Just over a yr ago, Meta created Facebook and Instagram profiles for “28 AIs with unique interests and personalities that you can interact with and delve deeper into your interests.” Today, the last of those profiles is being deleted amid waves of viral revulsion as word of their existence spreads across the Internet.
Premiere in September 2023 Meta social profiles for AI characters was announced alongside a far more impressive initiative that involved the simultaneous creation of animated AI chatbots with celebrity avatars. These celebrity-based AI chatbots were unceremoniously scrapped lower than a yr later amidst widespread disinterest.
However, as of this morning, a few dozen unrelated AI character profiles were still available on social media pages labeled “AI Managed by Meta.” These profiles – which contained a mixture of AI-generated images and human-created content – also offered real users the flexibility to live chat with AI characters via Instagram Direct or Facebook Messenger, in response to Meta.
Now that we understand it exists, we hate it
The account page for the AI-generated character “Mama Liv” appeared on Instagram on Friday morning.
Over the past few months, these profiles have continued to exist in a state of mild neglect, with few recent posts and less interest from other Meta users. But that began to alter last week, later The Financial Times published a report on Meta’s vision for “social media filled with AI-generated users.”
As Connor Hayes, Meta’s vice chairman of generative AI product, told the FT: “We expect that over time these AIs will actually begin to exist on our platforms, in an analogous solution to accounts… They could have biographies, profile pictures, and have the option to generate and share AI-powered content on the platform. That’s where we see all of it happening.”
