Discord is embracing OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to enhance its existing Clyde bot into a more interactive chatbot. Clyde will soon be equipped to engage in conversations with users, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing chat functionality. Discord is pursuing a wider implementation of AI in its platform, including AI-generated summaries of conversations and the ability for Discord administrators to employ AI tools for server moderation.
During a public experiment next week, the Clyde chatbot will be available to Discord users in a small number of servers with Discord alpha users. In the future, administrators will have the ability to add the Clyde chatbot to servers, enabling users to call upon it for various tasks such as sending GIFs to a channel, recommending music, or answering queries. Users can send direct messages to Clyde, and the chatbot can even create new threads in channels to facilitate conversations among groups of friends. However, unlike Slack’s ChatGPT integration, Clyde will not generate messages on behalf of users. Instead, it is envisioned as a chatbot summoned for a range of purposes, such as settling debates, retrieving information, or resolving other common queries.
Discord aims to integrate this feature more fully into its chat and community app, but much testing, learning, and refinement will be necessary before it is rolled out to all users. The upgraded version of Clyde will initially be available to a limited set of alpha testers before a wider release. The number of users or servers with initial access has not been confirmed by Discord.
According to Anjney Midha, head of Discord’s platform ecosystem, the company has been exploring ways to make interacting with the Clyde chatbot more engaging and enjoyable for a long time. While they had a product vision, it required technological advancements to make it a reality. Midha and the Discord team believe that with the emergence of ChatGPT and Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing over the past six months, large language models have caught up to their vision.
However, there are inherent risks in employing these emerging technologies. Currently, Clyde is based on the same technology as ChatGPT, which has been known to generate false information, and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot has been criticized for providing wild and rude responses. Discord is aware of the risks and has even issued a warning to users when opting to use Clyde. Moreover, the presence of an AI-powered chatbot in Discord’s servers could pose challenges to the company’s AI ambitions, given the tech-savvy and younger user base that often inhabits these servers.
Midha acknowledges these risks and believes that the best way to protect against them is to build with real users. The company plans to roll out the Clyde chatbot slowly to a limited group of alpha testers and solicit feedback to improve and fine-tune the models. Midha also states that no user data collected by Clyde is used to train or improve models by OpenAI.
Discord is testing AI-generated conversation summaries that users can opt into to catch up on missed conversations within a server. This is especially useful for Discord’s tight-knit communities where conversations happen across different time zones, making it challenging for users to keep up.
Discord admins may find the AI-powered version of AutoMod particularly interesting. While the platform previously used large-scale deep learning models to combat spam and slurs, it is now experimenting with language models from OpenAI. These models can better understand the context and intent of messages, enabling AutoMod to identify and capture rule-breaking behavior more accurately.
AutoMod has already prevented over 45 million unwanted messages based on server rules, and the AI-powered version will be available in select servers starting today. Discord is also testing prototype features such as a shared whiteboard with an AI-powered text-to-image generator for collaboration with friends and colleagues. Although there is no word yet on when these features will be widely available, Discord’s AI experiments show promising results.
Discord offers an avatar remix app that enables users to use generative image models to remix each other’s avatars. The app has been open sourced on GitHub, which means that users can freely fork, remix, and extend it using any models of their choice.
Moreover, Discord is aiming to establish its platform as the go-to place for AI developers. To this end, the company has created an AI incubator program that provides developers with cash grants, access to Discord development teams, cloud compute credits, and early access to Discord platform features. Many AI developers have already made Discord their home, with Midjourney being a notable example. Midjourney has a Discord chat server that offers an AI image generator and boasts over 13 million members, making it a significant player in the growth of AI image generators.
