In February of 2023, Snapchat released the new artificial intelligence powered chat box “My AI” to subscribers of Snapchat Plus. The feedback has been nothing but negative. The chat box, powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT feature, functions to offer up appropriate answers to any question that a user asks. According to Snapchat’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, the chat box intends to represent another human in our lives. He believes that “in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day.” Even though this feature is still in its very early days, its premise and the execution have not been up to user’s standards.
Conceptually, AI has been around since the early ideas of technology emerged, but recently it has been gaining popularity. ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence services have been in the news for causing problems in schools. The technology has the ability to write papers and solve problems for students. Larger companies have been using AI more and more for advertising and marketing services.
Snapchat is the first service to use it as a place for personal messaging. ChatGPT is a sector of Open AI. It is a text generating chat box that comes up with instantaneous responses based on how humans would respond. In Snapchat’s case, the AI sets out to mimic a conversation that one would have with another human.
Since the new feature was rolled out to the public, Snapchat has seen a spike in one-star reviews. The platform’s overall rating on the US App Store is now a 1.67 stars.
The biggest complaint is that there is no way to remove “My AI.” Responding to this complaint, a Snapchat spokesperson said if users don’t like the new feature, “they don’t have to use it.”.
People use Snapchat to connect with their friends and family that they know not robots. In my opinion, “My AI” also comes across as quite creepy. It has access to users’ locations even when they are not sharing their location on Snapchat. It can also “see” and recognize photos that users send in the chat. This capability is especially concerning given the younger demographic that Snapchat serves– the median age of users is 15-25 years old. And with their more impressionable minds, AI may be able to take advantage of them more easily.
In looking to the future, Snapchat needs to come up with a way to let users choose to remove the feature from their app. Otherwise, users are threatening to stop using the app altogether, because they find the AI unsettling.
This whole situation worries me. I think more and more larger companies are going to start implementing similar features. I think that AI can be useful in some situations, but there needs to be a distinction between using it for work purposes and using it for “human connection.” As a society, we are already very tied to technology, and I think the introduction of always having something to respond to is going to make this matter worse.
Ultimately, the public did not respond well to Snapchat’s new AI feature. They view the new technology as creepy, intrusive, and overall not useful to users. Changes need to be made if Snapchat wants to keep any part of the positive reputation it once had.
“My AI” brings up concerns for future users and for the social media industry as a whole. When we begin to lean more heavily on artificial intelligence than real human connection, it is worrisome.
