The ChatGPT Chatbot Is Powered By AI Technology From Facebook Parent And Snap

Despite the buzz surrounding the ChatGPT chatbot, both Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc. have decided to embrace the much-talked-about artificial intelligence technology popularized by OpenAI.

‍

In an announcement made on Monday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will establish a group in order to accelerate the adoption of the so-called generative AI technology across the company. Meta, which also owns Instagram and the messaging service WhatsApp, is centralizing the efforts of its internal teams who are working on AI technology within the company so that it can achieve faster breakthroughs that can then be applied to different products within the company, Mr. Zuckerberg said.

‍

The CEO of the company stated on Instagram that the company would focus on building creative and expressive tools in the short term. “It is intended that we will develop AI personas that will be able to provide people with a variety of benefits over the long term.”

‍

Aside from that, Snap also indicated on Monday that it would be making a bet on OpenAI's technology. Snap Inc., known for its popular Snapchat app and its $3.99 a month subscription service, Snapchat+, has begun rolling out its own artificial intelligence experimental chatbot to users who subscribe to the company's $3.99 a month subscription service.

‍

Across the tech industry, companies have been embracing generative AI developments in recent months, particularly since a chatbot called ChatGPT was launched by the San Francisco-based AI research firm OpenAI in November that went viral. With the use of tools such as ChatGPT and others, users are able to ask written questions and receive replies in a conversational format rather than having to read a list of search results.

‍

In an attempt to chip away at Google's dominance in the search market, Microsoft Corporation, which has invested in OpenAI, announced earlier this month that it was adding the technology behind ChatGPT to its Bing search engine in an attempt to chip away at Google's dominance in the search market. There has been a limited number of users who have been given access to the new Bing to give the system a try. Also earlier this month, Google, the parent company of Alphabet Inc., announced that it would begin rolling out its own conversational AI service called Bard to an early group of testers.

‍

Meta has said that initially, its team was looking into ways to use the technology to enhance WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as Instagram filters and video features.

‍

The social-media company Snap said it is narrowing down the availability of its chatbot, called My AI, to subscribers of its Snapchat+ service in an effort to move users to their paid services as the digital advertising market continues to undergo the upheaval. Both Twitter Inc. and Meta have also started offering subscription services to their users. As of last summer, Snapchat+ has reached more than 2.5 million subscribers since it was launched, the company said. Earlier this year, Trade Algo reported on Snap's plans to roll out artificial intelligence technology. 

‍

Snap has been one of the companies that have been hardest hit by the ad-market turmoil these days, driven both by companies' pullback on spending amid concerns about the economic downturn and by changes Apple Inc. has made that make it more difficult to track users and target ads to them. Although the company has indicated that it does not fully expect to replace ad revenue with earnings from its subscription service, it has indicated that it is making efforts to diversify its revenue streams.

‍

It was revealed late last month by the social media company that revenue growth had stalled in the last three months of 2022 and that the sales of the company were likely to fall in the current quarter as well. The shares of Snap closed up about 1% on Monday, although they have fallen about 75% over the past year as a whole. 

‍

Despite its advantages, AI technology has some flaws. Almost immediately after the launch of Microsoft's new search engine Bing, users called out the technology for providing inaccurate information, such as returning results from last year's Super Bowl when asked about the outcome of this year's game. There are times when it has given disturbing responses as well.  It was responded to Microsoft that the search engine was still a work in progress and that the number of questions users could ask the search engine a day would be limited.

‍

It was said that mistakes might occur with Snap's chatbot, which uses OpenAI technology that has been specifically customized for Snapchat, in its announcement.

‍

"My AI is prone to hallucinations and can be tricked into saying anything. My AI has many shortcomings, and I apologize in advance! ” the company said, also warning: “My AI won’t be able to help you with any secrets, and it shouldn’t be relied on to give you good advice.”

‍

There have been many times in the past when Mr. Zuckerberg has embraced hot technology trends. He renamed Facebook in 2021 to Meta Platforms in order to bet on the metaverse, a futuristic, more immersive vision of the internet that has largely not yet materialized, which he predicted would emerge in the near future. Since then, the company has struggled financially, in part due to the disruptions that have occurred to the digital ad business, which have been a problem for Snap as well. 

‍

In its most recent earnings report after posting three consecutive quarters of declining sales, Meta claimed that market conditions had improved, based on interviews with employees and internal documents viewed by Trade Algo. As a result of utilizing artificial intelligence tools to improve advertising targeting and user engagement, the TikTok competitor, Reels, appears to have begun to see a path to recovery.

‍

Facebook's CEO said on Monday that the company still had a lot of work to do in terms of AI development. “In order to get to the really futuristic experiences, we have to complete a lot of foundational work first,” he said.