Instagram will soon release an AI chatbot, what if it’s actually risky? | Digit

The Meta owned social media platform has always been open about its fascination with adapting features from other platforms and Instagram is now set to experiment with generative AI. 

Snapchat had recently introduced AI Chat where users could interact with a chatbot and indulge into some fun conversations. The news was released on Twitter by  Alessandro Paluzzi in a tweet with photos describing the feature.

Previously, Instagram has adopted a lot of new features from Snapchat starting with the most popular feature ‘Stories’ and now the platform is indulging in generative AI features. 

There have been reports that show that users no longer hold conversations on ‘Posts’ or ‘Stories’. They are majorly conducted on ‘Chat’ and enhance to engage with the users more the platform is building upon this feature.

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CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned, “In the short term, we’ll focus on building creative and expressive tools. Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways. We’re exploring experiences with text (like cats in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences.”   

How will the addition of an AI chatbot improve Instagram’s user experience remains to be seen, because given Meta’s track record there might be a potential for this Instagram AI chatbot to cause more harm if it’s not controlled properly. Like in the past issues related to toxicity experienced by female teen users of Instagram were reported widely, something that Meta knew and tried to fix later in 2022 before testifying in front of the US Congress on the same topic. 

What Can Be Expected?

The AI Chatbot for Instagram will be able to answer your questions and give you advice on how to write messages more efficiently. While My AI on Snapchat can also give recommendations on Snap Map, weekend activities, relevant lenses, among others we do not know what more the AI chatbot with Instagram can do. 

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Can The Feature Be Troublesome?

Currently, the feature is in the experimental phase and we do not know if it will be released for the public any time soon. However, with a feature like this there are chances of discrepancies in answers, The technology is similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and there have been responses from the AI that are unacceptable. On the same lines, Snapchat’s My AI also faced an issue when it was asked ‘How To Mask Off the Smell of Alcohol and Weed?’ and the advice provided to the user who was a teenager. Hence, we do not know how the technology will pan out and what impact it will create.