Fake AI-generated and maintained influencers are taking over Facebook and Instagram right now. And the crazy thing is that they are created by Meta, the company that owns these social networks.
You may have noticed AI-generated content flooding your Facebook or Instagram feed lately. A child prodigy who creates a work of art, a reproduction of the face of Jesus in nature, a person courageously facing life’s difficulties, incredible sand sculptures… Well, that’s not going to get better .
Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s group which owns these social networks, had warned that it too was going to put AI in absolutely all of its services. According to the revelations of Financial Timesthe company decided to make its applications “more entertaining and engaging” over the next two years. For this, she found nothing better than to implement AI-generated bots.
AI-generated profiles: bots to create engagement
Meta is counting on the deployment of profiles managed by artificial intelligence in order to improve “engagement” on its platforms, that is to say interactions between people, whether real or not. “We expect AIs to actually exist on our platforms, like traditional accounts do”says Connor Hayes, vice president of generative AI products for Meta. “They will have bios, profile photos, and be able to generate their own AI content on the platform… That’s where we see this going.”
The firm already deployed a tool in the United States last July allowing real users of Facebook and Instagram to create digital doubles using AI. Since then, hundreds of thousands of bots have come to life. Meta plans to expand this practice to other countries in the future, although most users maintain these avatars privately. In addition, content creators can already create AI avatars that answer their subscribers’ questions while respecting the personality of the influencer, further blurring the line between reality and fiction. THE Financial Times also specifies that Mark Zuckerberg “has already shown that it’s possible to hold live video calls with a creator’s AI avatar, who could converse in their style.” Wonderful.
Profiles generated by AI: what dangers for users?
We can legitimately have some reservations about the direction the company’s social networks are taking. AI-generated profiles leave several details unanswered, starting with the appearance of these fake profiles – how distinguishable will they be from others? – or the confidentiality of the data on which they will train.
In any case, this idea is clearly not unanimous. Some experts fear that AI will participate in the massive dissemination of fake news, and therefore in the disinformation that is already rampant on the platforms. Becky Owen, former head of the creator innovations team at Meta, is particularly concerned. If it does not rule out the possibility that interactions with AIs could be “a creative entertainment format”she fears that “without robust barriers, platforms risk amplifying false information through these AI-managed accounts”.
In addition, the markers put in place by the company to indicate that content has been generated by AI are not really effective, given the comments under the publications… In the end, we risk ending up with people who do not don’t exist chatting with other people who don’t exist. It’s a dream…