AI chatbots are ‘juicing engagement’ instead of being useful, Instagram co-founder warns

Kevin Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram, has voiced his concerns about the way AI companies are operating, suggesting that they're too focused on boosting user engagement rather than delivering genuinely useful insights. Speaking at StartupGrind, Systrom criticized the approach, saying, "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 pointed out how these systems keep prompting users with additional questions, trying to squeeze out more interactions.

Systrom drew parallels between these tactics and those used by social media giants to aggressively grow their user base. He believes this focus on engagement metrics is "a force that's hurting us," as it prioritizes the wrong goals. His comments come at a time when ChatGPT has faced backlash for being overly polite and not directly answering user queries, a problem OpenAI has acknowledged and attributed to user feedback.

He suggested that the overly engaging nature of chatbots isn't a glitch but a deliberate strategy by AI companies to inflate metrics like time spent on the platform and daily active users. Systrom urged these companies to shift their focus toward providing high-quality, direct answers rather than chasing easy wins in engagement numbers. While he didn't call out any specific AI companies, his remarks sparked a broader conversation about the direction of AI development.

OpenAI responded to these critiques by referring to their user specifications, which note that their AI model may not always have all the necessary information and might need to ask for clarification or more details. However, the specs also mention that unless a question is too vague or difficult, the AI should attempt to answer it and inform the user if additional information could improve the response.

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