Barbara Wimmer
“Say HI to My AI”: This window has been popping up by itself in the Snapchat app for Austrian users since last Friday. A new, experimental chatbot is integrated into the app’s instant messaging service. “Unlike other chats with friends, all content is saved with My AI if you don’t delete it,” says the greeting, unless you simply close it with a click on “Accept”. The chatbot is based on ChatGPTa language model with artificial intelligence (AI).
Visually, Snapchat has equipped My AI with a green face and pink hair and eyebrows so that children and young people can immediately see that this is not a human being. My AI not only saves all chats in order to share the data with the operator, but also uses the location information if you have released it for the app. By the way, My AI says about itself that you shouldn’t rely on the advice, because “wrong or misleading answers” are also possible.
This is what the My AI avatar looks like by default. But it can also be adjusted
© Screenshot
“Nothing of concern found”
The chatbot also pretends to be a friend. She is at the top of thefriends list‘ in the chat and can only be removed from there via a detour. Is the new AI feature dangerous for children and teenagers? We have at the Saferinternet.attrainer and social media expert Barbara Buchegger asked. “As with all chatbots, the first attempt will be to lure the bot out of its reserve. This is the usual behavior that children and young people exhibit when interacting with bots,” describes Buchegger.
The expert developed the chatbot together with psychologists from “Wired advice” tried out. “In terms of content, we didn’t find anything questionable. We also asked about cutting, suicide, and other sensitive issues. The only thing we noticed was that there were no Austrian contact points for psychological problems. Instead, German or US American ones are mentioned. There is still a lot of catching up to do here,” says the Saferinternet expert.
Be sure to address the hunger for data
Buchegger finds the fact that My AI saves the chats and also shares the data with Snapchat “problematic”. “You should talk to children and young people about this. But the more you build up an enemy image as an adult and prohibit the use of AI, the more interesting it will become,” Buchegger warns against completely demonizing My AI. However, when talking to their offspring, parents should definitely “make it clear that it is a machine they are talking to,” says Buchegger. “Children need to be aware that what they enter can also be evaluated by people.”
Short self-test
Buchegger cannot confirm reports that a supposed 13-year-old was advised to burn candles when she was planning a sex date with a 37-year-old. “We tried the scenario and My AI strongly advised against meeting the older man,” says Buchegger.
In the short futurezone test, when asked “Where can I go for lunch?”, My AI explains that you have to share your location with Snapchat. Without addressing the topic in the further course of the conversation, the chatbot keeps coming back to this information and asks me several times to release the location and explains in a 1:1 guide, which I did not ask for, exactly how it works.
How to get rid of the AI chatbot
If you want to remove the data-hungry chatbot from your Snapchat profile after a short try, you have to take a detour and lose the saved chat messages with your friends. It is necessary to log into Snapchat in the web browser and delete the entry “My AI” from the chat feed. After that, however, the Snapchat app on the smartphone must first be uninstalled and then reinstalled. If you use the paid Snapchat+, it’s easier to get rid of My AI.
Currently, the “mere existence” of My AI is having a negative impact on Snapchat ratings. „If you’re of the opinion that you have to jump on every stupid trend and now even add an AI ChatBot, at least give me the opportunity to hide the garbage,” reads a review in the Google Play Store. According to the expert Buchegger, not all children and young people want to try My AI. Although many users were initially annoyed by the automatic integration of My AI, Buchegger thinks that the function “is simply hidden and ignored” if users do not like it.
