\nSnapchat sees spike in 1-star reviews as users pan the \u2018My AI\u2019 feature, calling for its removal<\/br>
\n2023-04-24 21:54:53<\/br><\/p>\n
The user reviews for Snapchat\u2019s \u201cMy AI\u201d feature are in \u2014 and they\u2019re not good. Launched last week<\/a> to global users after initially being a subscriber-only addition, Snapchat\u2019s new AI chatbot powered by OpenAI\u2019s GPT technology<\/a> is now pinned to the top of the app\u2019s Chat tab where users can ask it questions and get instant responses. But following the chatbot\u2019s rollout to Snapchat\u2019s wider community, Snapchat\u2019s app has seen a spike in negative reviews amid a growing number of complaints shared on social media.<\/p>\n Over the past week, Snapchat\u2019s average U.S. App Store review was 1.67, with 75% of reviews being one-star, according to data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower<\/a>. For comparison, across Q1 2023, the Snapchat average U.S. App Store review was 3.05, with only 35% of reviews being one-star.<\/p>\n The number of daily reviews has also increased by five times over the last week, the firm noted.<\/p>\n Another app data provider, Apptopia<\/a>, reports a similar trend. Its analysis shows \u201cAI\u201d was the top keyword in Snapchat\u2019s App Store reviews over the past seven days, where it was mentioned 2,973 times. The firm has given the term an \u201cImpact Score\u201d rating of -9.2. This Impact Score is a weighted index that measures the effect a term has on sentiment and ranges from -10 to +10.<\/p>\n Apptopia also said that Snapchat received around 3x more one-star ratings than usual on April 20, 2023. That\u2019s the day after the My AI global release was announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, the number of one-star reviews is starting to come down a bit, but they still remain elevated.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Apptopia (analysis of Snapchat app ratings)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The backlash against Snapchat\u2019s My AI comes at a time when the hype around AI is at an inflection point. Companies are weighing how to integrate AI into their businesses, not if<\/em> they should.<\/p>\n For Snap, the addition of an AI chatbot to its social app would have been thought to be a smart move, as dozens of AI chatbot apps<\/a> are filling the app stores, raking in millions of dollars \u2014 a signal that could easily be interpreted to indicate growing consumer demand for social AI chat experiences.<\/p>\n But many Snapchat users aren\u2019t thrilled with My AI, which appeared inside their app without warning or their consent.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Snapchat screenshot<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To some extent, it\u2019s the chatbot\u2019s placement that\u2019s the cause of concern.<\/p>\n My AI is pinned to the top of users\u2019 Chat feed inside the app and can\u2019t be unpinned, blocked or removed, as other conversations can be. This feed is where Snapchat users have regular interactions with friends and isn\u2019t necessarily a place they want to toy around with experimental features. Plus, Snapchat already has an established presence in this feed with its own \u201cTeam Snapchat\u201d chats, and now it\u2019s doubling the screen real estate it wants to take for itself \u2014 or, at least, that\u2019s how some users see it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not difficult to find complaints about the My AI feature on social media. A simple search for \u201cMy AI\u201d on Twitter, for instance, will reveal numerous results. Users are also sharing their complaints with Snapchat directly.<\/p>\n After announcing the new chatbot in a tweet<\/a> last week during Snap\u2019s Partner Summit event, users took the replies to cite their grievances.<\/p>\n Can we have the option to delete it? Asking for the majority of us who didn\u2019t request this feature<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00bfBeb\u00e9, Tr\u00e9 fue? (@tremcleod_) April 19, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n In dozens of responses to Snap\u2019s tweet, users are fully panning the AI bot. They\u2019re saying it should be opt-in only or that they should be given the option to remove it, instead of having it forced upon them. Some users are so upset they\u2019re even threatening to quit Snapchat over this and delete the app entirely.<\/p>\n Many are also pushing back at the fact that removing the My AI from their Chat feed requires a Snapchat+ subscription. According to Snap\u2019s own documentation<\/a>, Snapchat+ subscribers will receive early access to new My AI features and have the ability to unpin My AI or remove it from their Chats.<\/p>\n This angers people who now feel like they\u2019re being forced to pay Snapchat after it messed up their app with an unwanted feature.<\/p>\n Not only do users find the AI feature invasive, some find it creepy, as well.<\/p>\n They\u2019re surprised to learn that Snapchat\u2019s AI knows their location, for example, and can use that information in its responses, even if they\u2019re not sharing their location on the Snap Map.<\/p>\n In a way, the AI bot is surfacing the level of personal data collection that social media companies do in the background, and putting it directly in front of the consumer. As it turns out, that\u2019s not a great selling point when the users don\u2019t feel they\u2019ve specifically opted in to share that data with the AI.<\/p>\n This speaks to a larger debate now taking place around AI<\/a>, as people are waking up to the fact that it\u2019s our own data and our labor in creating information for the web that has allowed these AI systems to come into existence in the first place. Modern AIs are trained on large data sources, including those they licensed but also on publicly available data on the internet and our personal information.<\/p>\n In addition, Snapchat\u2019s My AI had already been the subject of serious concerns before its public rollout.<\/p>\n While available as a subscriber-only feature, The Washington Post reported<\/a> the bot was responding in an unsafe manner. After telling the bot the user was a 15-year-old, the AI made suggestions about how to mask the smell of alcohol and pot at a birthday party. It also wrote an essay for school for the teen. When the bot was told the user was 13, it responded to a question about how to set the mood when having sex for the first time, the paper reported.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/snapchat-app-reviews.png?resize=1140%2C510&ssl=1\")
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