Move over, chatbots: AI image generators are taking center stage, but not without controversy. 

Image generators are the next big focus in the AI race as startups and big tech companies alike fight to take control of this emerging market. In mid-February, OpenAI announced Sora, an innovative new text-to-video model that will be able to create highly detailed photorealistic videos and images. Details are still scarce, as the model is not yet available to the general public. However, the demos provided indicate that Sora will be one of the most sophisticated AI tools yet. 

Not to be outdone, Stability AI announced Stable Diffusion 3 a week later. This is the latest version of the company’s existing image and video generation models. After previous Stability AI models have been controversially used to generate pornography, the company has announced that they will add “safeguards” to Stable Diffusion 3 to prevent misuse of the platform. However, Stability AI has yet to announce exactly what these safeguards will look like.

Google’s Gemini AI image generator has also been at the center of controversy this month. AI models have historically been prone to reflecting the racial and gender stereotypes that are present in society. In Google’s attempts to correct the issue, Gemini started responding to prompts with historically inaccurate and potentially offensive images, most notably when it returned racially diverse illustrations of German soldiers serving in World War II. Google has since decided to put Gemini’s image generation feature on pause in order to correct these historical inaccuracies. 

Reddit finally files to go public, nearly 20 years after its initial launch. 

Reddit filed its IPO at the end of February, ending an IPO draught in the social media space. While the company is not currently profitable, it does have a rapidly growing user base. The site saw 500 million users in December 2023, while its daily active users grew by 27% in the last three months of the year.

Reddit is also taking a unique approach to its IPO in that it is inviting some of its most active users to invest. The company has stated that they are using a tiered system and are targeting moderators and those with high karma levels on the site. The number of individual Reddit users invited to invest will total 75,000. Investing in IPOs is typically a privilege reserved for established institutional investors. However, Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman cited this initiative as a way to drive change in the market and make investing more fair and accessible. 

This deal comes in the wake of the AI boom. Major tech companies are working to develop their own large language models (LLMs) to compete with ChatGPT, and many of them use Reddit data to train their AIs. The social media company recently reached a deal with Google to the tune of $60 million annually to use its data. Reddit also states that they’ve already made $203 million licensing their data to AI companies. These deals could be key for tech companies looking to get ahead in the AI race. 

Interestingly, this IPO will move forward without Alexis Ohanian, one of Reddit’s original founders. Ohanian left the business in 2020 after a disagreement with Huffman over how to handle hateful content from users on the site. 

Apple continues to dominate the smartphone market as it makes updates to the iPhone. 

Apple has announced some exciting new iPhone updates this week as the company prepares for the iOS 17.4 update. One of the most exciting upgrades is post-quantum encryption for iMessage. This powerful encryption technology will make iMessage significantly safer to use and protect customers from cybersecurity threats. This update will also help iMessage compete with Signal, a competitor messaging app that is already using post-quantum encryption. 

In January, Apple overtook Samsung as the largest smartphone retailer in the world. Apple commands an impressive 20% of the global market share. The top 7 best-selling smartphone models in 2023 were also all iPhones. Apple’s focus on user experience and sleek designs have helped them retain a very loyal user base. The iPhone is also considered a status symbol in many global markets, which has also given Apple a helpful sales boost. 

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Private companies are leading a reinvigorated space race. 

Intuitive Machines became the first private company to achieve a moon landing on February 22nd. This is also the first United States moon landing since 1972. The company’s lander, Odysseus, managed to successfully reach the moon despite issues with its laser range finders. Odysseus captured photos throughout its journey to the moon and plans to remain there for 14 days, where it will explore the area near the moon’s South Pole. 

Intuitive Machines is one of many private companies involved in space missions. The Odysseus mission was part of the NASA’s Commercial Payload Services Program, which encourages private companies to develop moon landers. 

SpaceX also recently announced that they plan to launch their Starship vehicle at least nine times this year. Starship is the largest rocket ever launched and is planned to eventually complete manned missions to Mars. SpaceX conducted two launches for Starship last year, neither of which reached orbit. 

Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, has recently announced a potential purchase of United Launch Alliance. United Launch Alliance is co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin and is an established space launch company. This comes as Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is now at Cape Canaveral for ground testing. If the ULA purchase does go through, it could result in a true rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin. 

BlueSky expands with new user servers while X continues to struggle. 

Social media platform BlueSky emerged as a competitor to X (formerly Twitter) in early 2023. Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, causing around 13% of users to leave the platform in one year. The FTC recently revealed that Twitter employees actually prevented Musk from violating a 2022 privacy settlement when he purchased the company. 

While X continues to remain under scrutiny, BlueSky is establishing a foothold in the social media space. The platform made its official public launch in early February after being invite-only for nearly a year. BlueSky’s platform is similar to the former Twitter interface, but with a focus on decentralized infrastructure. Now, the platform is giving users the ability to host their own servers, although this feature will be limited to individual accounts for now. This could give social media users more control over the content they create and how it’s stored.