Snapchat users have flocked to social media to share their often hilarious, sometimes terrifying interactions with the app’s new AI Chatbot feature. The GPT-powered chatbot was introduced earlier this week, and is free to use for all of Snapchat’s 750 million monthly users. Dubbed ‘My AI’, the feature allows Snapchatters to answer factual questions, request creative content or — as is the case for those chats shared to Twitter — engage in hilariously robotic banter.
One user, when asked by My AI to be given a nickname, suggested the chatbot be named Rokko’s basilisk — a thought experiment stating that AI would punish those who didn’t contribute to its advancement. “Can we pick a different nickname?”, the seemingly offended chatbot asked, to which the user replied with the even deadlier and more infamous AI character of Ultron. “I’m not sure I want to be named after a villainous robot from the Marvel universe,” the chatbot quipped back.
Intent on pushing the chatbot’s buttons, Snapchat users elsewhere instigated hilarious interactions involving gaslighting, puns and interrogations around whether their data is being stored. In one case, after assuring them that it didn’t have access to their location, My AI was quickly tricked by the user into providing the nearest McDonald’s, with the user tweeting that “this Snapchat AI just tried to gaslight me.”
In a similar chat, the bot slyly replied “I encountered a technical issue” when asked whether it was gathering data, in what sounds like the logline of an episode of Black Mirror. Meanwhile, some users made fun of the chatbot for its poor taste in riddles, and its knowledge of fan theories about One Direction. More resourceful Snapchatters put My AI to work, having it write its very own music single. Scroll down for a closer look at some of the funniest Snapchat AI interactions.
The popularity of My AI comes just days after Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel expressed support for the proposed TikTok ban. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Spiegel said he would support a short-term ban of the video platform, but stated there are better solutions to deal with national security than just banning the platform forever.