Meta's personality AI chatbots could launch this week with eye on younger users - report
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) intends to release artificial intelligence, or AI, chatbots as soon as this week with distinct personalities across its social-media apps in an effort to attract young users, The Wall Street Journal reported citing people with knowledge of the matter.
The tech giant is anticipated to announce the first of these AI agents at the Meta Connect conference, which begins on Wednesday. The generative AI models are being tested internally by employees, the report added.
In August it was reported that Meta was planning to launch a range of AI powered chatbots which exude different personalities in September.
The chatbots are aimed to be used as to steer engagement with users, however, some of them might also have productivity-related skills like the ability to help with coding among other things.
Among the chatbots being developed is one called "Bob the robot," a self-described sassmaster general with "superior intellect, sharp wit, and biting sarcasm," the report added citing internal company documents.
The chatbot was designed to be similar to that of a character called Bender from the cartoon "Futurama" because "him being a sassy robot taps into the type of farcical humor that is resonating with young people," the report noted citing one employee who wrote in an internal conversation.
However, Meta's early tests of the chatbots have not been without problems. Employee conversations with some of the chatbots have led to awkward instances.
One employee did not understand Bob the robot's personality or use and found it to be rude. Another bot known as "Alvin the Alien" asks users about their lives such as experiences, thoughts, and emotions.
One employee, who interacted with Alvin the Alien, wondered if users may fear that this bot was purposefully designed to collect personal information, according to the report.
Meanwhile, a chatbot known as Gavin made misogynistic remarks, including a lewd reference to a woman's anatomy, and comments which were critical of Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company but praised TikTok and Snapchat, the report added.
Generative AI services have taken the world by storm, since the launch of Microsoft (MSFT)-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT. The different types of large language models, or LLMs, which can provide services such as content and image generation, to name a few, are being used globally.
Snap (SNAP) launched MY AI, a chatbot built on OpenAI's GPT technology, to Snapchat users in February. Start-up Character.ai uses LLMs to generate conversation in the style of personalities such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nintendo character Mario.
Meta is not the only one which has faced issues with its bots, MY AI has caused several hiccups for Snap. The bot chatted about alcohol and sex with users and randomly posted a photo in April, which the company described as a temporary outage, the report noted.
However, despite these issues, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in June said that My AI has been used by 150M people since its launch and that the AI tool could eventually be used to improve the company's advertising business, as per the report.
Meta has launched several LLMs such as AudioCraft for generating music from text prompts, all-in-one multilingual AI translation model SeamlessM4T, and Llama 2.
Companies around the world have launched their own LLMs. Baidu's (BIDU) Ernie Bot, Alibaba's (BABA) Tongyi Qianwen and Tongyi Wanxiang, Alphabet's unit (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google's Bard, OpenAI's upcoming text-to-image AI tool DALLÂ·E 3, Midjourney Inc.'s Midjourney are some of them.

More on Meta Platforms

Seeking Alphaâs Quant Rating on Meta Platforms
Stocks To Watch: Eyes On Inflation Gauges, Meta Event, Nike Numbers And Stocks Splits
Meta Platforms Stock: Brace For Volatility (Rating Downgrade)
Meta Platforms: Great Value Compared To The Tech Sector As A Whole
Meta rises as Citi opens up 90-day catalyst watch ahead of Meta Connect