Chatbots continue to be all the rage in both tech and mainstream media. They even got a big segment on Sunday night on HBO"s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (YouTube). Today, Snapchat entered into this trend by announcing its own chatbot, My AI.
This AI companion is an experimental feature for subscribers to the Snapchat+ service. It currently costs $3.99 a month to sign up. The announcement blog post stated:
My AI can recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a recipe for dinner, or even write a haiku about cheese for your cheddar-obsessed pal. Make My AI your own by giving it a name and customizing the wallpaper for your Chat.
My AI is using technology developed by OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT and the same team that partnered with Microsoft on its Bing chatbot. Snapchat is pretty open that My AI might have some issues at first and could make mistakes, saying:
As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance! All conversations with My AI will be stored and may be reviewed to improve the product experience. Please do not share any secrets with My AI and do not rely on it for advice.
Of course, we are still waiting for Google to publicly launch its own chatbot, Bard, after first announcing it earlier in February.