Snapchat users across the country are spooked after some users’ AI feature posted a story by itself

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - Millions of people use Snapchat daily to connect with friends and family. However, users were alarmed to find the “My AI” feature, an artificial intelligence tool backed by ChatGPT, made a post on its own.

It’s something that was thought to be impossible, but not everybody seemed worried about it.

“I thought it could have been just a software issue or something was going on, I didn’t think it was a super big deal,” said Griffin McMullen, an incoming freshman at the University of Arizona. “It wasn’t really personalized to people or anything, so I didn’t think there was a big concern.”

Snapchat claims it was a glitch that has now been fixed, and cyber security experts seem to agree.

“You kind of have to be willing to accept certain risks, like generative AI creating something random, unexpected and maybe a bit spooky,” said Brian Ledbetter. Ledbetter is a senior security strategist at Guidepoint Security.

“As we work through some of these hiccups, so to speak, I think these weird experiences should go down over time.”

Many users voiced their concerns about the safety of AI, especially when it comes to private information stored on Snapchat, with some deleting the app entirely. Experts say one way to prevent mishaps is to read the privacy policies or contact a social media company for clarification.

“If there is misalignment with the notice and policies and their expectations,” Ledbetter said, “reach out to the company and be like, ‘hey, this did not meet my expectation, how are you going to fix this?’”

As for folks continuing to use the AI tool on Snapchat, or AI in general, it’s 50/50.

“Well, the Snapchat AI, I’m not really going to use because it’s not that good,” said Muhain Saedi, another incoming freshman at the University of Arizona. “But other AI I will probably use … even though it probably won’t be a good idea in the long run.”

Be sure to subscribe to the 13 News YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@13newskold

Copyright 2023 13 News. All rights reserved.