“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do.”
Bot Net
Were you hoping that bots on social media would be a thing of the past? Well, don’t hold your breath.
Meta says that it will be aiming to have Facebook filled with AI-generated characters to drive up engagement on its platform, as part of its broader rollout of AI products, the Financial Times reports. The AI characters will be created by users through Meta’s AI studio, with the idea being that you can interact with them almost like you would with a real human on the website.
“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Meta vice-president of product for generative AI Connor Hayes told the FT.
“They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform… that’s where we see all of this going,” he added.
Character Development
The AI characters aren’t a new feature. Meta has long invested in AI and has spent the past year stuffing all kinds of generative AI tech into its existing products. That included the release of its AI Studio in the summer, which quickly became a hotbed of virtual boyfriends and girlfriends.
The service already boasts hundreds of thousands of AI characters, according to Hayes. But if Meta is to be believed, this is just the start. Access to the AI Studio will be expanded to more countries outside the US, and a “priority” for the company over the next two years will be to make interactions with AI more social, per the FT.
Along with fictional characters, the AI Studio also allows Facebook and Instagram influencers to create AI versions of themselves that their followers can talk to. In recent months, other platforms have released content creator-oriented AI features, such as SnapChat’s AI video generation tool.
We’re Users Too
Releasing these AI characters into the wild comes with huge safety risks. Futurism has extensively covered how similar chatbots on the platform Character.AI frequently broke their guardrails and exposed underage teenaged users to grotesquely inappropriate content.
There’s also a massive risk of misinformation. The deluge of AI slop on Facebook already illustrates that the difficulties of clamping down on fabrications of reality isn’t something that should be underestimated.
“Without robust safeguards, platforms risk amplifying false narratives through these AI-driven accounts,” chief marketing officer at talent agency Billion Dollar Boy and former head of Meta’s creator innovations team Becky Owen told the FT.
And instead of helping creators, it could backfire on them entirely, Owen argued, because the low-quality AI ones could undermine their craft.
“Unlike human creators, these AI personas don’t have lived experiences, emotions, or the same capacity for relatability,” she added.
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