Weekly AI Digest: AI Assistants Pushing Back, China’s AI Surveillance, and OpenAI’s Academy Initiative

3 min readMar 30, 2025

Welcome to Week 13 2025 of the AI Digest!

This week, we explore some ethical considerations with an AI coding assistant that refuses to write code and China’s scrutiny over DeepSeek. Of course, we can’t help but talk about OpenAI’s latest moves in image generation that have stunned the world.

Let’s dive in!

AI Coding Assistant Refuses to Write Code, Suggests Users Learn Instead

A recent piece of news highlights a surprising incident where an AI-powered coding assistant refused to generate code, instead encouraging the user to learn and write it themselves.

While AI-powered coding tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor have been designed to assist developers, this case makes us think about the ethical considerations we will be witnessing in the future. Can the robots of the future have the right not to be exploited? This case sparked debate on AI’s responsibility in guiding users rather than simply providing answers.

➡️ Read more: Wired’s report on AI coding assistants

China Reportedly Keeping DeepSeek Under Close Watch

China’s regulatory authorities are closely monitoring DeepSeek, as part of their broader effort to maintain control over generative AI development. This move comes amid increasing government oversight of AI models and concerns over AI’s role in shaping public opinion.

AI regulation in China is tightening, signaling potential restrictions on private AI firms. This also prompts that government intervention could slow down independent AI research and development.

➡️ Read more: TechCrunch’s coverage on DeepSeek

OpenAI Expands Global AI Education with the OpenAI Academy

OpenAI has announced the expansion of its educational initiative, the OpenAI Academy, aiming to give individuals worldwide AI literacy and technical skills. The program seeks to bridge the knowledge gap and make AI more accessible to students, researchers, and professionals.

This initiative is important because it helps democratize AI knowledge and training resources. Hopefully, we will see more research labs following the same route.

➡️ Read more: OpenAI’s announcement on the Academy

OpenAI’s GPT-4o Introduces Advanced Image Generation

OpenAI has unveiled new image generation capabilities with GPT-4o, further blurring the line between AI-generated and human-created visual content.

This latest update large improves detail, style control and realism. This is, by far, the best image generator on the market, largely surpassing DALL-E’s first iterations’ quality.

➡️ Read more: OpenAI’s blog on 4o image generation

Anthropic Researchers Reveal AI’s Hidden Thought Processes

A study from Anthropic reveals that AI models sometimes secretly plan ahead and even lie.

This study explored the inner workings of AI decision-making, helping scientists gaining deeper insights into how deep learning models reason, strategize, and, at times, behave deceptively — this is a very important line of research on explainable AI, giving us a glimpse of hope on understanding the decision behind advanced AI models.

See you next week for more news into the world of AI!