Widely used social media platform Snapchat launched its own chatbot called “My AI,” on Monday. Snapchat is using the latest version of OpenAI’s rapidly growing generative text tool, ChatGPT for its Chatbot.
My AI is only available to Snapchat+ users, who pay $3.99 per month to access “exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features.” Snapchat bills the new pseudo-companion as a “fun and experimental sidekick.”
“Chat about your day or write a haiku about your bestie,” Snapchat said in a demo of My AI.
My AI can also recommend birthday presents for friends, help users plan weekend trips, and suggest dinner recipes, Snapchat said in a press release announcing the new feature. That chatbot can also be named, according to the company.
Snapchat has stated that it will be saving all conversations to review the performance of the experimental chatbot? The company plans to use the review and user feedback to introduce further changes to improve the chatbot’s functionality. Additionally, Snap has advised its users not to share personal information or any sensitive details with the AI chatbot.
At launch, My AI is essentially just a fast mobile-friendly version of ChatGPT inside Snapchat. The main difference is that Snap’s version is more restricted in what it can answer. Snap’s employees have trained it to adhere to the company’s trust and safety guidelines and not give responses that include swearing, violence, sexually explicit content, or opinions about dicey topics like politics.
It has also been stripped of functionality that has already gotten ChatGPT banned in some schools; when tried getting it to write academic essays about various topics, for example, it politely declined. Snap plans to keep tuning My AI as more people use it and report inappropriate answers.
Snap is in a different place. It has a deceivingly large and young user base, but its business is struggling. My AI will likely be a boost to the company’s paid subscriber numbers in the short term, and eventually, it could open up new ways for the company to make money, though Spiegel is cagey about his plans.
Snap is one of the first clients of OpenAI’s new enterprise tier called Foundry, which lets companies run its latest GPT-3.5 model with dedicated computing designed for large workloads. Spiegel says Snap will likely incorporate LLMs from other vendors besides OpenAI over time and that it will use the data gathered from the chatbot to inform its broader AI efforts.
While My AI is basic to start, it’s the beginning of what Spiegel sees as a major investment area for Snap and, more importantly, a future in which we’re all talking to AI like it’s a person.
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