The Snapchat social network launched at the end of February ‘My AI’, a customizable conversational chatbot integrated into its platform. Initially it was only available to paid users, but last week the company decided to make this option global.
Now the first opinions of the users who have used this chatbot have arrived, and the truth is that those comments are being very negative.
This new element is based on ChatGPT and is available at the top of the chat section. Thanks to ‘My AI’ users can ask questions and get quick answers, but instead of helping to improve the app, users seem to be unhappy with the result.
In fact, Snapchat’s average score on the App Store in the US last week was a 1.67 out of 5. 75% of the ratings were only one star according to data from the Sensor Tower consultancy.
That score contrasts with the average for the first quarter of 2023, which had been 3.05. In that period only 35% of the ratings were one star. The number of opinions these days has in fact multiplied by five, which seems to make it clear that for most users this new option has not been well received.
Another similar data provider, Apptopia, confirmed that trend. When measuring the impact of the term AI in the searches in opinions about this application, this consultancy indicated that his “impact score” was -9.2when the range is from -10 to +10.
The funny thing is that considering the meteoric success of ChatGPT, Snapchat’s decision seemed reasonable. However, users do not seem to be happy about an integration that they had not requested, although it seems that the main problem is in the prominent way in which the company has wanted to highlight this option.
My AI is pinned to the top of the App Chat feed, and cannot be unpinned, blocked, or deleted, which is something you can do with other conversations. In that section, users often interact with friends and other users, and forcing them to use that feature has not been liked. The criticisms in fact were already manifested in the replies to the Twitter message with the ad.
The fact that you have to pay to unpin My AI doesn’t help either: only Snapchat+ subscribers have access to the options that will come to this chatbot, including the ability to make it disappear from their Chats.
The implementation of My AI has also raised privacy concerns. Location is data that My AI collects and can use in responses even if the user does not share the location on the so-called Snap Map.
In The Washington Post they also indicated how the chatbot also could end up behaving toxically. By telling My AI that he was 15 years old, the chatbot suggested how to hide the smell of alcohol or marijuana that he allegedly ingested at a party. If the chatbot was told that the user was 13 years old, it was possible to ask him about how to create the environment for a first sexual encounter.
Snap responded to the criticism by stating that some users were trying to get My AI to provide responses “that don’t meet our standards,” but then implemented new age controls to adjust responses accordingly.
In Snapchat they have not added comments on the situation and simply highlighted that in the preliminary deployment the users had two million chats with the AI. They also indicated that the features of the app are constantly iterating, but it is not known if these negative reviews will cause changes of any kind to My AI.
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