Mattel has put the AI image generator DALL-E to work by having it come up with ideas for new Hot Wheels toy cars. Used vehicle seller CarMax is summarizing thousands of customer reviews with the same “generative” AI technology that powers the popular chatbot ChatGPT.Meanwhile, Snapchat is bringing a chatbot to its messaging service. And the grocery delivery company Instacart is integrating ChatGPT to answer customers’ food questions.
“I want people to think deeply before deploying this technology,” said Claire Leibowicz of The Partnership on AI, a nonprofit group founded and sponsored by the major tech providers that recently released a set of recommendations for companies producing AI-generated synthetic imagery, audio and other media.
“ChatGPT really sort of brought it home how powerful they were,” said Eric Boyd, a Microsoft executive who leads its AI platform. “That’s changed the conversation in a lot of people’s minds where they really get it on a deeper level. My kids use it and my parents use it.” “It helps create mock ups that then are going to be turned by a human into something that is more concrete,” she said.
For consumer-facing chatbots getting integrated into smartphone apps, it gets a little trickier, Curran said, with a need for guardrails around technology that can respond to users’ questions in unexpected ways.