What threats does AI-powered Snapchat pose to young users?

 

As the social media platform has launched its artificial intelligence (AI) debut, technology experts have voiced their concerns about its impacts on youth.

Web3 consultant and AI expert Joseph Raczynski told Fox News Digital that "there are definitely some dangers ahead but I honestly believe this is something that is very important and a positive thing, but it has to be done in a way that helps people understand what they're getting into and what they're actually accomplishing here."

Centre for Technology and Innovation Director Jessica Melugin also told Fox: "This is kind of a great example of how this is going to evolve and how companies are going to react in real-time to address problems and concerns with AI."

"This is just the sensitive time when it's important to let these companies respond, react incorrectly, as opposed to running to Washington and asking them to regulate those things away," added Jessica.

As it is only available to premium users, in April, 750 million users opted for My AI — which runs through OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology.

Pew Research Center estimated that 59% of US internet users ages 15 to 29 use Snapchat, which means it's at the fingertips of the young generation.

Melugin noted that "based on what it's trained on, it's not always accurate. And you have to second check it. Maybe it helps you get started, but it needs the human touch."

"And I think you're going to see the same thing happen on Snapchat with a younger group of people."

Raczynski explained: "It could be the people that are actually creating this algorithm on the back end that are further honing it and crafting it but it's also the data collection, the set itself, where it's gathering that information from. And if it's not large enough and if it's not as diverse as possible, then you're going to have those types of issues."

"The little misstep was that they made it into 'My AI', so it was yet another buddy or friend or whatever the case is, and that to me makes it sound like, well, it's a friend," he added.

"They need to distinguish and say: this is something that people are actually going to need to interact with as an assistant, not as a friend."

As the young generation is using such AI technology apps, the experts urged parents to openly discuss any possible misinformation concerns.

Melugin pointed out similar conversations parents have been having with their children for years on topics like eating fruits and vegetables or not watching too much TV.

"If they're on Snapchat, they're going to use this," Melugin cautioned. "You need to say, '... It's an algorithm. And you can have fun with it, and you can enjoy it, but you shouldn't take it as gospel and you shouldn't get into anything weird with it.’"

"I think parents engaging with their kids, helping them learn a little bit about this stuff and having some scepticism, so teaching them that this is not the be-all-to-end-all, that what is coming back is not necessarily the truth, but it could be a truth," Raczynski noted.

Tech experts have also concurred that AI advancements could not be stopped and said that companies and tech leaders would go for such technology to increase their business.

A spokesperson from Snapchat acknowledged that My AI is always learning and can occasionally produce incorrect responses.

Melugin said: "That's a very difficult feat to get it to be perfectly neutral, trained on this huge dataset. So I think that this is a combination of, it's a learning curve, there should be feedback to the products from users if they feel like something's wrong."

"Going forward, there could be some true disruption because no one knows what's happening in this black box. The algorithm, the data, they don't know what's processing and what's happening with that," Raczynski stated.