Snapchat, the popular photo-messaging app, has recently announced a new feature that allows its AI chatbot to generate images in response to users’ messages. The feature, called My AI, is part of Snap’s efforts to enhance its augmented reality (AR) offerings and to provide more creative and personalized experiences for its users.
My AI is a chatbot that can converse with users in private chats and help them with various tasks, such as writing poems, finding information, or creating images. The chatbot uses a technology called ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, which is a powerful natural language processing system that can generate coherent and relevant texts based on user inputs.
According to Snap, My AI can now create images using another technology called DALL-E, also developed by OpenAI, which is a generative AI system that can produce realistic and diverse images from text descriptions. For example, if a user asks My AI to show them a picture of a cat wearing sunglasses, the chatbot will generate an image of a cat wearing sunglasses and send it back to the user.
The image generation feature is currently available only for Snapchat+ users, who pay US$3.99 a month for the premium subscription service. Snapchat+ has about 3 million subscribers and offers exclusive access to some of the app’s features, such as advanced lenses, filters, stickers, and games. Snap plans to roll out the feature to all Snapchat users in the future.
Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel said that My AI is a way to introduce AI to communication, which is the core of Snapchat’s service. He said that My AI can help users explore more aspects of the app by suggesting lenses or places to visit based on the app’s map feature. He also said that My AI can be a tool for creativity and expression, as users can use it to create their own images or share them with their friends.
However, the use of generative AI also raises some ethical and social issues, such as plagiarism, misinformation, or harm. Snap said that it has implemented some safety measures for My AI, such as verifying the originality of the generated images, providing sources for the information provided by the chatbot, and limiting the access of users who ask inappropriate or harmful questions. Snap also said that it respects the privacy of its users and does not store or share their chat data with third parties.
