Snapchat's AI Posts Strange Message During Outage, Sparking Concerns

The Story My AI shared was a two-toned image that many users mistakenly interpreted as a picture of their own ceiling.

By Ashley Turner

Snapchat's My AI feature, an in-app AI chatbot that was launched earlier this year with considerable controversy surrounding it, briefly appeared to be thinking for itself. On Aug. 15, the AI posted its own Story to the app and then stopped responding to users' messages, which some Snapchat users found disconcerting. "Someone tell me why tf my Snapchat ai is posting Snapchat stories lmaooo," posted one user. "My Snapchat AI posted a random 1 second story and isn't replying to me AND IM FREAKED OUT," posted another. "why did my snapchat AI just post on its story then ignore me," wrote another user. "Someone shut down Snapchat AI NOW," joked one commenter. It is worth noting that the Story My AI shared was simply a two-toned image that many users mistakenly interpreted as a picture of their own ceiling, adding to the intrigue. Users who tried to chat with the bot were sometimes told, "Sorry, I encountered a technical issue."

Even though the incident had the potential to make for some interesting posts, My AI did not gradually develop self-consciousness and a desire to communicate with the world through Snapchat Stories. Instead, as explained by the bot, the situation occurred as a result of a technical error. A Snapchat spokesperson told ComicBook.com the outage was due to a temporary outage, which is now corrected. It is fair to ask whether Snap was considering adding a new feature to My AI, which would allow the AI chatbot to be able to post on Stories. It is currently possible to send you text messages, and you can even receive pictures back from the bot. However, it seems that Stories are in its future...yet. "At this time, My AI does not have Stories feature," a Snap spokesperson told Techcrunch.

The My AI feature in Snap's Chat app was one of the most controversial new additions to the app, which not only resulted in users leaving one-star reviews on the App Store but also called for its removal, as the AI was pinned at the top of the Chat feed and was not able to be disabled or removed from there. The AI was also found to be susceptible to safety concerns after tests found it reacted inappropriately to minors' messages, revealed in a report by the Washington Post. A later version of the AI added additional safeguards and parental controls. My AI is now back to working normally, as far as these random generative AI Snaps are concerned, at least.

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