After burning through tens of billions of dollars on its fiasco ‘Metaverse’ initiative and laying off thousands of people in the aftermath of that gamble, tech giant Meta is poised to capitalize on the overhyped AI revolution. We have worked hard to reinvent ourselves as a company. For example, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg last year unveiled an animated AI chatbot modeled as the alter egos of celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Mr. Beast, Paris Hilton, and Kendall Jenner.
But licensing the voices and likeness of celebrities has little appeal to the young demographic that Meta wants to turn into loyal users of Facebook and Instagram. Less than a year later, the bot that was widely derided as creepy, corny, and without any real purpose was junked. The move coincides with the debut of AI Studio, which allows users to create their own chatbots, including completely fictional characters. Additionally, if you’re a popular creator who wants your followers to feel more connected, you can also create an AI that can exchange messages with your viewers. Instead, imitate your tone and facial expressions. ”
Now, Meta is planning to take the next step. The idea is to integrate these AI creations as “users” on Facebook and Instagram. As the Financial Times reported, it is hoped that these semi-independent custom avatars will prove more appealing to young people, who are essential to the survival of Meta’s flagship social network. “We expect these AIs to actually live on our platform over time, just like accounts,” said Connor Hayes, vice president of products for generative AI at Meta. he told the FT. “They’ll have bios and profile pictures, and they’ll be able to generate and share AI-powered content on the platform. . . . That’s where we think everything will happen.”
This prospect seems unusual for a website built on human-to-human interaction. Meta’s other AI services have more obvious appeal, including photo editing tools, text bots like ChatGPT, and upcoming software for creating AI-generated videos, but Instagram and Facebook, where virtual ghosts abound It is by no means certain that will prove it. Attractive for beginners and satisfying for long-time users. Mehta told the FT that users have created “hundreds of thousands of characters” since AI Studio launched in July, but most of them remain private. The company declined further comment to Rolling Stone.
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Regardless of the reaction, these changes to the basic structure of Meta’s platform could be transformative. In recent months, we have heard from mothers of teenagers who claim close involvement with AI due to students’ over-reliance on it in the classroom and AI’s ability to spread inappropriate content and dangerous misinformation. Recent lawsuits are sounding the alarm about our growing love affair with AI. Character.AI bot caused his suicide. The company did not comment on the pending lawsuit, but told CNN it was “heartbroken by the tragic loss of one of our users.” (AI dating programs are a booming business with particularly emotional risks.)
This envisioned change comes especially at a time when Facebook is dominated by AI-generated spam images, commonly referred to as “slop.” These photos range from visually appealing but non-existent landscapes and houses to depictions of babies, soldiers, American flags, and Jesus Christ, presumably intended to evoke a response from older, conservative viewers. It is believed that This low-effort engagement farming allows individuals who post images, many of them in the Global South, to monetize their pages and sell related products. Meta effectively incentivizes content through payments to content creators who gain large followings on Slop.
Some of that engagement is undoubtedly due to spam bots, which are automated to like, share, and comment on posts to encourage interaction. But even at a time when human gaming interactions are common on social networks, it’s hard to see what it means for Facebook, where the majority of activity is bouncing between bots.
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Against the backdrop of all this, Meta has worked to streamline the path to AI leadership while steadily rolling out more AI capabilities to its 3 billion monthly active users. In January, Zuckerberg announced the merger of his Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) division with the GenAI product team, a move that will accelerate efforts in the area and is critical to creating so-called “artificial general intelligence.” He said it was a great step forward. ” AGI is a virtual autonomous system that can learn by itself and surpass human intelligence.
Experts told Rolling Stone at the time that while such a breakthrough is still quite far off, Meta’s efforts to leverage user data to develop AI technology pose significant privacy risks. He said he would cause it. They also questioned Mr. Zuckerberg’s goal to open source AGI “responsibly” (make the code available to the public) and his promise of transparency in the process, saying that Meta did not support existing models. provided little insight into the issue and pointed out that there is no real framework for safely releasing it. A (still theoretical) blueprint for AGI.
In the end, Meta’s latest AI spin is much the same, with a mixture of vague hype, questionable business models, and a baffling sense of what people really want from social media networks. I can hear it. If Instagram and Facebook are just places for AI bots to hang out in a few years, it stands to reason that humans might find other ways to communicate.
