Comparison of Meta AI With ChatGPT, DALL-E and Google Gemini
Last week, Meta released its latest update to Meta AI , which further integrates the chatbot into the company’s apps and adds new capabilities such as GIF creation. Meta AI debutsLlama 3 , the company’s latest large language model, as well as a new Meta.ai website for accessing the chatbot outside of Meta’s social media apps.
Llama 3 currently boasts up to 70 billion training parameters, with a version based on 400 billion parameters on the way, so it’s certainly a powerful tool. But what can it do for the average person that other tools like ChatGPT , DALL-E and Google Gemini can’t? This is where you can leverage Meta AI over the competition.
Meta AI can generate GIFs
While the most popular image-generating AIs have so far been limited to still frames, Meta AI can now automatically animate its images for you. This was technically already possible in services like DALL-E, but required the user to request a sequence of frames and then manually join them together. The meta will now do the intermediate work for you, although relying on the AI isn’t ideal as I’ve seen in testing.
The process is quite simple. First, ask the chatbot to generate your image.
Then tell it to animate the image to turn it into a GIF. In my testing, telling me to create a GIF didn’t work from the start.
That’s all. The results, however, were not reliable for me. The above example of a cat chasing a ball of yarn worked well enough, but this hummingbird just seems to float through space and stick its beak into the feeder.
Meanwhile, here’s the world’s youngest 17-year-old (my clue said “child”), amazed by magical confetti flying out of his birthday cake. (I asked the AI to make a GIF of itself blowing out the candles.)
Meta AI can generate images as you type
Also unique to Meta AI is its ability to generate images as you type. It’s fairly easy to do, and while the images suffer from the same dream logic that plagues much AI art, the speed at which they appear is impressive.
To create images as you type, simply go to Meta.ai (this feature doesn’t seem to work in the company’s social media apps yet, at least in my own testing), start with the “imagine” command, and start describing your image . The chatbot will look at a new result for almost every character you type, allowing you to change the hint as you type to customize it to your liking.
For example, when I asked the chatbot to “imagine a dog chasing a ball,” it showed me different dog breeds with almost every new character. When I asked him to specify “imagine a dog chasing a ball,” he intuitively understood that I wanted the dog to chase a ball down the street. When I specified that the clowns should be chasing the dog itself by simply adding the word “and” after “chased by the clowns,” I added a third clown into the frame.
This in itself is an amazing trick. I’m used to AI art taking a few seconds to create each individual frame, but instead it feels like the art is being created in real time. But what takes it beyond gimmicks is that pressing “enter” will give you four different results and allow you to videotape all the other options so you can review your work and go back to the drawing board if necessary.
Meta AI can surf the Internet
Not every AI chatbot has direct access to the Internet, at least not for free users. This is most noticeable on ChatGPT, where the free version’s data is limited to information dating back to January 2022. Meta AI, on the other hand, has access to both Google and Bing.
This means you can use Meta AI to answer questions that require access to current information. You might ask, “Tell me what the weather is like in New York this weekend,” or “Did the White House announce anything important today?” You can even ask him to gather information by giving commands like “How’s the Dragon’s Dogma 2 review going?” or “What is the best movie to watch this weekend?”
For each of these answers, Meta AI will tell you what search engine it used and what sources it referenced.
Meta is not alone in this ability, as Google Gemini also has direct Internet access. What makes the Meta chatbot different is that it goes beyond Google search and handles sources differently. Sometimes the sources that Google Gemini links to are “not necessarily what Gemini used to generate its answer” – they may simply be sources that Google thinks may be useful to you. Meanwhile, Meta-AI always seems to detect with 100% certainty the sources it used, but only those sources.
Meta AI can integrate with Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
Whether it’s good or bad depends on who you ask, Meta AI is now included in the Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp apps . The integration varies depending on each application: in Messenger and WhatsApp, Meta AI will appear as a contact. On Instagram, it will appear in the search bar. And on Facebook, it will appear in the search bar and in your feed.
For the most part, this means that integration outside of the last two apps is pretty sparse. To integrate the search bar, Meta AI will now suggest search terms and questions as you type them, although these can be ignored by simply not clicking on any suggestions with the Meta AI logo next to it (if you click on them, you will leave your search and enter into a conversation with the chatbot). Regular searches will still be populated and will have a magnifying glass next to them instead.
As far as Facebook channel integration goes, it’s a little more robust. In some messages, Meta AI will now appear below the message, offering you more information about it or perhaps inviting you to ask questions about it. Sometimes your feed may be interrupted by a generic card inviting you to use Meta AI, which acts as an advertisement.
So, when should I use Meta AI?
With the latest update, Meta AI is several steps ahead of its major competitors, meaning it’s now probably your best first port of call for AI-generated GIFs. The image generation is also strong and now has a unique “present” feature, and Meta AI has access to yet another search engine than Google Gemini.
However, you’ll probably want to keep using ChatGPT, DALL-E and Google Gemini alongside it, just so you can see different results, especially when it comes to the still often fabulous nature of the art of artificial intelligence.