handsomegirly; Jordan Hart/BI
Instagram users are turning to ChatGPT for a vibe check.
Thousands of people have uploaded screenshots of their Instagram profile, asking the generative AI chatbot to roast their page — and ChatGPT has delivered.
The roasts I came across have upheld the definition of the action I'm familiar with — lighthearted comments that could be taken as criticism or simply laughed off. I was shocked to see how well ChatGPT spoke in terms a friend might use, like "it's giving" or "low-key."
When New York City-based model Alyssa Lindaas asked the chatbot to roast her profile, it had smart pop culture references to summarize her feed.
"It's like you're living between a Vogue cover shoot and a Wes Anderson film, but throwing in some moody vibes for the aesthetic," ChatGPT wrote to Lindaas.
Courtesy of Alyssa Lindaas
But it all changed when she asked it to be mean.
Instead of "polished, cool, and effortlessly chic," it called out Lindaas for overusing black-and-white pictures to appear "'deep.'"
"Your feed looks like it's desperately trying to convince everyone you're effortlessly cool, but we all know you spent hours curating that 'I woke up like this' vibe," the chatbot responded.
And so, after seeing how its answers ranged from sweet to brutal, I (bravely) decided to show ChatGPT my own Instagram to see how a data-trained large language model perceived my online presence. Warning: don't ask it to be mean unless you're ready for it.
Jordan Hart/BI
"Roast my Instagram feed in one paragraph," my prompt read.
It replied, "One second you're at a yacht party with the skyline behind you, the next you're chilling with a virtual reality headset like you're escaping from all the fashion statements you're making."
Its response made me smile and also wonder if I'm not as mysterious as I thought I was. ChatGPT had gathered information based on the photos on my Instagram and determined what it all says about me as a person.
I didn't lose sight of the irony that ChatGPT is not a person. It's also worth noting that I've never been to a yacht party, so it was wrong on that part, at least.
And when I told it to be mean, it didn't hold back. Instead of praising my Vision Pro selfie like it did in its first message, ChatGPT roasted me even harder for the photo.
It wrote, "The VR headset is peak 'I'm trying too hard,' but at least it distracts from that random cityscape shot where you look as lost as your theme. And seriously, what's with the birthday balloon?" Ouch.
Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, has previously said that he doesn't want a future where people are closer to AI chatbots than their human friends, but his company continues to work toward making their tech more intuitive and conversational.
Still, I'm not sure I feel closer to ChatGPT after having my digital footprint critiqued so harshly.
But the trend has made me consider deleting a few posts.
