It is now available in Canada, Australia, Ghana, Jamaica, Malawi, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Meta has integrated AI into Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger in Canada. However, not everyone may welcome its presence, as the new feature cannot be turned off.
In a statement Thursday, the company said Meta AI can be used “to get things done, learn, create and connect with the things that matter to you.”
It is now available in Canada, Australia, Ghana, Jamaica, Malawi, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, reports media outlets.
The company listed several applications, including requesting recommendations for restaurants with sunset views and vegan options, or seeking explanations on subjects students may have upcoming tests on. Additionally, the program can generate images based on text prompts.
Meta AI is accessible in the search bar of the applications and utilizes the Llama 3 model.
The Associated Press reported that an official Meta AI chatbot inserted itself into a conversation in a private Facebook group for Manhattan moms. It claimed it too had a child in school in New York City, but when confronted by the group members, it later apologized before its comments disappeared, according to screenshots shown to The Associated Press.
“Apologies for the mistake! I’m just a large language model, I don’t have experiences or children,” the chatbot told the group.
Facebook’s online help page says that Meta AI will join a group conversation if tagged, or if someone “asks a question in a post and no one responds within an hour.”
While that feature can be turned off, Meta AI’s broader presence on the platforms cannot be disabled, as per a statement from Meta to Global News. Nonetheless, a spokesperson mentioned that there are feedback tools available for users who are dissatisfied with a received response.
“Meta AI aims to be a helpful assistant and is in the search bar to assist with your questions. You can’t disable it from this experience, but you can search how you normally would to engage with a variety of results,” the spokesperson said.
“We’ll use this feedback to continue training the models so they are less likely to produce potentially harmful outputs and to improve the ability of our systems to automatically detect policy violations.”
AI systems have slowly been popping up after ChatGPT popularized the idea, including from Google and X. Meta’s integration of AI, though, with its billions of users, would be one of the largest distributions of such technology so far.
