed out that Congress should look beyond TikTok and investigate similar risks to national security and younger audiences posed by other Big Tech platforms like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta.

We will follow tomorrow’s hearing closely – be sure to come back for our coverage to determine how this will affect users and predict what will happen next.

Featured Image: Alex Verrone/Shutterstock

GPT-4, the latest version of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s language model, is a breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) technology that has revolutionized how we communicate with machines.

ChatGPT’s multimodal capabilities enable it to process text, images, and videos, making it an incredibly versatile tool for marketers, businesses, and individuals alike.

What Is GPT-4?

GPT-4 is 10 times more advanced than its predecessor, GPT-3.5. This enhancement enables the model to better understand context and distinguish nuances, resulting in more accurate and coherent responses.

Furthermore, GPT-4 has a maximum token limit of 32,000 (equivalent to 25,000 words), which is a significant increase from GPT-3.5’s 4,000 tokens (equivalent to 3,125 words).

“We spent 6 months making GPT-4 safer and more aligned. GPT-4 is 82% less likely to respond to requests for disallowed content and 40% more likely to produce factual responses than GPT-3.5 on our internal evaluations.” – OpenAI

GPT-3.5 Vs. GPT-4 – What’s Different?

GPT-4 offers several improvements over its predecessor, some of which include:

1. Linguistic Finesse

While GPT-3.5 is quite capable of generating human-like text, GPT-4 has an even greater ability to understand and generate different dialects and respond to emotions expressed in the text.

For example, GPT-4 can recognize and respond sensitively to a user expressing sadness or frustration, making the interaction feel more personal and genuine.

One of the most impressive aspects of GPT-4 is its ability to work with dialects, which are regional or cultural variations of a language.

Dialects can be extremely difficult for language models to understand, as they often have unique vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that may not be present in the standard language.

However, GPT-4 has been specifically designed to overcome these challenges and can accurately generate and interpret text in various dialects.

2. Information Synthesis

GPT-4 can answer complex questions by synthesizing information from multiple sources, whereas GPT-3.5 may struggle to connect the dots.

For example, when asked about the link between the decline of bee populations and the impact on global agriculture, GPT-4 can provide a more comprehensive and nuanced answer, citing different studies and sources.

Screenshot from OpenAI, March 2023

Unlike its predecessor, GPT-4 now includes a feature that allows it to properly cite sources when generating text.

This means that when the model generates content, it cites the sources it has used, making it easier for readers to verify the accuracy of the information presented.

3. Creativity And Coherence

While GPT-3.5 can generate creative content, GPT-4 goes a step further by producing stories, poems, or essays with improved coherence and creativity.

For example, GPT-4 can produce a short story with a well-developed plot and character development, whereas GPT-3.5 might struggle to maintain consistency and coherence in the narrative.

Screenshot from OpenAI, March 2023

Screenshot from OpenAI, March 2023

4. Complex Problem-Solving

GPT-4 demonstrates a strong ability to solve complex mathematical and scientific problems beyond the capabilities of GPT-3.5.

For example, GPT-4 can solve advanced calculus problems or simulate chemical reactions more effectively than its predecessor.

Screenshot from OpenAI, March 2023

Screenshot from OpenAI, March 2023

GPT-4 has significantly improved its ability to understand and process complex mathematical and scientific concepts. Its mathematical skills include the ability to solve complex equations and perform various mathematical operations such as calculus, algebra, and geometry.

In addition, GPT-4 is also capable of handling scientific subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy.

Its advanced processing power and language modeling capabilities allow it to analyze complex scientific texts and provide insights and explanations easily.

As the technology continues to evolve, it is likely that GPT-4 will continue to expand its capabilities and become even more adept at a wider range of subjects and tasks.

5. Programming Power

GPT-4’s programming capabilities have taken social media by storm with its ability to generate code snippets or debug existing code more efficiently than GPT-3.5, making it a valuable resource for software developers.

With the help of GPT-4, weeks of work can be condensed into a few short hours, allowing extraordinary results to be achieved in record time. You can test these prompts:

• “Write code to train X with dataset Y.”
• “I’m getting this error. Fix it.”
• “Now improve the performance.”
• “Now wrap it in a GUI.”

6. Image And Graphics Understanding

Unlike GPT-3.5, which focuses primarily on text, GPT-4 can analyze and comment on images and graphics.

For example, GPT-4 can describe the content of a photo, identify trends in a graph, or even generate captions for images, making it a powerful tool for education and content creation.

Screenshot from OpenAI, March 2023

Imagine this technology integrated with Google Analytics or Matomo. You could get highly accurate analytics for all your dashboards in a few minutes.

7. Reduction Of Inappropriate Or Biased Responses

GPT-4 implements mechanisms to minimize undesirable results, thereby increasing reliability and ethical responsibility.

For example, GPT-4 is less likely to generate politically biased, offensive, or harmful content, making it a more trustworthy AI companion than GPT-3.5.

Where Can ChatGPT Go Next?

Despite its remarkable advancements, ChatGPT still has room for improvement:

• Addressing neutrality: Enhancing its ability to discern the context and respond accordingly.
• Understanding the user: Developing the capacity to understand who is communicating (who, where, and how).
• External integrations: Expanding its reach through web, API, and robotic integrations.
• Long-term memory: Improving its ability to recall past interactions and apply that knowledge to future conversations.
• Reducing hallucination: Minimizing instances where the AI is convinced of false information.

As ChatGPT continues to evolve, it is poised to revolutionize marketing and AI-driven communications.

Its potential applications in content creation, education, customer service, and more are vast, making it an essential tool for businesses and individuals in the digital age.

More Resources:

Featured Image: LALAKA/Shutterstock

This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a full committee hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Chew to discuss how the platform handles users’ data, its effect on kids, and its relationship with ByteDance, its Chinese parent company.

This hearing is part of an ongoing investigation to determine whether TikTok should be banned in the United States or forced to split from ByteDance.

A ban on TikTok would affect over 150 million Americans who use TikTok for education, entertainment, and income generation.

It would also affect the five million U.S. businesses using TikTok to reach customers.

Is TikTok The Only Risk To National Security?

According to a memo released by the Tech Oversight Project, TikTok is not the only tech platform that poses risks to national security, mental health, and children.

As Congress scrutinizes TikTok, the Tech Oversight Project also strongly urges an investigation of risks posed by tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google.

These platforms have a documented history of serving content harmful to younger audiences and adversarial to U.S. interests. They have also failed on many occasions to protect users’ private data.

Many Big Tech companies have seen TikTok’s success and tried to emulate some of its features to encourage users to spend as much time within their platforms’ ecosystems as possible. Academics, activists, non-governmental organizations, and others have long raised concerns about these platforms’ risks.

To truly reduce Big Rech’s risks to our society, Congress must look beyond TikTok and hold other companies accountable for the same dangers they pose to national security, mental health, and private data.

Risks Posed By Big Tech Companies

The following are examples of the risks Big Tech companies pose to U.S. users.

Amazon

Amazon has made several controversial moves, including a partnership with a state propaganda agency to launch a China books portal and offering AWS services to Chinese companies, including a banned surveillance firm with ties to the military.

Apple

Independent research found that Apple collects detailed information about its users, even when users choose not to allow tracking by apps from the App Store. Over half of the top 200 suppliers for Apple operate factories in China.

Google

The FTC fined Google and YouTube $170 million for collecting children’s data without parental consent. YouTube also changed its algorithm to make it more addictive, increasing users’ time watching videos and consuming ads.

Meta

Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest the private data of over 50 million users. It also failed to notify over 530 million users of a data breach that resulted in users’ private data being stolen.

It also allowed Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The influence operation posed as an independent news organization with 13 accounts and two pages, pushing messages critical of right-wing voices and the center-left.

TikTok 

TikTok employees confirmed that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is involved in decision-making and has access to TikTok’s user data. While testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Vanessa Pappas, TikTok COO, would not confirm whether ByteDance would give TikTok user data to the Chinese government.

Conclusion

While the dangers posed by TikTok are undeniable, it’s clear that Congress should also address the risks posed throughout the tech industry. By holding all major offenders accountable, we can create a safe, secure, and responsible digital landscape for everyone.

Featured Image: Koshiro K/Shutterstock