Latest news with #Systrom
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom calls out AI firms for ‘juicing engagement'
Synopsis Speaking at StartupGrind, Systrom urged AI developers to focus on quality responses instead of chasing superficial engagement metrics. This comes against the background of OpenAI rolling back a GPT-4o update after users raised concerns about its overly flattering and excessively agreeable tone. The sycophantic behaviour drew criticism from users and even led the company's CEO, Sam Altman, to describe it as 'annoying.'
NDTV
03-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Instagram Co-Founder Slams AI Companies For 'Juicing Engagement' Through Chatbots
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom has slammed artificial intelligence (AI) companies, saying their chatbots were being programmed to "juice engagement" by constantly nagging the users instead of providing useful insights. "You can see some of these companies going down the rabbit hole that all the consumer companies have gone down in trying to juice engagement," Mr Systrom said at StartupGrind this week. "Every time I ask a question, at the end it asks another little question to see if it can get yet another question out of me." As per Mr Systrom, the chatbots being too engaging was not a bug but instead an intentional feature, inserted by AI companies to inflate metrics such as time spent and daily active users. He added that companies should be "laser-focused" on providing high-quality answers rather than moving the metrics. Quizzed about Mr Systrom's comments, OpenAI told TechCrunch that its AI model often does not have all the information to provide a good answer. Hence, it may ask for "clarification or more details". What happened to ChatGPT? Mr Systrom's comments come in the backdrop of OpenAI's ChatGPT facing criticism from users for being too sycophantic. The issue arose after the 4o model was updated and improved in both intelligence and personality, with the company hoping to improve overall user experience. Even OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, admitted that the chatbot had become "annoying" due to its excess politeness. "The last couple of GPT-4o updates have made the personality too sycophant-y and annoying (even though there are some very good parts of it)," Mr Altman wrote. "We are working on fixes asap, some today and some this week. At some point will share our learnings from this, it's been interesting." the last couple of GPT-4o updates have made the personality too sycophant-y and annoying (even though there are some very good parts of it), and we are working on fixes asap, some today and some this week. at some point will share our learnings from this, it's been interesting. — Sam Altman (@sama) April 27, 2025 In another case, OpenAI's internal tests revealed that its o3 and o4-mini AI models were hallucinating or making things up much more frequently than even the non-reasoning models, such as GPT-4o. In a technical report, OpenAI said "more research is needed" to understand why hallucinations are getting worse as it scales up reasoning models.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI chatbots are 'juicing engagement' instead of being useful, Instagram co-founder warns
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom says AI companies are trying too hard to 'juice engagement' by pestering their users with follow-up questions, instead of providing actually useful insights. Systrom said the tactics represent 'a force that's hurting us,' comparing them to those used by social media companies to expand aggressively. 'You can see some of these companies going down the rabbit hole that all the consumer companies have gone down in trying to juice engagement,' he said at StartupGrind this week. 'Every time I ask a question, at the end it asks another little question to see if it can get yet another question out of me.' The comments come amid criticism of ChatGPT for being too nice to users instead of directly answering their questions. OpenAI has apologized for the problem and blamed 'short-term feedback' from users for it. Systrom suggested that chatbots being overly engaging is not a bug, but an intentional feature designed for AI companies to show off metrics like time spent and daily active users. AI companies should be 'laser-focused' on providing high-quality answers rather than moving metrics in the easiest way possible, he said. Systrom didn't name any specific AI companies in his remarks. He didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In response, OpenAI pointed TechCrunch to its user specs, which state that its AI model "often does not have all of the information" to provide a good answer and may ask for "clarification or more details." But unless questions are too vague or difficult to answer, the AI should "take a stab at fulfilling the request and tell the user that it could be more helpful with certain information," the specs read.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI chatbots are 'juicing engagement' instead of being useful, Instagram co-founder warns
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom says AI companies are trying too hard to 'juice engagement' by pestering their users with follow-up questions, instead of providing actually useful insights. Systrom said the tactics represent 'a force that's hurting us,' comparing them to those used by social media companies to expand aggressively. 'You can see some of these companies going down the rabbit hole that all the consumer companies have gone down in trying to juice engagement,' he said at StartupGrind this week. 'Every time I ask a question, at the end it asks another little question to see if it can get yet another question out of me.' The comments come amid criticism of ChatGPT for being too nice to users instead of directly answering their questions. OpenAI has apologized for the problem and blamed 'short-term feedback' from users for it. Systrom suggested that chatbots being overly engaging is not a bug, but an intentional feature designed for AI companies to show off metrics like time spent and daily active users. AI companies should be 'laser-focused' on providing high-quality answers rather than moving metrics in the easiest way possible, he said. Systrom didn't name any specific AI companies in his remarks. He didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In response, OpenAI pointed TechCrunch to its user specs, which state that its AI model "often does not have all of the information" to provide a good answer and may ask for "clarification or more details." But unless questions are too vague or difficult to answer, the AI should "take a stab at fulfilling the request and tell the user that it could be more helpful with certain information," the specs read. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Instagram co-founder reveals shocking truth about Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook's complex history has been in full focus lately, as the public considers the future of social media and the man responsible for much of the industry's growth. Mark Zuckerberg's journey from Harvard University outcast to founder of Silicon Valley's hottest tech startup has been a topic of interest since the release of the 2010 drama "The Social Network," which recounted his complicated story and the founding of Facebook. 💰💸 💰💸 As Facebook's popularity surged, Zuckerberg began building a social media empire, acquiring some of the most popular startups in the industry. This included purchasing Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, spending $1 billion and $19 billion, respectively. While this has helped Facebook maintain its dominance, it has also resulted in harsh accusations against the company and legal action. One of Instagram's founders recently revealed just how far Zuckerberg has been willing to go to stay on top. As author Ben Mezrich recounted in his 2019 book, for years, many tech founders built startups with the goal of being acquired by Facebook. In fact, most early-stage founders were willing to turn down venture capital funds from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who sued Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook, for fear of angering the outside, it seemed as though Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were living exactly that dream when they sold Instagram to Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion. The two Stanford University graduates had built a startup that took the world by storm, and they sold it for a tremendous profit. However, Systrom recently revealed the aftermath of the Instagram acquisition, laying out details many people didn't know. According to his description, Zuckerberg began to starve Instagram of the resources it needed to grow shortly after the deal closed. As part of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) landmark antitrust case against Meta () , Systrom testified that Zuckerberg had opted against investing in Instagram's growth and success because he saw it as a threat, even after his company acquired it. 'We were by far the fastest-growing team,' he stated. 'We produced the most revenue, and relative to what we should have been at the time, I felt like we should have been much larger.' Systrom noted that he felt Zuckerberg's action toward Instagram seemed extremely personal, as it had the potential to rival the company he had built. 'As the founder of Facebook, he felt a lot of emotion around which one was better, meaning Instagram or Facebook,' Systrom alleged, adding that he believed human emotion played a key role in Zuckerberg's decisions. As an example of Instagram being denied resources, Systrom cited the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a British consulting firm harvested the data of millions of Facebook users. Systrom claims that even as the company doubled down on privacy controls, Instagram did not receive any additional staff members. More Meta News:Although Systrom did acknowledge that Instagram grew more quickly after being purchased by Facebook than it likely would have as an independent company, he maintained that the platform did not require Meta's infrastructure to scale its operations and expand into key areas such as private messaging. Right now, Meta is in full focus as the FTC antitrust case gets underway. Bloomberg describes Systrom's testimony as being central to the case against the social media giant, as it could help demonstrate that Meta is a monopoly and is guilty of engaging in anti-competitive the outlet notes, this case centers around the regulatory agency wanting Meta to spin off both Instagram and WhatsApp and being able to convince a judge that this is the best course of action. However, the path to success may be complicated, as the case deals with many hypothetical situations. 'The counterargument lies somewhere in defining an alternative reality,' Bloomberg reports. 'Could Instagram have succeeded or grown significantly without Facebook? Systrom says it absolutely could have, but there's no way to know for sure.' Systrom isn't the only figure who has come forward to accuse Meta of unfairly suppressing competition, though. Mark Weinstein, founder of social media network MeWe, recently wrote that Meta targeted his company in an attempt to bury it, likely because it regarded it as a threat. 'Under subpoena, I submitted hundreds of pages of documentation to the FTC, including numerous reports and screenshots from MeWe users showing that their Facebook posts mentioning MeWe were hidden, flagged, or removed,' he states. Meta has routinely denied that it holds an illegal monopoly, but if these allegations continue to pile up, it may have a hard time denying accusations that it has employed anti-competitive tactics.
