Snapchat’s My AI chatbot is freaking people out.
Some users are accusing the bot of secretly tracking their location, while others are desperately trying to delete it.
Irate Snapchatters are voicing their disdain by leaving one-star reviews for the Snapchat app on the iOS App Store. Google searches for “delete Snapchat” also spiked by 488 per cent on the heels of the chatbot’s launch, according to a study by cyber-security consultants CloudTech24.
The backlash represents a blow for Snap, which is putting its faith in AI and augmented reality to boost engagement. This follows its failed experiments in hardware, original shows and games.
“Snapchat AI is creepy,” said YouTuber Faze Rug in a tweet that’s been viewed more than 500,000 times. “It told me my location and when I went to go enable ‘ghost mode’, I already had that on.”
Snap made the My AI chatbot available to everyone earlier this month after testing it out on paying subscribers in late February. The bot is a customised version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT that can provide answers on a vast range of topics in a conversational manner.
Snap is positioning My AI as another one of your pals who you can message for movie recommendations, add to group chats, and have a laugh with. Users can access the bot from atop their chat tab where they normally message their friends.
Snapchat AI is creepy 🤔 It told me my location and when I went to go enable “ghost mode”, I already had that on. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/5V7CPVSNjo
— Rug (@FaZeRug) April 22, 2023
However, not everyone is thrilled by its lingering presence. Other Snapchat users have echoed Faze Rug’s paranoia. There are numerous tweets in which people accuse the chatbot of lying about tracking their location.
In screenshots shared by Twitter user @ChrisMinecraft_, the bot initially says it can recommend restaurants based on your IP location. It later backtracks and denies that it has access to such information.
“Snapchat’s new AI knows your current location at all times with location services off,” tweeted another user.
SNAPCHAT AI IS LIEING AND TRACKING YOUR LOCATION pic.twitter.com/GNqP7llZDu
— ChrisMC (@ChrisMinecraft_) April 24, 2023
My fav part of the new @Snapchat AI is how it lies about using your location info pic.twitter.com/FpUkuNLm7D
— Peter Dunphy (@peterwdunphy) April 23, 2023
So @Snapchat ‘s new AI knows your current location at all times with location services off, and immediately lies to you when you ask how it knows. pic.twitter.com/HFVMpQi3c9
— Jake L. Provo (@J_Lee_Design) April 20, 2023
Some frustrated users are trying to disable the bot or delete Snapchat altogether. The criticism recalls the pushback Snapchat received over its divisive redesign in 2018 from celebrities and regular users alike.
This month’s top two posts on the Snapchat subreddit on Reddit, home to more than 330,000 members, are of users asking how to remove the bot from the app.
“So the Ai Chatbot has just appeared on my friends list… and I don’t want it on my feed. What do I do?” reads one of the Reddit posts by an irritated user.
“They should really get rid of it, or at least make you able to block/unpin it. I’m deleting the app because it’s so annoying,” notes another popular post on the Snapchat subreddit.
Does Snapchat’s chatbot know your location?
Location tracking on Snapchat is turned off by default. This means Snap can’t pinpoint your whereabouts without your permission.
You can give it access to this info by disabling Ghost Mode via the in-app settings.
According to its privacy policy, Snap determines your precise location by using methods that include GPS, wireless networks, mobile towers, Wi-Fi access points, and other sensors in devices including smartphones, such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, and compasses.
It uses this info to power features such as Snap Maps. This is a virtual map that allows you to see where your contacts are — and view public Snaps from people nearby and vice versa.
As for its chatbot, the AI uses your Snap Maps location to provide you with nearby place recommendations. For example, if you ask My AI: “What are good Italian restaurants near me?,” it can return suggestions that are a short distance away.
In a newly published blog post, Snap explains that its bot may still have access to your location for a little time even if you disable the setting.
“If Snapchatters stop sharing their location with Snapchat, it may take a little time for this to take effect in My AI,” the company notes.
Snapchat shares only city-level location and generalised distances between you and places, with the large language model (LLM) used for My AI. In a nutshell, an LLM is a powerful algorithm trained on data from the web that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict, and generate text and other content, including images in some cases.
“My AI is part of Snapchat so, if a user has granted location permissions in the app, My AI may be able to provide location-based responses,” a Snapchat representative told the Evening Standard.
“My AI is an experimental chatbot that learns over time and can occasionally produce incorrect answers. If Snapchatters experience inaccurate responses, we encourage them to report it using our in-app tool.”
How to delete AI on Snapchat
If you’re not a fan of Snapchat’s new AI bot, you’re out of luck. The only official way to get rid of it is to pay £3.99 for a monthly subscription to Snap’s premium service, Snapchat+.
You will then be able to remove My AI from the chat feed. To do so, tap and hold on the chatbot, select “chat settings”, and choose “clear from my chat feed”.
How to get My AI on Snapchat
On the other hand, if you’re eager to try the chatbot, you should have access to it on iPhone and Android as long as your app is up-to-date.
If for some reason you can’t see the bot on your chat feed, you can check to see if your Snapchat app needs updating via the app store on your phone.
Snap’s My AI chatbots controversies explained
This isn’t the first time the chatbot has come under fire. Only weeks after its launch, Snap was forced to implement new safeguards after the AI was caught dishing out advice about weed and sex to the app’s youthful user base.
The concerns are emblematic of the wider fears around the unchecked growth of AI. Italy recently banned ChatGPT partly because it lacks a method of verifying the age of minors, the country’s data regulator said.
Meanwhile, both Google and Microsoft have revealed that their chatbots are prone to spewing misinformation — a phenomenon known as “hallucination”.
Snap has also admitted as much: “As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything,” the company said in late February. “Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance!”
Despite these shortcomings, Snap insists that the bot is appropriate for younger users. It claims that the vast majority of the chatbot’s responses adhere to its community guidelines.
Ultimately, Snap’s goal is to learn more about its users in order to point them to augmented-reality features and other content that will keep them engaged.
Eventually, it will also use this data to show you ads during your conversations with the bot. Snap is currently exploring ways to generate revenue from My AI, starting with sponsored links, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel revealed on the company’s recent earnings call.
Ahead of the backlash, Snap was touting the bot’s initial success. During the trial phase, the chatbot received two million chat messages per day from Snapchat users on topics including movies, sports, pets, and more, the company recently revealed.
But clearly, Snapchat’s AI pal isn’t to everyone’s liking.
