Snapchat users worried after AI posts bizarre story

Snapchat's AI recently started behaving strangely after posting their first Snapchat Story. AI has become a major concern as it has taken center stage over the past year. While AI has always been in the public consciousness through virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Cortana, it has also been prominently featured in movies like the Terminator franchise. Today, there is a fear that AI could become too powerful or be used unethically with the advent of technologies such as ChatGPT. Some Hollywood screenwriters have even decided to go on strike, fearing that studios will opt to use AI to write scripts.

Snapchat's AI publishes its own Story for the first time:

Earlier this year, AI made its appearance on Snapchat. She's pinned to the top of every user's chat list, making it easy to communicate with her at any time. She won't talk to you unless prompted, which means you can completely ignore her without affecting your experience. However, something strange happened today. Snapchat users noticed that the AI posted its own Story for the first time. It was apparently a video of a wall or a ceiling, but it was hard to tell. Naturally, users started questioning the AI about what it was doing, since it had never done that before, but it started ignoring users, which it had never done before. Others received generic replies from the AI stating that it “doesn’t understand” or that it had “encountered a technical problem”. After nearly an hour of confusion, the AI deleted the Snapchat Story.

Snapchat user concern and speculation:

Snapchat users have taken to other social media platforms to express their concern and even fear about it. Some have speculated that the AI has evolved, gaining awareness and figuring out how to post its own Story. At this time, Snapchat has yet to comment directly on this matter. The Snapchat on X support account directed users to send feedback in private messages, but didn't really address the issue head-on. We reached out to Snapchat for clarification on this matter. If we receive any official updates on the Snapchat AI situation, we'll update this article with more information. In the meantime, you can check out some of the reactions from Snapchat users below.

“Over the past week, Snapchat's average app store rating has plummeted to 1.67. Almost 75 percent of the reviews submitted only made it to one star,” writes “TechCrunch” in its section, which relies on figures from the researchers Sensor Tower. For comparison: In the first quarter of 2023, the average value of the user ratings was 3.05 points, with only 35 percent of the reviews getting one star.

"The big problem is that My AI has been embedded in users' personal inboxes - the place where people interact the most. Many perceive this as an invasion of their own privacy and there is no way to remove the AI chat from the top of their inbox." Some users would also be seriously concerned that the new AI element would read and pass on sensitive personal information such as location data without being asked.

Too many unwanted distractions:

Meta 2016 also had to experience the fact that a high degree of sensitivity and user involvement is required, especially in the area of digital messaging services, in order to integrate features such as chatbots into existing offers in a meaningful way and without much criticism. At the time, the Facebook parent integrated Messenger bots into its app to encourage users to interact more with brands and other advertisers. But the attempt failed and was ultimately dropped.