WhatsApp: AI function for personalized avatars
Thanks to AI, WhatsApp users have the opportunity to transform themselves into a different role – as an avatar.
(Image: Michele Ursi/Shutterstock.com)
"Imagen yourself as anything" is Meta's headline for a new AI function that is set to be introduced to WhatsApp. Users will then be able to create avatars of themselves in the messenger in any environment they can imagine: "from the forest to outer space". A comic-like selfie with the Milky Way in the background or a daring selfie on a very tall building will then be just as possible as cuddling with a lion or fluffy cat, despite a cat hair allergy.
The new function can already be found in a beta version of WhatsApp, but cannot yet be used. WABetaInfo reports on this. The avatars are part of Meta AI's repertoire, which includes all functions based on generative AI. Meta's Llama or the family of AI models bearing the name Llama acts as the large language model behind it. As the WhatsApp blog reports, there are also indications that in future you will be able to choose which Llama model you want to use – a smaller and faster version or a larger model that can give more complex answers.
To create an AI avatar of yourself, you take one or more photos of yourself and write in a prompt how you would like to see yourself: "Imagine me as ..." This can simply be entered in the generally available AI chat, or you can address Meta AI with an @ in another chat. Meta cannot read private messages, but responds to the @ sign in the messages and reads the associated request. However, Meta AI is not yet available in the EU and therefore not in Germany.
AI avatars on Snapchat, TikTok and Lensa
WhatsApp is not the only service to offer such a function. Lensa, for example, is a stand-alone app that was released at the beginning of the AI hype. It allows you to put yourself in different settings and styles. There are accusations that the images show stereotypes, sexism and stolen styles. Snapchat also offers the option of creating avatars of yourself. The function is called "Dreams" and only allows eight different versions for free, after which you can only dream as an in-app purchase. TikTok currently offers advertisers and content creators the opportunity to create avatars of themselves that can deliver advertising messages. At the launch, an incorrect version was accidentally published, which lacked the guard rails- you could also have Hitler's "Mein Kampf" read aloud.
(emw)
