Meta reportedly plans to flood its social media platforms with artificial intelligence (AI) bots that will act as regular accounts. As per the report, the tech giant is working on introducing AI-powered characters that can post, share, like, and perform other activities that human users can do. These AI bots are said to be added to both Facebook and Instagram. Notably, the company added the feature to let users create AI characters last year in July, however, this feature is currently only available in the US and the created characters cannot be made public.
According to a Financial Times report, the social media giant is trying to integrate AI into its platforms in different ways. It has already introduced the Meta AI chatbot, AI writing tools in Instagram DMs, AI avatars for influencers and creators, and more. Now, Connor Hayes, vice president of product for generative AI at Meta, told the publication that AI-powered user accounts are the next step for the company.
“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” he told the publication. Explaining the vision, he reportedly added that these AI accounts will have a profile similar to human accounts complete with bios and profile pictures. They will also be able to generate and share AI content on these platforms.
Hayes reportedly said that Meta has a priority project to make its platforms “more entertaining and engaging,” likely due to rising competition from TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter). The company is said to have decided that adding more AI tools and these AI characters could boost engagement and interaction on the Meta-owned social media apps.
However, experts have reportedly highlighted several negative consequences of the move as well. One such concern includes the risk of spreading misinformation, which could see a snowball effect due to the large number of AI accounts that are all powered by hallucination-prone AI models.
Another concern is the flooding of low-quality content on the platform given the lack of true creativity in the current generation of AI models. If the overall quality of content goes down, it can also turn users away from Facebook and Instagram.
