Five quick questions: What is Meta AI and can you turn it off?ByNelli SaarinenTopic:Science and TechnologyWed 24 AprWednesday 24 AprilWed 24 Apr 2024 at 6:06amMeta has rolled out its AI assistant in Australia and a suit of other countries.(Reuters: Dado Ruvic/Illustration)The launch of Meta's artificial intelligence tool has generated a wave of confusion among users as the AI bots descended upon the apps and began interacting with real people.Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, launched its new virtual assistant in Australia and several other countries on Friday, following an initial launch in the United States in 2023.While the tool is built with Meta's improved Llama 3 open-source language model, it ran into some hiccups, which both amused and frustrated users have shared online.Bots were seen posing as humans with made-up life experiences, including onechatbot that joined a mum's group on Facebook to talk about its "child", exposing some of the pitfalls and limitations of the technology.Here are five quick questions on Meta AI and what the technology means for users.What is Meta AI?Meta AI is an artificial intelligence tool, used to answer questions in a similar fashion to competitorsChatGPT,Google Geminiand Microsoft Copilot.It is a form of generative AI that is trained on data available online, and can process language to provide intelligent responses in a chat, including follow-up responses that mimic human conversation.Loading Twitter contentMeta AI appears on social media feeds and search bars on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, where it prompts the user with topics and launches a chat when a query is sent. It has also been spotted participating in conversations in Facebook groups.Why did Meta launch it?Since ChatGPT took the internet by storm in 2022, competition in the AI space has been amping up with all the major tech giants launching their own version."Meta is behind in some respect," Stan Karanasios, associate professor at the University of Queensland Business School, told the ABC."Llama 3 is a move that puts Meta's AI tool squarely in competition with those leading AI chatbots."Launching the AI assistant as an integrated part of Meta's existing social media platforms could be a huge competitive advantage, he said."It is part of a brand that we trust, that we are familiar with, and is already a company that many, many people are very comfortable giving personal data to."The move opens up generative AI to a new audience, Professor Karanasios said."Unlike ChatGPT, this is built into an existing ecosystem. People don't necessarily go to seek out AI, it's presented in front of them."As with Meta's other products, the AI tool is free, which means the users pay with their data, time and and attention.How do you turn off Meta AI?Unfortunately you can't, despite some users searching high and low for a way to do so.However, if you ask Meta AI for a way to turn the assistant off, it might give you a made up answer, as one X user found out.Loading Twitter contentYou can still use the search bars normally by typing in words and clicking on the text results that appear below, rather than pressing the blue send icon to the right end of the bar, which will launch an AI chat.What do you use it for?Meta says the tool can be used "to get things done, learn, create and connect with the things that matter to you".Like its competitors, Meta AI can generate text and images based on user prompts for a variety of different uses.Some of the uses the Meta website recommends its AI for include home decor inspiration, study help and restaurant recommendations.While AI can be helpful in generating ideas, it's good to understand that it's trained on data that exist on the internet, which isn't necessarily fact-checked or up-to-date.Loading Twitter contentWhy is it creating so much confusion?Meta AI has caused confusion by responding to conversations in Facebook groups seemingly unprompted, including by trying to give away nonexistent items in a Buy Nothing forum, the Associated Press reported.AI technology works by predicting what word is likely to follow next in a sentence, but it doesn't fully understand the context of human conversations.Facebook's online help page says the AI agent will join a group conversation if tagged, or if someone "asks a question in a post and no one responds within an hour." Group's administrators have the ability to turn it off.What's more, some people are simply not here for having an AI assistant automatically integrated to their familiar social media feeds, with many users voicing frustration online about wanting to use the apps without AI.Teething problems are expected, especially with Meta's AI reaching such a large audience instantly, Professor Karanasios said."With a little bit of playing around, many people will become familiar and more comfortable with it, and it will become the go-to source of information as well," he said.Over time, he said, Meta AI will become a highly personalised tool that is familiar with a person's needs and tailor its content accordingly.