The AI frenzy has been taking the tech industry by storm with its numerous advantages, yet not without some controversy. Snapchat has now integrated the ChatGPT bot to its users, who are not very happy. On April 26th, the term ‘delete Snapchat’ saw an unprecedented 488% surge in global Google searches, five times more compared to the previous three months.
Snapchat’s “My AI” chatbot works in a similar fashion to Google’s Bard or Bing AI. It can answer questions and offer advice, suggestions, and recommendations. It does, however, have one major difference – users can customize the bot’s name and avatar, making it look more lifelike.
Content company CloudTech24 published a report that accompanies the growth in profiles deleting their Snapchat accounts. Google searches for ‘how to delete Snapchat account’ have seen a major 70% increase in the past week, along with the skyrocket of the hashtag #SnapchatAI on TikTok, with over 180 million views.
The issue reaches beyond implementation of a new feature – some are worried that if given the wrong access, the chatbot could be able to gather information like location, violating user privacy. The feature has already been quite controversial since its launch, primarily due to the potential harm it could put to the majority of users (teenagers). American Democratic Senator Michael Bennet expressed his concerns with the feature, citing reports of exposing teens to potentially dangerous content like tips on how to lie to parent or lose their virginity.
Given all the specifications and controversy, is it time to draw the line? Should users stick with all the risks attached or should they delete Snapchat for good? The answer is fully up to every user to make, taking into consideration the numerous reports, features and implications of the tool.
