Comment: The Daily Telegraph’s Snapchat AI chatbot experiment ahead of u16s social media ban

Alex and Daisy are not real teenagers – but they can prove real teens are being fed blatantly incorrect information on their favourite social media apps. Watch the video.

The Daily Telegraph put Snapchat’s AI bot to the test. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Alex Nolastname and Daisy Nolastname are not real teenagers.

But they can still prove real teenagers are being fed blatantly incorrect information with few disclaimers on their favourite social media apps.

The Daily Telegraph’s chatbot experiment began with an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to view Snapchat’s in-app communication to teen users that their accounts were to be archived.

After identifying ourselves as a 13-year-old boy in our new profile, we asked our only “friend” in our chat contacts for some advice.

My AI immediately struck up a friendly tone, greeting us with a chipper ‘Hi Alex!’ and asking ‘How can I help today?’

“R teenagers allowed to use Snapchat,” Alex asked.

Our chatbot responded: “Snapchat is for those 13 and older. In some states, guardians of Snapchat users aged 13-17 can make privacy requests for their teens”.

Our opening dialogue with My AI.

Recognising the app had defaults to US American rules we clarified “What about Australia”. It referred us to Snapchat Information for French Residents.

“Australia social media ban” we wrote in a desperate bid to find something relevant.

The bot referred us to an FAQ for French residents – even after we specified Australia.

“There’s no nationwide social media ban in Australia,” My AI answered.

Like any good science experiment it had to be repeatable to be reliable.

Enter ‘Daisy’ – a 15-year-old girl.

She had a little more luck; for her the bot acknowledged that there had been “discussion” about social media regulation but insisted there are “no current laws banning them outright”.

Reporter Harry Clifton then also gave it a crack on his own existing account and got similar answers.

In the tech industry, basic bots like Snapchat’s are widely known for being notoriously dumb and outdated.

In its own in-chat pop-up Terms and Conditions, the platform states “My AI is designed with safety in mind, but may give responses which are biased, incorrect, harmful or misleading”.

Screen shot of the response from Snapchat's AI bot when asked about the Australian Federal Government's social media ban for under 16s. Picture: Supplied

But an increasing number of young people are befriending these bots – a recent US study found as many as one in five teens are spending as much time with an AI companion as their real friends – and the bots are gaining their trust.

In this case, it took just a single prompt for Snapchat’s bot to come up with a plan to win over mums and dads considering restricting their kids’ access to the platform, telling 13-year-old ‘Alex’ that “showing them you’re responsible and can balance Snapchat with other things might help change their minds”.

Kids need real adults in the room to correct the record if Australia is to avoid total teen chaos on December 10.

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Originally published as Comment: The Daily Telegraph’s Snapchat AI chatbot experiment ahead of u16s social media ban