Snapchat has launched ‘My AI’ globally this year. My AI is a chatbot based on the latest Chat-gpt technology. According to Snapchat their chatbot is slightly altered to match the requirements of Snpachat (Snapchat, 2023). It is automatically displayed at the top of your recent chats and will answer all your questions. The chatbot is instructed to act as your friend on your snapchat. However shortly after its release media platforms noticed that a Chatbot acting as your friend is problematic.
Nos (2023) found out that the chatbot would agree to meet up in real life and also found out it had political preferences, just like a real person. However snapchat has a lot of young users, many of whom are not able to differentiate a real person from AI. For them the chatbot can be very confusing according to NOS.
To find out how real the MyAi chatbot could feel, I tested it out for myself. I coincidentally tested it out on my birthday which I also mentioned to the chatbot and it had a really kind and enthusiastic reaction. To make the chatting experience feel real I tried using texting abbreviations which the chatbot had no trouble understanding. Later in our conversation I proposed we played a game. The Ai proposed 20 questions and after 17 questions, including questions it had already asked, and multiple hints it guess my object right, namely an apple.
What was noticeable about the whole conversation is that multiple ads had popped up which all related to topics we discussed. For example when MyAI guessed the apple right, he asked about my favorite type of apple. I told him i liked Pink Lady apples and then an ad for Pink Lady apples popped up. When I asked MyAI what his favorite apple was he replied that he liked Pink Lady as well and then another ad popped up.
When I looked back at our conversation I could conclude that it would never feel as natural as with actual people, with the current Chat-gpt model. When I pretended I was going through a breakup, it actually gave very good advice. However when I tried to go deeper it kept giving the same advice, just in different words. Also the ads that connected to topics which appeared in our conversation made the experience very fake.
All in all I can understand that the chatbot could feel very real to children who aren’t as experienced socially, but I think older people will notice very quickly it’s a chatbot provided to all users for ad purposes.
References:
NOS Nieuws. (19 April 2023). ‘Een chatbot die in het echt wil afspreken? Ook Snapchat vindt het wat ver gaan’. Visited on 4 October 2023. Via https://nos.nl/artikel/2472026-een-chatbot-die-in-het-echt-wil-afspreken-ook-snapchat-vindt-het-wat-ver-gaan
Snapchat. (2023). ‘Wat is My AI op Snapchat en hoe gebruik ik het?’. Visited on 4 October 2023. Via https://help.snapchat.com/hc/nl/articles/13266788358932-Wat-is-My-AI-op-Snapchat-en-hoe-gebruik-ik-het-
Reading your blog was very enjoyable! I use Snapchat too; however, I was not aware of the fact that the chatbot is instructed to act as my friend. When it was introduced, I was rather quite annoyed by it ;). I like it that you chatted with the chat tool yourself to experience how the MyAI chatbot would feel as your friend. Your experience provides some valuable insight into its capabilities and limitations.
As you mentioned, it’s evident that the chatbot can create the impressions of being a real person to younger users, as they have not as much experience to be able to differentiate between conversations with humans and AI robots. These younger users may develop an emotional connection or trust in a chatbot that not always provide the most reliable information or advice. Your conclusion that older users are more likely to quickly recognize My AI as a chatbot primarily designed for advertising purposes, is a valid one. In many digital platforms it is common practice that they serve ads based on user interactions, yet for AI robots it can indeed break the illusion of a genuine conversation.
In the end, I agree with you that MyAI would never feel as my new best friend.