Meta gears up to launch dozens of AI chatbots for younger users

SAN FRANCISCO: Meta is reportedly working on generative AI chatbot called ‘Gen AI Personas’ for younger users and is expected to unveil it this week.

The social networking company is geared up to host its annual ‘Meta Connect’ event that will start on Wednesday.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the AI chatbot “would come in multiple personas geared towards engaging young users with more colourful behaviour.”

"Facebook parent is developing bots with personalities, including a ‘sassmaster general’ robot that answers questions,” the report mentioned.

Meta is planning to develop dozens of AI personality chatbots.

According to internal chats the WSJ viewed, the company has tested a “sassy robot” persona inspired by Bender from Futurama and an overly curious “Alvin the Alien” that one employee worried could imply the bot was made to gather personal information.

Meta is also reportedly planning to train a new AI model that is likely to be as powerful as OpenAI’s latest chatbot GPT-4.

Meta is buying more Nvidia H100 AI-training chips and is ramping up its infrastructure to train the new chatbot, according to earlier reports.

Meta has assembled a group to build the new AI model, with the goal of speeding up the creation of AI tools that can emulate human expressions.

In August, Meta launched its own AI tool called Code Llama to generate new code and debug human-written work. The large language model (LLM) can use text prompts to generate and discuss code.

This year’s ‘Meta Connect’ will be a two-day, in-person event at the company’s headquarters in the US.

It will include a keynote by Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and breakout sessions covering AI and virtual, mixed, and augmented reality.