"I doubt they’ve abandoned the idea" Absolutely not. A couple of heads may roll for getting caught, then they'll dig in and do it so that it won't be detected in the future.
I disagree that meta offers social media. (Probably few platforms are SM anymore.) It's a bunch of click trap apps to make people mindless and addictive as they drive ad dollars to meta.
Eventually, these avatars can be tailored to individuals to addict them deeper and probably guide suckers to click and buy even more.
Man, tech companies really need to hire more regular people, or consult with some focus group experts. They keep rolling out weird junk that most people find repulsive. Get outside, talk to some folks who don't fantasize daily about making Star Trek come true.
Meta seems to be looking at AI avatars as a way to try and offset a world where human creation stagnates/declines. There's only so many more quarters of growth you can squeeze out before there simply aren't any more people to sign up for Instagram.
and "people" (usually right-wing lunatics or closeted racists) complain that Big Tech is "woke" and "diverse" and not meritocratic (it's a psyop to keep things like usual). Biggest myth out there. Interesting article. I don't mind the AI personas, but they could have purposes like games, tutoring, or improving language skills, or even marketing for a brand. Social media is a bit too much I think (it seems they think so too since the program has been retired. I guess Meta is all about experimenting. At least they changed course).
The only way I'd find these "AI personas" palatable is if they were an intentionally ironic commentary on how meaningless some of the empty platitudes we share on social media are.
And even then, you'd have to try to walk a very fine line with those.
But much of the idea here stands – they will keep going. I don't even think they are worried about being "caught", I actually think they're going to get more brazen with it. In Zuck's last big interview about the Oculus, he said there they were going to start putting AI content and AI 'creators' on feeds.
I know they were older accounts; it were the comments of the VP, spelling out their corporate strategy, that made people unearth them.
I don’t know if Meta knows what they’re doing — they are flailing but if you have so much money in the bank, you can afford it — and I also don’t think they expected this much outrage. The public response was visceral.
Letting creaters build little chatbots of themselves is very different from AI profiles that act like sophisticated bots to prop engagement numbers.
Yup. Unfathomable amount of cash. The ability to release models for free. Seemingly infinite ability to fuck up and just move on. Not a fan of company at all — but I think they’ll make some serious moves in AI this year. For Meta, or maybe Zuck, it’s all about whether they can capitalize before the hype dies down. We saw this with Metaverse, and if something turns up before AI pays off, they’ll move on
What can I say? Some people can handle the 21st century, and some people can't.
Social media is a half way point between real life relationships and relationships with AI. And social media is insanely popular. That's basically all we need to know about where this trend is headed.
The finger pointing, puffed up, moralizing critics of AI characters don't get the irony that as they engage daily on social media, they're already reaching out for the very thing they claim to be so outraged by.
My guess is that the AI avatars Facebook and others are creating are still fairly primitive, sorta cheesy, mediocre knock off imitations of real people. You can see that Facebook is trying to sell you a fantasy, and it's not convincing, and that's annoying. Perhaps you feel your intelligence is being insulted. Ok, I get that. But this is a brief moment in time that will pass.
Hyper realistic AI imitations of human beings are coming and will be very popular, for the same reasons social media is very popular. Those who can't handle the changes will weep and moan, and stamp their little feet. And then they'll die off, to be replaced by emerging generations that have never known a world that is not AI infused. And these emerging generations won't care about what used to be, just as you don't care about the hippies of the 1960s, and I don't care about the flapper era of the 1920s.
If you feel this will be a horrible future, then just ask yourself this. Why are you here on Notes talking to people you know almost nothing about and will likely never meet in person? Why are you investing so much time in to people who will completely forget all about you forever 3 days after you post on Notes for the last time?
Apparently, you are here because we're giving you something that your friends, families and neighbors either can't or won't provide. And that's what you really care about. Not human beings just because we're human beings. But rather, what you can obtain from the transaction. AI characters will be able to deliver a lot that your fellow humans either can't or won't be able to deliver.
Interacting with humans requires a LOT of negotiation and compromise, which is so utterly normal that we take it to be an obvious given. AI characters will not require negotiation and compromise, because they have no egos or other needs of their own. That revolutionary power to give us what we want when we want it without obstacles will prove to be irresistible.
You are pretending like we have no choice. People have a choice, and they can choose not to engage with these platforms. And they will leave these platforms. Nothing is forever.
We aren't a bunch of passive passengers on the boat of society (although some folks arguably are). The exodus from X users to Bluesky is a great example of that. Substack is another example of an amazing platform with real users that engage in real debate about in-depth articles that are written by humans that love to write.
You yourself are a recurring reader of my posts and I always appreciate every single of your 100% authentic contributions on here, especially when we disagree :)
Thank you for your appreciation of my humanness, but, well, you don't know me well enough to even know for sure that I am human. That's social media. A culture wide obsession for interacting with people we know very close to nothing about. It's not that big a leap from there to interacting with AI characters.
This whole "sure the technology falls far short of hyped up expectations today, but just wait til you see what it does in a year or two!" thing will only work for so long. I'd bet that hyper realistic AI social media bots never come to be, and even if the technology gets there they won't be popular. Most people don't want this stuff. What, beyond the sheer novelty of it, is the appeal of becoming "friends" with a fake person?
"I doubt they’ve abandoned the idea" Absolutely not. A couple of heads may roll for getting caught, then they'll dig in and do it so that it won't be detected in the future.
I disagree that meta offers social media. (Probably few platforms are SM anymore.) It's a bunch of click trap apps to make people mindless and addictive as they drive ad dollars to meta.
Eventually, these avatars can be tailored to individuals to addict them deeper and probably guide suckers to click and buy even more.
Unethi-what? Not at meta.
This tech is good but not for social media.
We need believable NPCs in the games, or really consistent and reliable language teacher bots though.
The stupid, it burns.
Man, tech companies really need to hire more regular people, or consult with some focus group experts. They keep rolling out weird junk that most people find repulsive. Get outside, talk to some folks who don't fantasize daily about making Star Trek come true.
Meta seems to be looking at AI avatars as a way to try and offset a world where human creation stagnates/declines. There's only so many more quarters of growth you can squeeze out before there simply aren't any more people to sign up for Instagram.
and "people" (usually right-wing lunatics or closeted racists) complain that Big Tech is "woke" and "diverse" and not meritocratic (it's a psyop to keep things like usual). Biggest myth out there. Interesting article. I don't mind the AI personas, but they could have purposes like games, tutoring, or improving language skills, or even marketing for a brand. Social media is a bit too much I think (it seems they think so too since the program has been retired. I guess Meta is all about experimenting. At least they changed course).
Oh man, come on.
The only way I'd find these "AI personas" palatable is if they were an intentionally ironic commentary on how meaningless some of the empty platitudes we share on social media are.
And even then, you'd have to try to walk a very fine line with those.
These accounts are old and have been on the platform a while (more here https://www.404media.co/metas-ai-profiles-are-indistinguishable-from-terrible-spam-that-took-over-facebook/)
But much of the idea here stands – they will keep going. I don't even think they are worried about being "caught", I actually think they're going to get more brazen with it. In Zuck's last big interview about the Oculus, he said there they were going to start putting AI content and AI 'creators' on feeds.
I know they were older accounts; it were the comments of the VP, spelling out their corporate strategy, that made people unearth them.
I don’t know if Meta knows what they’re doing — they are flailing but if you have so much money in the bank, you can afford it — and I also don’t think they expected this much outrage. The public response was visceral.
Letting creaters build little chatbots of themselves is very different from AI profiles that act like sophisticated bots to prop engagement numbers.
Yup. Unfathomable amount of cash. The ability to release models for free. Seemingly infinite ability to fuck up and just move on. Not a fan of company at all — but I think they’ll make some serious moves in AI this year. For Meta, or maybe Zuck, it’s all about whether they can capitalize before the hype dies down. We saw this with Metaverse, and if something turns up before AI pays off, they’ll move on
What can I say? Some people can handle the 21st century, and some people can't.
Social media is a half way point between real life relationships and relationships with AI. And social media is insanely popular. That's basically all we need to know about where this trend is headed.
The finger pointing, puffed up, moralizing critics of AI characters don't get the irony that as they engage daily on social media, they're already reaching out for the very thing they claim to be so outraged by.
My guess is that the AI avatars Facebook and others are creating are still fairly primitive, sorta cheesy, mediocre knock off imitations of real people. You can see that Facebook is trying to sell you a fantasy, and it's not convincing, and that's annoying. Perhaps you feel your intelligence is being insulted. Ok, I get that. But this is a brief moment in time that will pass.
Hyper realistic AI imitations of human beings are coming and will be very popular, for the same reasons social media is very popular. Those who can't handle the changes will weep and moan, and stamp their little feet. And then they'll die off, to be replaced by emerging generations that have never known a world that is not AI infused. And these emerging generations won't care about what used to be, just as you don't care about the hippies of the 1960s, and I don't care about the flapper era of the 1920s.
If you feel this will be a horrible future, then just ask yourself this. Why are you here on Notes talking to people you know almost nothing about and will likely never meet in person? Why are you investing so much time in to people who will completely forget all about you forever 3 days after you post on Notes for the last time?
Apparently, you are here because we're giving you something that your friends, families and neighbors either can't or won't provide. And that's what you really care about. Not human beings just because we're human beings. But rather, what you can obtain from the transaction. AI characters will be able to deliver a lot that your fellow humans either can't or won't be able to deliver.
Interacting with humans requires a LOT of negotiation and compromise, which is so utterly normal that we take it to be an obvious given. AI characters will not require negotiation and compromise, because they have no egos or other needs of their own. That revolutionary power to give us what we want when we want it without obstacles will prove to be irresistible.
You are pretending like we have no choice. People have a choice, and they can choose not to engage with these platforms. And they will leave these platforms. Nothing is forever.
We aren't a bunch of passive passengers on the boat of society (although some folks arguably are). The exodus from X users to Bluesky is a great example of that. Substack is another example of an amazing platform with real users that engage in real debate about in-depth articles that are written by humans that love to write.
You yourself are a recurring reader of my posts and I always appreciate every single of your 100% authentic contributions on here, especially when we disagree :)
Thank you for your appreciation of my humanness, but, well, you don't know me well enough to even know for sure that I am human. That's social media. A culture wide obsession for interacting with people we know very close to nothing about. It's not that big a leap from there to interacting with AI characters.
This whole "sure the technology falls far short of hyped up expectations today, but just wait til you see what it does in a year or two!" thing will only work for so long. I'd bet that hyper realistic AI social media bots never come to be, and even if the technology gets there they won't be popular. Most people don't want this stuff. What, beyond the sheer novelty of it, is the appeal of becoming "friends" with a fake person?