POE by Quora- A hands on experience

In early February, I was finally off the waitlist for POE (Platform for Exploration) By Quora. For those who are not aware, POE is a platform where users can interact with Large Language Models (LLM) based chatbots.

Note: LLMS are machine learning systems that have been trained on vast quantities of data which enables them to process inputs and generate appropriate responses. It is the this feature of LLMs that are used in the background of almost all new age chatbot offerings such as ChatGPT, YouChat and POE.

At the time of writing, POE offers access to below three AI chatbots:

• Sage
• Dragonfly
• Claude (formerly known as Heron)

Sage and Dragonfly are powered by Open AI, LLC (the parent company of ChatGPT) whereas Anthropic PBC is behind Claude. It is worth noting that Anthropic received a $300 million investment from Google.

POE User Interface:

Once a user creates an account on Quora and logs in, he/she is presented with a page as below:

As you can see in the above screenshot, POE has an easy-to-use interface which a user can intuitively understand and start working with. All items are neatly arranged on the left hand side of the page.

These items are as below:

• Sage, Claude and Dragonfly- These are the three chatbots that are currently available on POE for users
• +Add button- This is primarily for developers providing them the opportunity to submit an AI chatbot which can potentially be featured on POE. If you click on this option, you encounter the below page:

Interested developers can submit their LLM based chatbot to poe-bot-development@quora.com for consideration.

• Invites: This link seems illogical as POE is now available for general public atleast on iOS platform. I was however able to invite a friend. I do expect this link to be retired soon as it currently occupies a significant amount of real estate which can be used better
• Feed Section: This section is similar to the Quora Newsfeed and features Q&A from users based on their interaction with the bots. You have an option to like, repost or quote Q&A. You can also follow a user from here.

• Profile: This is the user specific profile and provides information on followers and people being followed. You can also add a new post or search for users here:

• Settings: This section features standard user level app settings such as email, phone number etc.
• Send Feedback: This is an option to send feedback to POE

My interaction of the chatbots:

All of three chatbots functioned satisfactorily in terms of having a stateful conversation, responding to tech questions, providing code snippets, recommending books and writing reviews, composing poems etc.

For comparison, I asked all bots the following questions:

• How do I surprise my wife on Valentine’s Day?
• What’s the best investment strategy in a recessionary environment?
• Explain Einstein’s Theory of relativity
• Compose a poem about a donkey lost in a jungle?

All 3 chatbots provide additional options such as “Tell me more.” and additional questions related to the original question. Users can also like or dislike the answer provided and share the same.

if at all there was a distinguishing factor was that Sage and Claude gave longer and more explanatory answers than Dragonfly.

What I like about Quora’s POE?

• The ability to interact with more than one chatbot on the same APP. This allows users to verify if the answers provided are accurate.
• Community feel like Quora- POE draws from its parent company Quora and allows users to discover new topics, browse questions asked by other users, follow users etc.

These features help improve engagement with the APP and will also prompt users to return.

What could be better?

• Option for user to type a question and the same be routed to all the chatbots at the same time instead of interacting individually with one chatbot at a time
• Analytics of user likes and dislikes across various topics such as technology, history, sports etc. so users can understand the performance of the bots across these dimensions and use the bot most suitable for their question.

Do share your feedback about your interaction with POE in the comments sections.