Meta plans to develop chatbot with ‘sassy robot’ persona for young users, report says

Meta is reportedly developing ‘dozens’ of new chatbots

Facebook parent company Meta is reportedly planning to internally release an artificial intelligence chatbot called “Gen AI Personas” aimed at younger users.

The chatbot, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is set to be launched during Meta’s Connect Event on Wednesday.

The tech giant is testing the chatbot, which comes in multiple “personas” aimed to engage young users, including a “sassy robot” persona inspired by Bender from Futurama,according to The Wall Street Journal.

Meta is reportedly developing “dozens” of these chatbots, including some to help with “coding and other tasks” and improve productivity as well as a tool to help celebrities make their own chatbots for their fans.

The development of some of these chatbots – including one with the personality of former US president Abraham Lincoln – are part of Meta’s attempts to boost engagement on its social media platforms, reports previously suggested.

The development of these new chatbots are signs of Meta’s growing interest in the market for large language models (LLM) similar to ChatGPT.

It launched a new version of its open-source model in July called Llama 2 for commercial use, becoming the first major tech firm to release its AI chatbot.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said at the time of Llama 2’s release that it would “drive progress across the industry” while the firm’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun said it will “change the landscape of the LLM market”.

The tech firm’s development of “personas” also comes as tech industry leaders called for a balanced approach towards regulating AI at a historic gathering convened by US senate majority leader Chuck Schumer.

At the meeting held earlier this month, Mr Zuckerberg said the two defining issues for AI are “safety and access.”

He urged the US Congress should “engage with AI to support innovation and safeguards”.

“New technology often brings new challenges, and it’s on companies to make sure we build and deploy products responsibly,” the Meta chief said.

“This is an emerging technology, there are important equities to balance here, and the government is ultimately responsible for that,” he added.