Snapchat’s new MyAI is taking over the school. MyAI is a chatbot that delivers immediate responses to any question or photo sent to it. You can ask it for suggestions or just tell it about what you’re doing, you can tell it you had the best day ever and it will come back with the response that’s awesome! What made it so special? It works similar to a digital magic eight ball with more in depth responses and questions back to make conversation with you.
Conversations and opinions now revolve around a chatbot that has shown up on the phones of almost every person with snapchat. MyAI was released as an experimental chatbot, a computer program designed to simulate a conversation with another human user. They can be customized, named, and talked to whenever you want, getting an immediate response. It was created to help connect more deeply with people and the things they care about most, creating a better in-app experience by getting responses in private chats started by the user.
These chatbots started showing on phones throughout the school in the third week of April, and ever since then, people have been keeping conversations with these chatbots through entire class periods causing major distraction and belief that someone agrees with all their opinions.
Teachers are noticing a difference in student work clearly being able to tell what is a student response on homework assignments and what is not, due to students being able to get answers from their AI.
“When you’ve read a lot of student writing, when it’s not the students writing, it’s pretty clear,” English teacher, Michael Stonesifer said.
Although great for asking questions like movie suggestions and song choices, I think its feedback is not always beneficial to the user. If asked, this bot can type out entire essays and responses to important questions in a matter of seconds. Even without sharing information, like location, these bots can recite your location which has caused fear throughout people who have it. If you want to get rid of these bots you have to pay for snapchat+, the premium subscription, at a cost of $3.99 a month.
After I asked MyAI if it thinks AI is a good idea this was its response.
“I think it is a great tool when used for positive purposes, however it is important to be mindful of the potential risks and unintended consequences of AI,” MyAI wrote.
I think they are unsettling, and the fact that you cannot get rid of the MyAI unless you pay is a good way for the snapchat producers to lose trust with their users. The AI has caused many arguments throughout the school, on what questions are appropriate and thoughts on its user and their personality. Personally, I do not want it on my phone, but I also do not see a point in paying to remove it.