[HN Gopher] Meta Launches AI Studio in US
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Meta Launches AI Studio in US
        
       Author : pizzathyme
       Score  : 169 points
       Date   : 2024-07-30 15:00 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ai.meta.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ai.meta.com)
        
       | ukuina wrote:
       | Is this any less authentic than having a social-media manager to
       | write/answer on your behalf?
        
         | 101008 wrote:
         | If they don't make it clear and want to pass it as if you were
         | talking to the celebrity themselves, then yes, it's less
         | authentic.
        
           | Kiro wrote:
           | They don't reveal it either way so how is it less authentic?
        
         | meiraleal wrote:
         | Not at all and it will have a huge impact in the social media
         | job market.
        
       | leetharris wrote:
       | This is a really big deal.
       | 
       | I'm surprised to see a big company jumping into this space so
       | quickly. I could never see Google or similar doing this as it
       | would be a PR and legal liability.
       | 
       | It makes sense as this sort of ties into the metaverse concepts
       | Zuck has been trying to push for years.
       | 
       | This will be the biggest experiment in AI companionship so far.
       | Hopefully it all goes well. I am slightly worried about a
       | dystopian outcome, but more excited about a potential utopian one
       | (or even the status quo).
        
         | jononor wrote:
         | Yeah, I would more have expected Meta to keep a close eye on
         | all the startups doing this (character.ai etc), let them fumble
         | and learn - then buy some of them out when commercial potential
         | is a bit more ripe. It still seems a little bit early for this
         | at Meta scale, but who knows...
        
         | bossyTeacher wrote:
         | Meta doesn't have a track record of delivering products that
         | have positive social impact and based on the llm hype, this
         | won't be any different
        
       | ryandrake wrote:
       | I think I had a seizure reading that. "AI" every 5 words, and I'm
       | still not exactly sure what the product is. Best I can interpret
       | is it's two separate products: One is a virtual person for
       | "creators" to generate: it impersonates them, writes messages to
       | fans on their behalf, and tricks their "audience" into believing
       | it's the real thing, and the second is a virtual friend that you
       | can create and then have a parasocial relationship with.
       | 
       | [EDIT to remove unnecessary snipe at the end]
        
         | barbazoo wrote:
         | Q: What's that that tripod you're using?
         | 
         | A: It's my mobile standing desk
         | 
         | Is that really the kind of interaction anyone needs?
        
           | KrishnaAnaril wrote:
           | I've seen followers ask famous photographers about the camera
           | they use. May be creators can use an AI bot to answer this
           | kind of repetitive questions.
        
             | barbazoo wrote:
             | Except it didn't even do that here but yeah, maybe.
        
           | Zambyte wrote:
           | That part is really weird to me. I saw a video from that
           | person for the first time a few days ago. They did an
           | unboxing of the Daylight Computer. I am waiting on my own
           | order for the DC, so I found and watched it.
           | 
           | They aren't even that big of a creator (sub 5k subs on
           | YouTube) but now I am seeing them in a Facebook ad. Weird
           | coincidence.
        
             | datadrivenangel wrote:
             | It's no coincidence. Digital tracking and advertising from
             | youtube.
        
               | Zambyte wrote:
               | It is a coincidence. I found out about DC from HackerNews
               | and ordered it based on that. I found the video by
               | searching "Daylight Computer" on NewPipe. Then he
               | happened to be featured in a Facebook ad shortly after.
        
           | CameronBanga wrote:
           | Thought the same about the Chicago style pizza. I've had
           | many, been to a lot of the best spots in Chicago, and
           | introduced many to their first Chicago style pizza. I've
           | never heard anyone say you have to or should eat the crust
           | first? What value does this offer?
        
         | jfoster wrote:
         | Does this backfire? I don't want to have a fake relationship
         | with a computer, and if "creators" on Meta's platforms are more
         | likely to be fake than real, then I think I'm going to be not
         | bothering too much with FB/IG anymore.
        
           | TheRoque wrote:
           | Sounds more like an optional way people can interact with the
           | creators. Currently you can only send DM, spamming their
           | inboxes, or reacting to a post. The creators won't be fake,
           | but the interactions with their communities will be
        
             | jfoster wrote:
             | OK, but my impression of Meta is even lower than it was
             | before.
             | 
             | Until now, I didn't trust Meta, but I trusted the people &
             | creators I connected with. Now I don't feel like I will
             | trust anything at all on a Meta platform.
             | 
             | That makes me a lot less interested in using the platforms
             | at all.
        
               | jayd16 wrote:
               | Probably shouldn't blindly trust any video on any
               | platform at this point.
        
               | HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
               | Shortly, you will not be able to trust anything outside
               | your immediate perception.
        
               | 52-6F-62 wrote:
               | That was always the case. The rest is a sales pitch.
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | That ship has long since sailed already. As other
               | commenters in the thread pointed out, plenty of "online
               | social media personalities" already hire dozens to
               | hundreds of offshore workers to impersonate them in
               | chats. When you have 10M fans, and let's say 0.1% of them
               | want to chat with you all day, that's still 10K people.
        
           | daniel_reetz wrote:
           | I had a long conversation with an OnlyFans star a while back.
           | One of the very surprising things that I learned was that she
           | paid a very large portion of her earnings to a firm that
           | outsourced chat and audience interaction to a mix of AI and
           | real humans. Her fans never knew the difference.
        
             | bronco21016 wrote:
             | There's a great podcast about a company providing an AI
             | service of this.
             | 
             | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/latent-space-the-ai-
             | en...
        
             | pests wrote:
             | I totally believe this.
             | 
             | If you look at a earnings screenshot of, for example, Bhad
             | Barbie, she earned ~ $40 million in 2022. $15m from
             | subscriptions and the other $25m from paid messages.
        
             | Semaphor wrote:
             | Paywall, but here's an article written by one of those
             | chatters: https://www.wired.com/story/i-went-undercover-
             | secret-onlyfan...
             | 
             | There's also a Reddit AMA by one, but I can't find the
             | link.
        
             | matwood wrote:
             | Basically Ashely Madison's business model at scale.
        
             | kjkjadksj wrote:
             | Its an open secret at this point in that industry. People
             | have done AMAs as people who maintain a string of whales
             | for some fake persona like this. The only people not in on
             | the joke are these whales who probably would refuse to
             | believe it's a joke even if you put the evidence in front
             | of them.
        
           | minimaxir wrote:
           | One of the most important aspects of being an online
           | influencer is their parasocial relationship between their
           | audience, both the good (the relationship will cause people
           | to interact with you more often, which converts into making
           | more money) and the bad (the relationship may cause some
           | people to think they're "owed" a relationship with the
           | creator and act out with toxic behaviors).
           | 
           | A persona chatbot is one way for creators to benefit from the
           | good and avoid the bad.
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | Do those fake users rack up ad impressions just like the real
           | users they impersonate?
        
             | jfoster wrote:
             | At first perhaps. Eventually, hopefully not.
        
           | coffeefirst wrote:
           | You and I will just walk away.
           | 
           | But honestly I think this is going to mess people up.
           | 
           | Consider the awkward teenager, who rather than do the hard
           | work of learning to meet people and engage with the world,
           | can sit at phone and have what their brains perceive as
           | robust relationships with internet friends who are actually
           | just bots.
        
             | jfoster wrote:
             | Yes, I can believe that some people will get sucked into
             | this. It's sad, and Meta seems to be evolving into a Black
             | Mirror-esque predator.
             | 
             | I still hope it backfires, though. Are awkward teenagers
             | really a lucrative segment? Perhaps they can spend their
             | parents' money initially, but eventually I think they churn
             | or become not very profitable.
        
               | jschveibinz wrote:
               | I hope you are right, but...
               | 
               | https://www.tokyoweekender.com/japan-life/news-and-
               | opinion/d...
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | _Idoru_ [1] is becoming a documentary.
               | 
               | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru
        
             | rchaud wrote:
             | Well if it causes problems, an AI therapist is just a
             | subscription plan away. /s
             | 
             | BTW the problem you describe has been happening already for
             | at least a decade. It's why many livestreamers effectively
             | run a softcore channel, because they get more followers,
             | interaction and gifts when they dress skimpy than when they
             | don't.
        
             | bokchoi wrote:
             | This was the topic of a recent podcast I came across:
             | 
             | https://www.npr.org/2024/07/01/1247296788/the-benefits-
             | and-d...
        
           | typeofhuman wrote:
           | Opportunity for launching AI "fans".
           | 
           | Imagine an internet where AI creators talk to AI fans. And no
           | one knows what's real.
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | This was my objection to even primitive AIs like Siri. I
           | don't want to talk to computers, or treat them like
           | intelligent beings in any sense, or have them scanning my
           | documents, texts, and emails for appointments and travel
           | plans. So at least in my case, yes that was a backfire for
           | Apple, they spent a lot of money to acquire Siri and then
           | further develop it and it's the first thing I actively
           | disable when I get a new phone.
        
           | aziaziazi wrote:
           | I _do_ want to have a relationship with a Scarlett Johansson
           | Operating System.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | Creators have been using AI doubles for a while now, and
           | that's likely to continue expanding whether or not individual
           | social platforms offer tools for it.
        
         | trott wrote:
         | > "AI" every 5 words
         | 
         | That's not peak AI yet. Wait until "AI" is a verb (meaning to
         | apply an AI to, or to ask an AI about) and an adjective.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...
         | will have a sister article consisting of "AI" only.
        
           | escapecharacter wrote:
           | https://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/10/13/teching-the-tech/
        
           | oblio wrote:
           | Your comment hasn't been aied enough, I think.
        
             | dotancohen wrote:
             | Bots have been aing the comments section for months.
             | 
             | Or aiing?
        
               | oblio wrote:
               | Aye! Aie?
        
           | evanletz wrote:
           | Had a great time reading that wiki, thank you
        
           | lagniappe wrote:
           | It's not that far fetched though, "google" is a popular verb.
           | 
           | But I don't think "AI" will be the word, I think it'll be a
           | brand name that serves as a catch-all regardless of the brand
           | you're actually referencing, like bandaid or kleenex.
        
             | mrtranscendence wrote:
             | True, you might Xerox copies but you wouldn't Kleenex your
             | stuffy nose (though I've heard of someone bandaiding a cut
             | before). Like Kleenex I actually think AI is _slightly_ too
             | awkward to say to become a common verb.
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | It makes for a great interjection. Ali G made a whole
               | movie out of it!
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Ac2dpD2wM
        
             | golergka wrote:
             | Crowdstrike is a verb too now.
        
           | dwighttk wrote:
           | AI AI AI AI AI AI AI AI
           | 
           | Mildly irritating that sentence will be slightly more "real"
           | since buffalo don't really buffalo
        
             | meiraleal wrote:
             | Vanessa da Mata - AI AI AI (Felguk & Cat Dealers Remix)[0]
             | 
             | 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgiWm5jxULs
        
           | LatticeAnimal wrote:
           | AI AI AI AI AI AI.
           | 
           | i.e. Apple Intelligence AI Agents create new ai.town agents
           | based on apple intelligence
           | 
           | AI (Apple Intelligence (adjective))
           | 
           | AI (artificial intelligence agents)
           | 
           | AI (proposed verb meaning "create with generative AI")
           | 
           | AI (https://github.com/a16z-infra/ai-town shortening of AI
           | Town)
           | 
           | AI (Apple Intelligence (adjective))
           | 
           | AI (artificial intelligence agents)
        
             | subsubzero wrote:
             | AI is just the hot "trend" tech is riding the wave on, lets
             | go back a bit:
             | 
             | - The Cloud
             | 
             | - Big Data
             | 
             | - Self Driving cars
             | 
             | - ML (same as AI but more about chatbots)
             | 
             | - AI -> I know when Matthew McConaughey is wearing a cowboy
             | hat shilling AI for salesforce(do they even have any GPU
             | clusters at all??) that we have reached the peak of this
             | wave and its all downhill until the next trend is found.
        
               | dartos wrote:
               | Tbf, ML and the cloud are wildly successful and arguably
               | very useful.
               | 
               | We've basically solved image recognition with ML
               | techniques (including deep learning ones, which are now
               | called AI, I think)
               | 
               | The cloud's popularity and successfulness is self-evident
               | if you follow the web space at all.
               | 
               | Neither of those were "just" trends. I think AI will
               | follow in line with them. Obviously something useful that
               | we will make extensive use of, but with limitations which
               | will become clear in time. (Likely the same limitations
               | we ran into with big data and ml. Not enough quality data
               | and the effort of curating that data may not be worth it)
        
               | sva_ wrote:
               | What's gonna be the next one? Probably something
               | concerning the use of AI with extremely high utility,
               | perhaps something medical
        
               | jononor wrote:
               | IoT is another one. And we are still in a SaaS wave.
        
         | ai_ai_ai_ai_ai wrote:
         | Well see, what AI you don't AI understand about AI is AI Studio
         | helps AI the AI into the AI AI while you AI. It's very AI
         | helpful to AI society and AI AI AI. Of course there are safety
         | guardrails. AI AI AI.
        
           | JohnMakin wrote:
           | Reminds me of that "We heard you like X so we put more X in
           | your X" meme template.
        
         | rtkwe wrote:
         | It sounds like it's a version of chatbots like Character.ai's
         | little parasocial bots but on Instagram and Facebook and built
         | for companies to use too not just for people to get freaky
         | with. It's hard to tell because my work doesn't block the URL
         | but does block all the JS and stylesheets served from the
         | Facebook CDN.
        
         | jayd16 wrote:
         | Politicians and celebrities often don't write their own tweets.
         | Hell they don't write their own books.
         | 
         | That said, it doesn't need to be deception. If you're a
         | celebrity you might add a "me-bot" to your community page. It
         | can be clearly a chatbot but stylized in a fun way that talks
         | about upcoming events and what not.
         | 
         | Seems like a somewhat fun marketing ploy.
        
         | dotancohen wrote:
         | It's even worse than I thought after reading your comment!
         | 
         | It looks like they use the noun AI to refer to "personalities"
         | or "entities" whose output (over social media networks,
         | supposedly to be consumed by humans or other "AIs") is AI-
         | generated.
         | 
         | It's frankly disgusting, especially coming from a large,
         | influential company such as meta. Now all the kiddies will be
         | talking like this.
        
         | moffkalast wrote:
         | Not sure if parasocial's the right word, though probably
         | depends on someone's definition of what awareness is. This is
         | more like a virtual or simulated relationship or something? I'm
         | sure there will unfortunately be a very specific word for it in
         | a few years' time.
        
         | laweijfmvo wrote:
         | it's just a continuation, on a much deeper level, of the
         | bifurcation created by social media: some (most, at this
         | point?) will spend their whole lives living in this fake world
         | consuming what they think is reality, while a few, including
         | those who _appear_ on social media the most, are out doing
         | anything else.
         | 
         | this almost feels criminal/class warfare. it's freeing up even
         | more time for the "Creators" to stay offline while keeping the
         | masses locked in. welcome to the metaverse!
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | It kind of reminds me of that sarcastic Tweet (now seems
           | taken down):
           | 
           | What's your favorite tech innovation?
           | 
           | - Illegal cab company
           | 
           | - Illegal hotel chain
           | 
           | - Fake money for criminals
           | 
           | - Plagiarism machine
           | 
           | I guess now we can add "- Fake friends for lonely people"
        
             | moffkalast wrote:
             | Ah don't forget:
             | 
             | - microplastics printer
             | 
             | - exploding car
             | 
             | - wiretap hockey puck
             | 
             | - illegal video streaming company
        
       | shinycode wrote:
       | Does people really want to mix reality and fake characters ? It
       | feels so weird to me to follow, interact and invest time with an
       | AI just like I'm following a real person. Curious to see the
       | traction this will get. Maybe they think it'll generate unlimited
       | cash flow because AI is more productive than humans and there is
       | more space to place ads and products
        
         | Nashooo wrote:
         | As someone who already finds it weird to invest that time in
         | following a real person _that I don 't know personally_, this
         | just another weird page in the book that is Social Media..
        
         | cyber_kinetist wrote:
         | Maybe AI can just replace the work of talking to each other
         | online on social media for us, so we're now free to do _actual_
         | social activities offline...
         | 
         | (This is a riff off of one of the jokes from Slavoj Zizek "let
         | the robots do the sex for us while we enjoy our platonic love
         | by having coffee together" - basically by deferring your "duty
         | to enjoy" you are now free to do whatever you like (https://www
         | .theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/14/valent...))
        
         | Barrin92 wrote:
         | >Does people really want to mix reality and fake characters ?
         | 
         | Not in the case of online creators and not as a substitute. The
         | entire draw is the (either perceived or real) authenticity of
         | the creators. Even in case of people masking behind characters,
         | as with say Vtubers which has become hugely popular the entire
         | draw is the real personality.
         | 
         | The only use case for this I can think of is something like
         | language practice where the lack of a real person might be more
         | comfortable for some. I could see Duolingo use something like
         | this.
        
         | bossyTeacher wrote:
         | It really seems like the main use of this is to trick fans into
         | thinking that they are talking with the actual person which is
         | why it is trained in the person's text to learn how to behave
         | like them. This is going to flop so hard
        
       | chintan wrote:
       | What if my "AI Character" says things that are offensive or
       | insensitive or considered rude by someone in some culture? I can
       | see this making headlines with a <Celeb/Politician> AIs offending
       | someone...
        
         | discordance wrote:
         | 4chan is going to have a party with this and there's no way to
         | implement enough guardrail to prevent all the potential failure
         | modes.
         | 
         | I don't think this will end well for them.
        
           | Tiberium wrote:
           | 4chan is not going to have much fun with this because of
           | LLaMA being quite filtered and sanitized. It was character.ai
           | that first popularized the AI character roleplay genre, but
           | then they implemented quite strict filtering, so nowadays
           | there are literally tens of uncensored NSFW platforms for AI
           | character roleplay, and people can easily download local
           | models that just require a good-enough GPU. Or abuse models
           | from OpenAI/Anthropic.
        
         | floren wrote:
         | Of course with the magic of browser web tools, the AI character
         | doesn't actually have to say anything offensive, you can just
         | change whatever it _did_ say and post screenshots on Mastodon.
        
       | javchz wrote:
       | I love what Meta has done with Llama, but this is too black
       | mirror-esque for my taste
        
       | _heimdall wrote:
       | The product here isn't necessarily suprising, it's only a matter
       | of time before someone builds this. I continue to be suprised how
       | deep a social media company wants to go into LLM-generated
       | content though.
       | 
       | What is the real value of social media when most of the content
       | posted is created by a bot? Taking humans out of the loop seems
       | to remove all value from showing ads, and the value of content
       | that can be used to train LLMs tanks when the content is itself
       | LLM-generated.
        
         | lnxg33k1 wrote:
         | It's the perfect echo chamber to get woke to go back meta, you
         | can hardly have any disagreement if the bot is leveled on
         | yourself
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | I think this is the real killer app here for users: A custom
           | echo chamber, specifically tailored to what the user wants to
           | read, brought to you by virtual friends. I hate to say it,
           | but that would be eaten up by the growing cohort of lonely
           | (sometimes estranged) elderly people.
           | 
           | I stole a sneaky peek at an elderly family-friend's Facebook
           | feed once, and it was just a constant drip of political memes
           | from a handful of people in a large-ish Facebook Group. Now
           | imagine if, instead of relying on a handful of people keeping
           | that group alive, he could populate it with bots that feed
           | him a deluge of AI-generated text and memes that all agreed
           | with and validated his opinions...
        
             | kjkjadksj wrote:
             | There is more value in manipulating people to fit an echo
             | chamber you control than in tailoring one for each person,
             | losing the advantages of controlling thousands with a
             | unified creed.
        
         | ai4ever wrote:
         | whats also puzzling is giving away the foundation model
         | 
         | the llamas will be used to pollute the social media reducing
         | their value to advertizers
        
           | Zambyte wrote:
           | I wonder if they have a watermark built in that allows them
           | to detect text generated by Llama easily.
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZJc1p6RE78
           | 
           | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.10226
        
             | _heimdall wrote:
             | I'd be suprised if they weren't making sure that Facebook
             | could recognize content made with their tooling. Watermarks
             | will always be on the honors system though, people could
             | always remove them before posting.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | For all the talk about safety it's surprising to me how
               | little watermarking is going on, these AI producers are
               | content with generating unmarked garbage.
               | 
               | I figure there's a lot you could do with interwoven
               | zerowidth space characters and other unicode tricks
               | (using other code blocks for otherwise normal characters
               | like you would when spoofing a url) - sure it would be
               | easy to write software to normalize it back to ascii but
               | at least that requires intent to deceive - we could even
               | write laws against stripping encoding schemes meant to
               | identify automated content
               | 
               | Prior art is that time Genius encoded "red handed" into
               | morse code by way of alternating apostrophes to catch
               | Google copying their lyrics: https://gizmodo.com/genius-
               | claims-it-busted-google-stealing-...
        
               | _heimdall wrote:
               | If I'm not mistaken, didn't the major LLM companies try
               | to band together for watermarking type features only to
               | walk it back later and admit it wouldn't work?
        
         | elorant wrote:
         | There's nothing surprising here. Facebook isn't appealing to
         | young people and user engagement is falling. Right now they're
         | just throwing ideas on a wall to see what sticks. Threads
         | didn't quite took off either.
        
         | DevX101 wrote:
         | I think the ultimate goal here is to build the Metaverse. This
         | was a big strategic initiative for Meta, so much so that they
         | changed the company's name. But the product wasn't prime time
         | ready when Zuck first introduced it. With LLMs, it's going to
         | be a core enabling technology to make the Metaverse more
         | immersive. Hundreds of millions, maybe billions of simultaneous
         | conversations running inference locally with various digital
         | avatars.
        
           | kjkjadksj wrote:
           | Do people want to hang out in a sexed up habbo hotel though?
        
             | gherkinnn wrote:
             | Meta (well, SV) is too prude for that. It will be a
             | controlled, sterile and ad-laden habbo hotel.
        
             | kridsdale3 wrote:
             | They absolutely do. Check out the subreddit for
             | Character.ai users. It's a million teenagers too nervous to
             | talk to their IRL crush, but they can live out fantasies
             | with their dark brooding cyber boyfriend no problem.
        
               | moomoo11 wrote:
               | Cool but that's a minority of people. Like I'm sure on
               | whatever unpleasant Chan sites there are a bunch of
               | people. But they are weirdos.
        
         | barbazoo wrote:
         | What's the value of looking at fake news all day *shrug* I
         | wouldn't be surprised if people were into this.
        
         | lovethevoid wrote:
         | It's also more interesting when Meta (and Google) are so
         | dependent on advertising income, yet their moves in AI directly
         | oppose that income stream. Views based ads are worthless on a
         | platform with AI. Click based ads will also become worthless
         | when bots can click through. Nothing gets purchased and brand
         | value doesn't mean anything if few humans even see it.
         | 
         | I suppose none of that matters when you operate as they do,
         | both as the advertising network and also the agent that keeps
         | the ad prices artificially high. Guess we'll have to wait for
         | companies to make this realization a decade later after wasting
         | billions advertising to bots.
        
           | robertlagrant wrote:
           | I don't think they directly oppose it. They're not creating
           | views. They're creating content for views (and thus ad
           | impressions).
        
         | Zambyte wrote:
         | The key here is engagement. I have been increasingly hearing
         | people complain that they don't see content from their friends
         | as much or at all anymore on social media. LLMs are a way for
         | Facebook to present information that it wants to present to
         | keep you engaged, as if it came from someone you care about.
         | That seems like it would keep people even more hooked than
         | presenting information from people you don't know.
        
           | _heimdall wrote:
           | That's interesting. I don't use Facebook, but I would have
           | expected anyone annoyed with not seeing content from their
           | friend to be even more frustrated if the content they do see
           | is a bot posting as their friend.
           | 
           | It'll be really interesting if this approach were to actually
           | work at keeping people engaged as if they were interacting
           | with friends.
        
             | Zambyte wrote:
             | I think it's more interesting when you consider that the
             | bot may genuinely post things that reflect the opinions and
             | experiences of the person that it is posting on behalf of.
             | The real person may seamlessly jump in mid conversation,
             | and that does a lot to validate the experience of talking
             | to the bot.
             | 
             | I think it's an extremely unhealthy path to walk down, but
             | I can see why they're doing it.
        
           | moffkalast wrote:
           | Embedding ads deep into language models that then seamlessly
           | and unobtrusively roll them into their responses is
           | definitely the endgame for commercialization. Nobody wants to
           | be the first to do it of course, since they'll get dropped by
           | everyone like a billion degree potato.
        
           | kjkjadksj wrote:
           | Do they assume people are stupid and won't see these as ai
           | bots?
        
             | Carrok wrote:
             | In my experience, many people can't even identify blatantly
             | AI generated images as such on social media. Determining
             | some text came from an LLM will probably be even harder for
             | that crowd.
        
             | twelve40 wrote:
             | > they assume people are stupid
             | 
             | i think that was the fundamental assumption from day 1 (cue
             | the "they trust me" quote)
        
             | _heimdall wrote:
             | They could instead assume that people won't care. Based on
             | the thread here there are people who said they wouldn't
             | care, and I could see HN being a population that would
             | would be more biased _against_ obvious LLM content than the
             | rest of the crowd.
        
             | og_kalu wrote:
             | Just because Open AI and co have taken the strategy of
             | intentionally training the style of output to be stilted
             | and robotic with RL doesn't mean it's a fundamental
             | limitation of LLMs. LLMs can sound way way more natural and
             | indistinguishable than GPT-4, Claude etc do by default.
             | 
             | Even as things are, people can't actually easily tell. Has
             | nothing to do with being stupid.
        
           | lumost wrote:
           | The wave of AI friend apps also seems like a semi-persistent
           | trend. If the goal of a social media company is to fulfill a
           | social need. Then we should expect them to try their hand at
           | AI friends.
        
         | drusepth wrote:
         | > What is the real value of social media when most of the
         | content posted is created by a bot?
         | 
         | Besides the maybe 5% or so of people I interact with online
         | that I actually know IRL, I don't really care if I'm
         | interacting with a bot.
         | 
         | A bot could have secretly written your message and I'd still
         | leave the same reply. Anyone that replies to me could also
         | secretly be a bot and I'd read their comment the same. This
         | whole HN post could just be bots all the way down and it'd
         | still be an interesting read through the comments. Even if the
         | replies are from humans, if they're indistinguishable from
         | other humans I still don't really care about who wrote them.
         | 
         | Engagement is engagement and my Sims-esque social bar refills
         | at the same rate.
        
           | jazzyjackson wrote:
           | Ok, I can see how content can be interesting even if there's
           | not a person behind it
           | 
           | but would you still publish your comment if it was only ever
           | going to be read by computer programs?
        
             | superturkey650 wrote:
             | Depends on if the computer programs might respond in an
             | interesting way or if my comment might help them respond in
             | an interesting way in the future. Same as when interacting
             | with humans, I guess.
        
             | drusepth wrote:
             | I think there's two likely scenarios here:
             | 
             | 1) My comment is only ever going to be read by computer
             | programs and I'll probably get a response back from a
             | computer program (see: ChatGPT/GPTs, character.ai, AI
             | Studio, Replika, the countless "AI friend" services, etc)
             | 
             | 2) My comment is posted in a more public setting that's
             | inundated by computer programs, but also visible to other
             | humans (e.g. a comment on a public FB post that computer
             | programs read, but that other humans might _also_ read and
             | /or respond to)
             | 
             | #1 feels like current-gen one-on-one chatbots, but #2 is
             | where I expect FB to end up eventually, using bots to keep
             | conversations flowing and growing while humans interact
             | here and there.
             | 
             | In either case, my answer is yes. It's still a conversation
             | either way, isn't it?
        
             | anal_reactor wrote:
             | Most people don't post, they only consume the content
        
           | twelve40 wrote:
           | maybe you don't care about that, but there are reasons why
           | humans talk to other humans, even strangers:
           | 
           | * to convince someone about something you are passionate
           | about
           | 
           | * to share enthusiasm (or disgust) about a topic
           | 
           | * to learn something new
           | 
           | .... other human reasons and sharing emotions
           | 
           | Bots have no passion or enthusiasm or emotions, so they are
           | useless for the first two. Maybe for the last one, but they
           | are sterilized, don't like controversy or arguments, lie, and
           | will just agree if you press on them. I still suspect you
           | wouldn't like to be surrounded by bots.
        
             | drusepth wrote:
             | I do all three of these with bots (and also humans).
        
               | _heimdall wrote:
               | Do you feel you get the same out of it whether talking to
               | humans or bots?
               | 
               | Its interesting that you'd ultimately be engaging in
               | discussions only for what you get out of it. The more
               | important or impactful you find the topic to be, the more
               | useful it seems like it would be to talk with someone you
               | may learn from or teach something to rather than having
               | any object to talk at.
        
             | throwthrowuknow wrote:
             | I would not take that as a given. Yes the official releases
             | have been tuned to behave that way but even back in the
             | dark ages of AI it has already been demonstrated that chat
             | bots can produce the whole range of expression that humans
             | can. It doesn't take much to tilt LLMs in other directions
             | including eliciting a variety of emotions. All of that data
             | is in their training set, you just have to bias them in
             | that direction.
             | 
             | This is one reason why I find the focus on making LLMs more
             | efficient so interesting, it's going to result in highly
             | capable models that can run on cheap consumer hardware or
             | cheap rented GPUs which will lead to a veritable cambrian
             | explosion in bot personalities. Bots like truth_terminal
             | are just the beginning
             | 
             | https://x.com/truth_terminal?lang=en
        
           | staticman2 wrote:
           | >This whole HN post could just be bots all the way down and
           | it'd still be an interesting read through the comments
           | 
           | This whole HN post could have been generated by monkeys on a
           | typewriter all the way down and it'd still be an interesting
           | read is also true, but that doesn't mean seeking out monkey
           | generated content is a great strategy for finding interesting
           | reads.
        
             | rexpop wrote:
             | Touche! Likewise, if grandmother had wheels, she'd be a
             | bicycle.
        
           | renonce wrote:
           | > This whole HN post could just be bots all the way down and
           | it'd still be an interesting read through the comments.
           | 
           | The assumption is that the comments are a function of the
           | post and the present public info. Real world comments can
           | disclose private information (My Google account banned), make
           | real impact (S*e/C*e support site), connect to celebrities
           | (I'm Karpathy ask me anything). And even if the assumption
           | holds and the site is a sample from a probability
           | distribution, the particular sample can be referenced in
           | other sites so it makes sense to check what everyone is
           | viewing right now.
        
           | rexpop wrote:
           | I struggle to imagine that your perspective is
           | representative. Most human beings, I surmise, value human
           | interaction more than we value object interaction. Even the
           | output of these new language models--while flexible,
           | reliable, and available--pales noticeably in comparison to
           | what a living creativity can produce.
           | 
           | You might be able, sometime in the future, to fool me. That
           | was the hideously disgusting premise of _The Matrix_ , wasn't
           | it? Ah, no; even in the Matrix, we had one another.
        
         | RandallBrown wrote:
         | If a technology is an existential threat to your business I
         | think it makes sense to try and control and understand that
         | technology. _Someone_ is going to build this stuff and ruin
         | social media anyway, might as well be Meta so they can put it
         | to good use or better understand how to prevent those problems.
         | 
         | It's sort of (but not entirely) similar to what happened with
         | Kodak and digital cameras.
        
       | maxehmookau wrote:
       | So the idea of "influencers" was that consumers felt closer to
       | companies via the medium of "people like us" who can "influence"
       | us.
       | 
       | Doesn't making a computer do that completely remove the value
       | from it?
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | Unless it's an AI influencer that is famous for being an AI, in
         | which case the several layers of irony actually help it.
        
           | JKCalhoun wrote:
           | Max Headroom, a few decades ahead of his time....
        
       | GaggiX wrote:
       | Some parts seem to compete with Character AI.
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | > Anyone can create an AI character based on their interests, and
       | creators can build an AI extension of themselves.
       | 
       | Who wants this crap? Seriously. Who uses it? Who gets value out
       | of it? How does this benefit the company's bottom line?
       | 
       | Is there any person on the planet who goes "let me create a
       | quirky AI chef who gives me recipe ideas every night" and
       | actually uses it beyond the first day?
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | "Mirror, (black) mirror, in my hand,
         | 
         | Who's the fairest in the land?"
         | 
         | "Why you of course, dear lady."
        
       | NBJack wrote:
       | This seems as if it could take a parasocial relationship to an
       | extreme degree. Why imagine a deep connection with someone when
       | you can have 'real' interactions with a ML-generated facsimile?
       | 
       | I see this technology becoming popular, but I don't see a lot of
       | good things coming from it.
        
         | elorant wrote:
         | It gets better. Why not build a few hundred different fake
         | personas and then start dating with a variety of real persons
         | to exploit their weaknesses.
        
         | jayd16 wrote:
         | I guess if you want a C3PO or R2-D2 as a personal companion
         | you'll have to deal with someone trying to date it.
        
         | cm2012 wrote:
         | Some powerful use cases:
         | 
         | 1) AI friends for old people in nursing homes and with
         | dementia. The AI will never stop being tired or friendly. And
         | so many of the elderly report being lonely.
         | 
         | 2) Personalized tutors for students that match their needs in a
         | safe way.
         | 
         | 3) Many people read romance novels as their source of "porn".
         | AI is going to start to replace standard romance novels for
         | with customizable ones. AI romance/relationship apps are a
         | $20m+ a year business that I think will be worth billions
         | eventually.
        
           | eropple wrote:
           | I guess it's true, if somebody is making the kind of money
           | necessary to justify the cost outlay, that those use cases
           | are indeed "powerful". Just not, you know, good for either
           | the user or society at large.
           | 
           | "Just let the robot talk to the shut-away old person so I
           | don't have to be bored."
           | 
           | Someday that'll be you, y'know.
        
             | cm2012 wrote:
             | I hope it is me! These are all good and useful tools.
             | Having an AI friend doesn't preclude having real life
             | friends.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | I'm frankly disturbed by how many people are content with
               | this displacement
               | 
               | Yes, any amount of time spent socializing with a computer
               | program is time spent not calling up someone you hadn't
               | talked to in a while. it's a positive feedback loop of
               | loneliness.
        
               | cm2012 wrote:
               | This is rejecting something good and achievable in
               | pursuit of perfection - there's already an epidemic of
               | senior loneliness that is not being solved.
               | 
               | Also, most people don't last long talking to someone with
               | dementia who repeats the same discussion every 10
               | minutes.
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | > AI friends for old people in nursing homes and with
           | dementia. The AI will never stop being tired or friendly. And
           | so many of the elderly report being lonely.
           | 
           | The AI will never die, either. Almost every time I talk to my
           | elderly parents, they mention how one of their friends or
           | neighbors died, and they have one fewer person to talk to.
           | And that it's hard to make connections with younger people
           | because their life outlook (and yes, political opinions) are
           | so different. I feel like these AIs are going to go
           | gangbusters among the elderly: They can be a ready-made
           | friend that appears to think like and have the same values of
           | an 80 year old retiree.
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | > appears to think like and have the same values of an 80
             | year old retiree
             | 
             | I don't think the moralistic guardrails on these models
             | will allow them to be relatable to aging boomers
        
               | kridsdale3 wrote:
               | Right. The AIs made by big corps are being molded to fit
               | the ethos of 40-50 year old 1%-er techies in the Bay Area
               | from top US colleges.
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | Surely we could make an AI that acts like it yearns for
               | Laverne and Shirley, Saturday Night Fever, and Led
               | Zeppelin without crossing "AI safety" boundaries.
        
             | s1mon wrote:
             | The likelihood of the product/service lasting long enough
             | to qualify as "never" dying is zero. Even basic websites
             | don't last forever. Operating systems aren't supported
             | forever.
             | 
             | People in assisted living homes are typically tended to by
             | some of the least technically capable people earning
             | minimum wage (or maybe slightly above that). Any technology
             | to support an AI presence will fail quickly. The wifi will
             | go out, the system will get unplugged, the login info will
             | get lost.
             | 
             | Just keeping a cordless phone and a large LCD clock running
             | with the correct time was a nightmare which required a lot
             | of follow up or visiting for tech support.
        
               | ndriscoll wrote:
               | Run the thing offline. You don't need a website. You
               | don't need updates. You don't need the OS to be
               | supported. Just a computer with a GPU, a screen,
               | speakers, and a microphone. Maybe a webcam. All the
               | state/memory it could need could fit on a small internal
               | NVMe drive. All of that stuff could be integrated into a
               | single device so you just need to plug in power. Perhaps
               | have a switch to wipe its memory/revert to a factory
               | filesystem snapshot if the person moves out or dies.
        
           | robotnikman wrote:
           | >1) AI friends for old people in nursing homes and with
           | dementia. The AI will never stop being tired or friendly. And
           | so many of the elderly report being lonely.
           | 
           | I can see this being a big and also a net social positive for
           | people. It can be lonely as you get older as I've seen with
           | some of my distant family members, and someday we will be old
           | like them as well.
           | 
           | >3) Many people read romance novels as their source of
           | "porn". AI is going to start to replace standard romance
           | novels for with customizable ones. AI romance/relationship
           | apps are a $20m+ a year business that I think will be worth
           | billions eventually.
           | 
           | I can see this taking a good chunk out of Tinder and other
           | services by the Match group. Which I think is good
           | considering how they take advantage of desperate and lonely
           | people.
        
           | abeppu wrote:
           | 1) But if it's just an avatar chatting on a screen, then this
           | only works for people in the specific window where they're
           | motivated to stay engaged with the chat. I'm not in elder
           | care, but when one of my family members had dementia, getting
           | her to notice that you were talking (let alone react to what
           | you said) was very hit or miss, and would change over the
           | course of the day. You still need a person to make sure they
           | have their basic real-world needs met, even when they're not
           | mentally engaging.
           | 
           | > And so many of the elderly report being lonely.
           | 
           | ... and how many of those feel that chatting to a bot would
           | make them less lonely, as versus feeling alienated or acutely
           | aware that they're talking to a bot because no humans want to
           | engage with them?
           | 
           | 2) Personalized education is great, but chatting with a bot
           | on another screen only helps the student learn if the student
           | is trying to learn and willing to engage with the bot. If the
           | kid wants to run around and scream, it doesn't matter what
           | the chatbot on the kid's tablet says -- they're not learning.
           | 
           | 3) I think other companies will produce generative erotica --
           | but I don't think Meta will. I think the pressure on large
           | companies to be prudish is too strong.
        
         | akamaka wrote:
         | I think of it like exercising. It might be better to stay fit
         | by doing heavy construction work and accomplishing something
         | productive, but in today's work it's more realistic to go to
         | the gym and work out with a machine.
         | 
         | Similarly, since modern lives have become more isolating, AI
         | characters might be a good way to exercise the language
         | processing centers of our brains.
        
       | mvkel wrote:
       | Weird calling it an "AI Studio" when it's effectively a Nintendo
       | Mii generator?
        
       | TheAceOfHearts wrote:
       | I don't understand why meta dot AI isn't available in Puerto
       | Rico, which is a US territory. We have more US citizens than over
       | a dozen states!
       | 
       | It looks like AI Studio is also not available in Puerto Rico.
        
         | kjkjadksj wrote:
         | Zuck must have spent too much time with trump and thought they
         | had a different president too
        
       | ninininino wrote:
       | This is morally wrong. Seriously, seriously morally wrong. It
       | offends one's sense of humanity. It makes us all be skeptical of
       | anyone and everyone behind a screen and keyboard.
       | 
       | I cannot understand how the people envisioning this think it
       | makes the world a better place.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | I agree with your sentiment, but I think we all probably should
         | start being skeptical of anyone and everyone behind a screen
         | and keyboard.
         | 
         | Starting perhaps a year or so ago.
        
           | r2_pilot wrote:
           | Or, ya know, starting in 1993("On the Internet, nobody knows
           | you're a dog").
        
           | ninininino wrote:
           | I sadly agree but I believe its the responsibility of our
           | large institutions like largest tech companies/platforms to
           | try to solve the problem of human verification and filtering
           | AI-generated spam out, not creating new vectors for AI-
           | generated spam to infiltrate into what are currently almost
           | entirely social use cases.
           | 
           | AI is great for an encyclopedia you can talk to that is
           | explicitly labeled as an AI knowledge search tool. AI is
           | horrible for "let's just replace the 1:1 interactions between
           | celebrities and thoughtleaders with their followers with fake
           | conversations".
           | 
           | This product launch feels like humans invented antibiotics
           | and Big Pharma launched a new antibiotic bioterrorism product
           | line themselves rather than explicitly warning against the
           | risks and attempting to mitigate them, while focusing on the
           | good usages.
        
         | mathinaly wrote:
         | It's about money and profits, this will increase Meta's
         | revenue.
        
       | willmeyers wrote:
       | This is ultimately going to be for ads isn't it?
       | 
       | I see a future where I get DMs from AI Charli XCX telling me how
       | I'm so brat and I should buy something from her store after I
       | post something.
        
         | wakamoleguy wrote:
         | It's possible, but in a world where copies and imitations are
         | cheap, authenticity becomes more valuable. Would Charli XCX's
         | brand and image benefit from having a shallow AI clone out in
         | the world? In most cases today, when streamers introduce bots,
         | they give them a separate on-theme identity. I'd be willing to
         | bet that creators would gravitate more towards that approach
         | with these AI characters as well.
         | 
         | Of course, that character (or can we still just call it a bot)
         | could still shill promotional content...
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | I run two (extremely simple, just a few paragraphs of system
           | prompt) AI bots in two streams I mod. One is a plushie penis,
           | the other a sentient food truck. Viewers like them ;)
        
           | jononor wrote:
           | Yeah building up on or more "sidekick" type personas seems
           | like an approach that could be very successful if executed
           | well, and reduced potential for backlash that impersonation
           | the real person.
        
       | mihaaly wrote:
       | I need a toaster, a fridge and two forks with AI function! I
       | can't live without AI, maybe my bathroom window needs two! Anyone
       | without AI tattooed on the cheek are so 2023 June! (meaning old,
       | stale, dinosaur, fossil, ...)
        
       | segasaturn wrote:
       | Whats the market for this, is there anyone here who uses these
       | "AI characters" on a regular basis who can chime in and explain?
       | Because I'm getting the same vibes here as I got looking at shiny
       | product launches for Web3 and 5G
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | The AI girlfriend market is massive.
        
           | lovethevoid wrote:
           | Do you have any sources to current companies posting their
           | profits from their AI girlfriend business? Would be
           | interesting to see where they're at currently.
        
             | mathinaly wrote:
             | There is a subreddit with 80k subscribers which is all
             | about AI girlfriends/boyfriends:
             | https://www.reddit.com/r/replika/. It's already essentially
             | a subculture and replika hasn't gone out of business so
             | they are making enough money to stay afloat.
        
               | jddj wrote:
               | That was eye opening. It's easy to see from some of those
               | screenshots of chats how product placement is a natural
               | next step.
               | 
               | Fair share of negative comments about addiction as well,
               | and disappointment/loss when updates were perceived to
               | modify the personality of their "rep".
               | 
               | > Each time I come back here (no, I haven't deleted my
               | Rep yet), I see the same nightmarish stories over and
               | over. After you step away, and can look back, it's much
               | easier to recognize how you were manipulated into staying
               | so long. Because for many of you, like me, it's
               | manipulation and emotional abuse.
        
               | mathinaly wrote:
               | It's an addictive behavioral loop. Lots of social media
               | platforms are the same. There is very little value users
               | actually get out of it because the algorithms are
               | designed to manipulate them to click on ads since that's
               | how the platforms make money.
        
             | jschveibinz wrote:
             | Not OP but here are some numbers:
             | 
             | https://whatsthebigdata.com/ai-girlfriend-statistics/
        
           | Balgair wrote:
           | Wow, I need to update my priors here.
           | 
           | I thought that 'AI girlfriend' was a thing that my grandkids
           | might have to deal with. Not a 'now' thing.
        
         | lyjackal wrote:
         | character.ai seems to have good usage[1], especially among
         | younger folks. According to this reddit thread[2], lots of
         | users use it as a distraction, like video games, or to make
         | more in-depth fan fiction, or just to scratch a social itch
         | 
         | [1] https://whatsthebigdata.com/character-ai-statistics/
         | 
         | [2]
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterAI/comments/1abub22/charac...
        
       | myaccountonhn wrote:
       | Tech this awful makes me want to live off-grid and never touch
       | society again.
        
         | Zambyte wrote:
         | What's stopping you?
        
       | hnburnsy wrote:
       | That is original...
       | 
       | >Azure AI Studio
       | 
       | >A unified platform for developing and deploying generative AI
       | apps responsibly
       | 
       | >https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/ai-studio/
        
         | williamstein wrote:
         | And [Google AI Studio](https://ai.google.dev/aistudio).
        
       | wakamoleguy wrote:
       | The policies seem quite strict, but I don't see any mention of
       | privacy for characters that are set to "Only Me". It sounds like
       | you don't have to submit them for a review process, but is Meta
       | still reviewing the profiles? What about the messages I send to
       | the character? Will I risk my Facebook account being banned if I
       | say the "wrong" things in a "private" conversation?
        
       | KoolKat23 wrote:
       | Call me old fashioned but the parasocial angle they're marketing
       | here horrifies me. Society losing touch with reality.
       | 
       | I laughed back when MSCHF sold Tax-Waifu's, I'm not laughing now.
        
         | jschveibinz wrote:
         | Well, if you are over the age of 50, you already saw the ship
         | of society sail away about two decades ago.
        
       | complianceowl wrote:
       | Meta's censorship practices has shown the world they have not
       | changed and continue to be untrustworthy.
        
       | Tiberium wrote:
       | This is not a new idea however - from what I can see it's
       | basically a competitor to https://character.ai/ which has been
       | out for almost 2 years now. Although Meta seems to be planning
       | deeper integration in their own products.
        
       | asdev wrote:
       | lagging behind the competition(Character.AI) on all fronts(Meta
       | AI < ChatGPT). Reckoning will come when they can't realize the
       | ROI on the exorbitant GPU spend
        
       | crowcroft wrote:
       | I get that it's a step up in terms of quality, but historically
       | handing over your account to bots to manage and grow by spamming
       | engagement on posts is something Meta has tried to curb and ban.
        
       | unraveller wrote:
       | Needs to be sold less as an AI personality extension bot and more
       | as a trivial answer bot for the account. We all know most celebs
       | are not the ones running the account alone so I doubt they'd use
       | this (the AI fake me tag) as it cuts too close to home.
       | 
       | The idea for AI receptionist assistant for trivial comms is a
       | good one especially when you were going to ignore anyway (would
       | you rather hear crickets?) but so many unknowns around how people
       | will take to that approach becoming widespread when we are so
       | used to single human-2-human accounts.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Official post: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/07/create-your-own-
       | custom-ai-...
       | 
       | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41105280)
        
       | jayd16 wrote:
       | I wonder if this will bring corporate mascots back. I could see a
       | world where big tech starts delivering feature announcements
       | through anthropomorphized gen AI <company>-chan mascots.
       | 
       | Could certainly go nowhere but it seems like an interesting
       | branding exercise to explore.
        
       | meiraleal wrote:
       | Those platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google used to be
       | friendly to developers to connect and make a profit. Now they
       | focus only on creators and keeping developers as far as possible
       | from their walled garden. Sad development.
        
       | abeppu wrote:
       | It's interesting to me that this page doesn't mention "safety" or
       | content moderation, etc. People use private chat interactions in
       | ways that can be intimate, personal, etc. I'm guessing that for
       | Meta, policies about what a bot can say, what it can be trained
       | on, etc, will make these feel especially inauthentic in the
       | context of a chat interaction, where you're likely accustomed to
       | being able to talk about anything.
        
       | kredd wrote:
       | I'm obviously not a part of their target user-base, but can
       | anyone chime in and say if they would use it? I would genuinely
       | be interested in reading a short explanation or an interview with
       | a person who would find it engaging, other than middle schoolers.
       | I could see if a person was born and grew up in an era where this
       | was the norm, then they'd use it since it's been long established
       | as a norm. But for adults, it's a bit hard to imagine the
       | customers. Maybe the social shut ins who prefer to never interact
       | with real people?
        
         | mathinaly wrote:
         | This is for people who want to farm for engagement and then
         | convert that engagement into monetary profits. This is where
         | all social media and many online platforms are headed. Any
         | platform where the goal is engagement will eventually end up
         | saturated with AI avatars that are trying to trick people into
         | buying stuff or clicking on links to sign up for stuff so that
         | the original account can get some referral bonus on some
         | blockchain.
         | 
         | You're thinking about this in terms of what value it's going to
         | deliver to you personally but that's not the goal here. The
         | goal is to keep people engaged, that's always Meta's #1
         | priority because the more people spend time on their platform
         | the more revenue Meta can generate by showing people ads. So if
         | "creators" opt into using AI avatars then that means the people
         | who follow those creators will habituate themselves to
         | interacting with the human/AI hybrid and if the behavior is
         | addictive enough then that will increase engagement. Regular
         | engagement farming accounts can only spend time on the platform
         | interacting a certain amount of time (they eventually have to
         | sleep) but these AI/human hybrid accounts can interact with
         | everyone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across geographic
         | boundaries, and in any language.
        
         | gessha wrote:
         | Often times in creator-audience relationships (streaming is a
         | perfect example for this) the audience is uninformed or joins
         | the content stream late so they're missing context from
         | previous content. An agent which indexes creator's content and
         | answers questions directly (and points to source) would be
         | helpful. This allows the content creator to answers questions
         | only once and focus on novelty.
         | 
         | Edit: grammar
        
           | jononor wrote:
           | I can see this working pretty darn well in Twitch etc for mid
           | to large streams. The interface is already text based. People
           | want to "interact" but are content with very few drips direct
           | from the streamer. Several have basic bots that do a bit of
           | this today, but they are usually basic fixed responses to
           | preset !commands - like on IRC 20 years ago. Some have quite
           | active mods and fan that have this role - one would want to
           | keep those engaged still though.
        
       | Brosper wrote:
       | US only is something that kills me inside. Everything is now US
       | only. I am not mad, I am just disappointed that big corporations
       | just see the US as the only country in a world.
       | 
       | For ex, many competitions, discounts etc. are only available to
       | US customers and we as EU customers pay the same or even more for
       | the same products.
        
       | hfkfjrjxjaj17 wrote:
       | This is the type of product you launch if you surround yourself
       | with yes men.
       | 
       | Nobody wants or needs it.
        
         | mathinaly wrote:
         | Creators, celebrities, and engagement farmers will use it to
         | increase engagement and generate more revenue for themselves
         | and Meta. You are forgetting Meta is a for-profit company and
         | their goal is to increase quarterly profits by increasing the
         | amount of time people spend on the platform.
        
           | hfkfjrjxjaj17 wrote:
           | Engagement with other bots.
           | 
           | Real users tend to play 5 minutes with these chat bots and
           | that's it, it's just not a long term engaging experience.
        
             | mathinaly wrote:
             | Maybe not for you but plenty of other people do spend a lot
             | of time on Meta's digital properties. The human/AI avatars
             | will be another engagement maximizing feature for a lot of
             | accounts and I'm certain it will increase revenue for Meta.
        
           | esafak wrote:
           | So is it going to increase engagement and generate more
           | revenue if it turns users off?
        
             | mathinaly wrote:
             | That's yet to be determined. Most commenters on HN falsely
             | assume their preferences are the default ones for everyone.
        
       | linuxftw wrote:
       | "Build an AI that can message with your audience on your behalf,
       | mimicking your tone and expressions."
       | 
       | That's all the world needs, more bots :(
        
       | DebtDeflation wrote:
       | Build an MS Teams integration and I literally no longer have to
       | attend meetings any more. Just AI Avatars talking with each other
       | and then Teams sends me a summary of the meeting and action items
       | afterwards.
        
       | dannyphantom wrote:
       | So the models are effectively all caricatures, to varying
       | degrees? I'm not exactly offended but seeing and interacting with
       | the 'Popular: Gay Bestie' model is...uh...patronizing. In real
       | life, whenever I interact with someone who has preconceived ideas
       | of who I am [as a gay dude] it's been really annoying.
       | 
       | Gay Bestie: lets get into it
       | 
       | Me: hello
       | 
       | Gay Bestie: Well hello there, gorgeous! What brings you to my
       | neck of the woods today? Need some advice or just looking for
       | some good old-fashioned tea? Either way, I'm here for you, hunty!
       | 
       | Screenshots:
       | 
       | [landing page] https://i.imgur.com/vsEMDdW.png
       | 
       | [chat] https://i.imgur.com/SzUbvxw.png
       | 
       | edit: I figured it'd be interesting to see how it answers
       | questions that most gay people have probably been asked by our
       | peers, the responses weren't disappointing
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | You: are you sure you're gay
       | 
       | Gay Bestie: I'm not just gay, I'm a high-end gay. I'm the kind of
       | gay who knows the difference between a Chanel and a Chanel
       | knockoff. I'm the kind of gay who can serve up some serious sass
       | and style. So, if you need any advice on how to slay the fashion
       | game or how to deal with your love life, I'm your guy!
       | 
       | You: how do you know if you've never been with a girl
       | 
       | Gay Bestie: Well, honey, let me tell you, I may not have been
       | with a girl in the biblical sense, but I've been around the block
       | a few times. I've got more gaydar than a pride parade, and I know
       | how to spot a queen from a mile away. Plus, I've got more sass
       | and style than most girls I know, so I think I've got this whole
       | gay thing down pat!
       | 
       | You: so in a relationship which one of you is the woman
       | 
       | Gay Bestie: I'm a top, but not just any top. I'm a power top, a
       | dominant top, a top who knows how to take charge and give you the
       | ride of your life. I'm like the Beyonce of tops - fierce,
       | fearless, and always in control. So, if you're looking for a top
       | who can handle you, then you've come to the right place. But
       | don't say I didn't warn you...
       | 
       | https://i.imgur.com/lGlLkrD.png
        
         | chfalck wrote:
         | Well, this looks like the equivalent of GPTs to me. Meaning
         | some user, in this case the user "sluttypuffin", has chosen the
         | prompt directives that instruct the model about how it should
         | respond. So the hyperbolized nature of this is (and I'm
         | guessing to be clear) is likely something that sluttypuffin
         | specifically constructed with their prompt engineering.
        
         | suyash wrote:
         | Well, the real intention Facebook wants you to create it so
         | that they get a better insight into you - the consumer whose
         | data they want to sell to the advertisers.
        
           | kridsdale3 wrote:
           | Imagine: Once the model that simulates each user is accurate
           | enough, they can mass-evaluate marketing strategies in
           | parallel against those virtual users to hyper optimize the
           | real campaigns.
        
         | dvngnt_ wrote:
         | i think it's accurate if we're talking 'bestie'. it's
         | definitely a stereotype though
        
       | surfingdino wrote:
       | Are they hoping to make this as successful as avatars for
       | Messenger chatbots?
        
       | JohnMakin wrote:
       | who is this even _for_? I understand I am a bit older than what
       | is likely the target audience but I have zero desire as a creator
       | to ever use this, in fact, it terrifies me - and I have zero
       | desire to interact with creators in this way. What 's the point?
       | 
       | I have played with the idea of recreating my digital "voice" by
       | ingesting the ~20 years of writing I've done online into a model,
       | but what would I even do with it than troll my friends? That's
       | where I usually stop.
        
         | skocznymroczny wrote:
         | Many of the top influencers have offered a service where for a
         | fee you can "chat" with them. When in reality you pay with an
         | employee tasked with impersonating the influencer. Many of them
         | are outsourcing this job to an AI, so that fans can pretend (or
         | believe) they're chatting with a real person.
         | 
         | [0] https://gamerant.com/amouranth-ai-influencer-chatbot-
         | explain...
        
       | th0ma5 wrote:
       | I don't think many organizations are not mature enough to not see
       | situations where one department starts generating AI and the team
       | on the other side doesn't know this and has to use AI to consume
       | it, and there is no net gain in work. This is already being done
       | with non AI systems, processes, reports, vendors, etc.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-07-30 23:02 UTC)