Meta's artificial intelligence-powered assistant is suddenly popping up all over its flagship app, and some users aren't thrilled.
The company announced late last week that its assistant, Meta AI, will be integrated into the Facebook feed and search bar on its largest platform. It is now also available in at least a dozen countries.
However, users were quick to express their displeasure at the sudden integration of Meta AI into the search features of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Clicking the blue submit button in the search bar on Instagram and Facebook displays Meta AI instead of regular search results, confusing some users. Tapping a search suggestion with a circular blue Meta AI icon will also launch the AI assistant. (Users can search instead by pressing Enter or by tapping the result with the gray magnifying glass icon.)
Complaints started pouring in over the weekend, many from frequent Instagram users who noticed the change right away.
Michael Taylor, 29, said Friday he was trying to find a band's Instagram account when he tapped a suggested search result and MetaAI popped up with a chat message.he later Posted in X It said the change “significantly degraded search functionality.”
“I think I'm trying to find a solution to something that wasn't a problem,” Taylor added, “If I'm looking for a banana bread recipe on Instagram, what I'm looking for is a text It's not a wall, it's a reel. It's a collection of data from different recipes.”
Meta has invested heavily in its AI efforts, and while it may not be as buzzy as OpenAI's ChatGPT, the company claims its new open source Llama 3 can compete with the best models to date. doing. The company also announced Thursday that it is introducing a model that can be used on a variety of platforms, including Amazon's AWS and Google Cloud.
“We believe these are the best open source models in their class,” the company said in a blog post. “In support of our long-standing open approach, we are putting Llama 3 in the hands of the community. We want to spark the next wave of innovation in AI across the board.”
The move to put the meta-AI assistant into the hands of so many users while making Llama 3 “widely available” could be the biggest deployment of generative AI technology to date. .
But that doesn't mean the user is participating. Some expressed disappointment that the feature could be turned off, while others exchanged tips online about unconventional methods that might work. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that there is currently no official way to disable Meta AI.
“Meta AI aims to be a helpful assistant, appearing in your search bar and answering your questions,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “You can't disable this experience, but you can search for how different outcomes are typically handled.”
The company also announced Thursday the Meta AI website, which brings the assistant to the desktop. Users can ask the chatbot to search for upcoming events, recommend restaurants, or “imagine” artistic renderings based on his text prompts.
While Meta struggles to regulate and consistently label the AI-generated content coming onto its platform, it is also leaning into AI-powered features. The company began rolling out its AI assistant in beta last year before it became fully available in the United States. The company's platform also features AI stickers, AI image editing, and AI characters modeled after influencers and celebrities.
One person took to TikTok to air their frustrations with “everyone on Instagram.” [Meta]” is behind this change. The video quickly garnered him over 100,000 likes and hundreds of comments from users expressing similar outrage.
“I reserve a seat in hell for you because I'm going to drag you there,” the user said in the viral video. “Please return normal search functionality.”
Instagram users aren't the only ones frustrated. In the public Facebook group Middle Aged And Boomers United, his post lamenting the changes on Facebook garnered 13,000 positive responses within a day.
“Dear Meta AI, I don’t want to hear anything and would appreciate it if you could give me back the search bar,” the post said. “Okay, thank you, goodbye.”
Jordan Walsh, 29, is one of them. posted a complaint online. He is not interested in incorporating AI tools into his social media experience, as he uses Instagram on a daily basis, but he feels it may be inevitable in the near future. he said.
Complaints online suggest that Meta AI has a rather clunky user interface, as many users mistakenly think it has replaced the app's regular search functionality, even though it hasn't actually replaced it. He said it felt like a decision.
“This seems like a rhetorical move to replace search as we know it with AI, and that’s kind of alarming to me,” Walsh said. “AI is now always in front of us in everything we do, and this is just one example of that.”