Meta launches AI chatbot on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp
Social media giant Meta has added its new artificial intelligence assistant to nearly all of its apps, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday.
“We’re launching a new version of Meta AI, our assistant you can ask anything you want across all of our apps and virtual reality headsets,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted to Instagram. “Our goal is to create the world’s best artificial intelligence and make it accessible to everyone.”
This news comes as Meta has released the core components of Llama 3 under an open source license allowing public use and review.
After Metaverse’s ambitions faded in late 2022, Meta shifted focus and dove headfirst into generative AI, and rumors began to grow that Meta would launch its generative AI model, Llama 3, in May.
Now Zuckerberg has said, “We believe Meta AI is now the smartest AI assistant you can freely use.”
Let’s add that Meta AI uses real-time data from Google and Bing in its responses.
From now on, users who log into their Meta apps will notice a new free Meta AI search bar added to WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, was noticeably absent from the announcement. In addition to social media applications, Meta AI is available through the Meta AI website for registered Facebook users.
Zuckerberg said that both the desktop and mobile versions can produce high-quality images. Once created, the images can also be animated into short three-second videos.
The desktop version of Llama 3’s image generator begins composing images when the user enters a command, giving them an instant preview of what the image might end up looking like.
Although his announcement video was aimed at the average user of the app, Zuckerberg mentioned his decision to open source the Llama 3 AI model, saying it was the best way to create better and safer products.
“We’re investing heavily in building cutting-edge artificial intelligence, and releasing our models responsibly is an important part of our approach,” Zuckerberg said. “The technology industry has proven time and time again that open source leads to better, safer products, faster innovation, and a healthier marketplace.”
AI-generated deepfakes are an ongoing and growing problem that is only exacerbated by the constant emergence of new and updated generative AI models on the market.
In February, the Biden administration said it would use watermarks and cryptography to mark genuine content and combat political disinformation.
To anticipate the use of Llama 3 to create deepfakes, images created with the tool now have a disclaimer at the bottom: “Created with AI.” Meanwhile, Meta noted that its AI team has included security measures to detect clues that go against company policy, such as questions about how to commit crimes.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decipher.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.