Weekly Tech Recap: OpenAI improves ChatGPT, Apple is criticized for a new porn app, the Finance Ministry forbids the use of AI tools, and China looks into Google for antitrust violations, amid worries about user safety and data privacy. With so much news breaking throughout the week, it's difficult to distinguish the most significant updates from the less significant ones, so we've put together the Weekly Tech Recap, where we look at the top stories making waves in the tech world. This week, OpenAI took a cue from DeepSeek, Apple's iPhones received the EU's first porn app, the Finance Ministry forbade the use of ChatGPT and DeepSeek, and more.
The week's top tech stories:
1) ChatGPT adopts a strategy from DeepSeek:
Following last week's general release of its o3-Mini reasoning model, OpenAI began offering a more thorough line of reasoning for the model, drawing influence from DeepSeek R1, a Chinese competitor. ChatGPT still only offers an overview of its logic, not the actual data, in contrast to DeepSeek. According to Vai TechRadar, OpenAI claims that making this data available makes it "easier for people to understand how the model thinks."
To put it in perspective, reasoning models, as opposed to more conventional models like DeepSeek's V3 and OpenAI's GPT-4o, are designed to replicate human thought processes, which is supposed to enhance AI's ability to solve complicated problems. The fact that DeepSeek let customers see how its reasoning model arrived at a conclusion—something that Western AI startups have been hesitant to disclose—was one of the factors that contributed to the company's meteoric rise to prominence last month. But even after a thorough chain of reasoning, DeepSeek continues to decline to respond to inquiries about the Tainamen incident or the northeastern Indian states.
A new 'deep research' mode was also introduced by OpenAI to ChatGPT, enabling users to do multi-step online research for more difficult jobs. Notably, after Operator AI for browser-related activities was introduced last month, Deep Research is OpenAI's second AI agent.
First porn app hits App Store:
Shortly after the first porn software for iPhones was made available for download in the EU, Apple harshly attacked the Digital Markets Act. The new software, Hot Tub, was made accessible through AltStore PAL, a third-party app shop.
Hot Tub positions itself as a content browser that gives users the option to view pornographic content in a safe, private setting free from tracking and advertisements.
"We feel this is necessary to fight back against recent harmful policies by politicians, Meta, and others, and we encourage everyone to help however you can," AltStore stated in a social media post on the launch of Hot Tub.
"We are quite worried about the safety hazards that these kinds of extreme porn apps pose to EU consumers, particularly children. Customers' faith in our ecosystem, which we have spent over ten years creating to be the finest in the world, will be weakened by this app and others like it. Apple responded to Hot Tub's availability.
The Finance Ministry prohibits the usage of ChatGPT and DeepSeek:
According to an internal department advise cited by Reuters, the Finance Ministry has instructed its staff to refrain from utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek for official purposes due to the threats these chatbots represent to the privacy of government data and documents.
According to the Reuters investigation, "it has been determined that AI tools and AI apps (such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, etc.) in the office computers and devices pose risks for confidentiality of (government) data and documents."
Google's antitrust tactics are being investigated by China:
China declared on Tuesday that it has opened an antitrust probe against Google for allegedly breaking the anti-monopoly statute in the nation. The Android manufacturer has been under investigation in compliance with the legislation, according to an official notice from China's State Administration for Market Regulation.
Google's monopolistic activities have already drawn criticism in a number of nations, including its own, where it lost a historic case last year. However, considering that the probe was conducted soon after the Trump administration's 10 percent tariffs on US imports went into force, the timing of China's disclosure of the new action against Google is questionable.
Reddit responds to Elon Musk's criticism of the subreddit for violating the law:
Following a message by entrepreneur Elon Musk accusing members of breaking the law, social networking site Reddit briefly suspended the r/WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit this week. 'Prevalence of violent content' is the reason Reddit announced the community was suspended for 72 hours.
A person going by the handle 'Reddit lies' shared screenshots from r/WhitePeopleTwitter on X (previously Twitter), where users were debating who of Musk's DOGE staff had assisted him in taking over many US federal government systems in recent days.
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