“What has no legs but is getting to every place these days? AI.” (Bad?) Jokes aside, there is no disputing the fact that AI is spreading like wildfire. And no matter the reservations there might be about its alignment and ethics, people are scrambling to get on this train. For Discord users, there are so many trains to board. And what’s different about using AI on Discord? This is a platform where you can enjoy AI with your friends!
Discord is taking complete advantage of AI technology to provide users with a more engaging and interactive experience. There are several servers on Discord where you can get an AI experience. You can use AI in these servers to enliven your conversations, brainstorm with friends, make memes with them, and much more! And Discord itself is bringing an AI element to the platform in the shape of AI enhancements to their bot Clyde and their AutoMod tool. Let’s not waste another second and see what these are!
1. Clyde AI
Clyde, the helpful robot on Discord that used to help you with slash commands or by DMing you when you made an error, is getting a major update. It’s coming to life, artificially, of course.
Going forward, Clyde will be an AI chatbot that uses OpenAI technology (folks behind ChatGPT). It is an experimental feature that is free to use currently (which can change in the future), given that it’s available in your server. In other words, server admins will first need to enable Clyde in their servers, and only then will the chatbot be available to server members. However, at the time of this writing, Discord is only testing Clyde in a select number of servers, so there’s a possibility that your server admin might not even have the option to enable Clyde AI.
Clyde can help you in plenty of ways: it can answer your questions and even have extended conversations with you, just like ChatGPT. But to take it a step further, it can have conversations with you and your friends. Unlike some in-app AIs, like Snapchat’s My AI, Clyde isn’t available in a separate chat. You can chat with Clyde in any channel!
Moreover, Clyde can also start a separate thread where you can hang out with a group of your friends, recommend playlists, and access GIFs and emojis, just like any other Discord user. So, you can do things like ask it to send cat GIFs in the chat.
Chatting with Clyde
To start a chat with Clyde, simply type @Clyde in a text channel in the server, followed by your question or prompt. Make sure to capitalize the “C” for Clyde when starting a chat so you are chatting with the official Discord Clyde chatbot. Clyde is only available in servers and not in direct messages.
In addition to being able to read and reply to messages with “@Clyde” in it, Clyde can also see messages where users “reply” to Clyde. It cannot see other messages in the channel that are not intended for it.
Before replying for a second time, Clyde starts a thread for users who have permission to create a public thread. If the user does not have this permission, Clyde will continue to reply in the original channel.
Now, Clyde can read all the messages in threads that it starts and reply to those that it thinks are directed at it. So, this way, you don’t have to mention Clyde every time if you want to have a longer conversation with it.
2. AutoMod AI
Specifically for admins, Discord is rolling AutoMod AI which intends to further lighten the load of moderating a server. It can moderate a server automatically based on the rules of the server and notify the moderators when server rules are broken.
Server admins can choose to enable or disable the feature at any time, which uses OpenAI technology. AutoMod AI is an experimental feature and initially, will be available in limited servers only, though.
3. AI Conversation Summaries
This is another feature in Discord powered by OpenAI technology. This service can quickly provide you with a summary of any chats you might have missed in any channel by bundling the stream of messages into topics. Additionally, it can also provide you with a message preview, give information such as the number of messages regarding a specific topic, and even show who is in the discussion. So, instead of scrolling endlessly, you can use conversation summaries to quickly jump into conversations.
The feature is currently in alpha testing and not available widely; it’s only available for a few servers at this time.
Server admins will need to enable Conversation Summaries from Server Settings if the service has been rolled out to your server. Once the feature is enabled, server members will be able to view conversation summaries.
Viewing Conversation Summaries
The conversation summaries are visible in two ways in a server:
Topic Pill: A Topic Pill will hover over the topic you’re currently viewing, indicating the topic, in text channels. As the subject of the messages changes, it’ll be reflected in the topic pill. The topic pill also has arrows to help you move back and forth between topics quickly, instead of having to scroll through all the messages in one topic to get to the previous or next one.
Topic Side Bar: If you want to glance at a list of all the topics in the channel, a new ‘Topics’ icon near the Search bar will open a panel on the right listing all the conversations with the respective topic. Click any topic from the sidebar to go to the beginning of that topic.
4. Midjourney AI
Before Discord started integrating AI officially, you could already use AI in several channels in Discord for various purposes. One of the most popular examples is the Midjourney AI channel. Midjourney is an AI art generator that can generate wide-ranging artwork and images, based on a prompt that you enter.
You can use the Midjourney AI to generate art in the Discord server for Midjourney; it’s the only method to access it currently.
Joining Midjourney
To get started, you need to join the Midjourney server.
Go to discord.com, log into your account, and click the ‘Explore Public Servers’ button from the navigation pane on the left.
Then, you should see the Midjourney server in the Featured communities list. However, if you don’t, use the search bar to search for it. Click the server to navigate there.
A pop-up will appear when you view the Midjourney server; click the ‘I’ll look around for just now’ option.
Then, click the ‘Join Midjourney’ option at the top.
You’ll need to pass the Captcha test to verify that you’re a human. Once it’s done, you will be a member of Midjourney.
Using Midjourney AI Image Generator
Once you’re a part of the server, go to any of the newbie bot channels under the ‘Newcomer rooms’ section.
Then, go to the message box, type /imagine and select the /imagine option from the commands pop-up.
Then, in the prompt field, type the details for the image you want it to generate and click the Return button. Add as many details as you want to in the prompt to get a close result. You can also add instructions for resolution, such as 4K, size ratio, etc.
In 60 seconds, the bot will generate 4 images related to your prompt. Under the images, you’ll see options such as U1, U2, U3, U4, and V1, V2, V3, V4. U refers to upscaling an image and V refers to generating a variation.
Upscaling refers to increasing the size of an image and adding more details to it; Midjourney generates low-resolution image options in the beginning. So, if you like any image from the 4 options available and would like Midjourney to generate a high-resolution, detailed image, click the corresponding option, say U3, to upscale the 3rd image in the grid.
V button, on the other hand, creates 3 more images similar to the one you want to generate a variation for. These variations share the same overall style and composition as the same image with some variations here and there. Click V4, for example, to generate variations for the 4th image in the grid.
There’s also a re-roll button that generates an entirely new grid of images for the original prompt.
You can the images you have generated by opening any image, right-clicking on it, and selecting the ‘Save Image’ option.
You can see all your creations by signing into your account on midjourney.com
Midjourney Free Trial
Midjourney offers a limited free trial to every user, which includes 25 queries only. Each action the Midjourney bot takes on your behalf is counted as a query. So, entering a prompt is one query. But upscaling an image, creating a variation, re-rolling the prompt, etc., each counts toward one query.
You can use the /info command in the channel to check your remaining queries at any time.
Once you run out of free queries, you’ll need to subscribe and become a paid member.
There are a lot more other servers like Midjourney where you can enjoy an AI experience in Discord. There can range from activities such as generating gaming assets to writing novels with AI in groups, to AI companies, AI companions, and AI-based learning communities. Discord is also bringing an AI Whiteboard and AI Avatars Remix (for developers) to its platform. It is truly becoming a hub for AI.
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