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Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies

jsheard 2y ago
> "There is confusion," Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney told CNN in an email. "The recent Financial Times article was about our vision for AI characters existing on our platforms over time, not announcing any new product." Sweeney said the accounts were "part of an early experiment we did with AI characters." Don't worry, they still intend to fill their social networks with fake robot people, just not those fake robot people. This is definitely what users want and not a desperate scramble to justify Llamas R&D costs by cramming it into every text-shaped hole in their products.
- omolobo 2y ago
  [dead]
stackghost 2y ago
I guess we've finally found the "killer app" for generative AI: padding MAU/DAU stats. I hate the way things are going so much. Tech promised us a utopia and instead we've got this trash fire.
- jsemrau 2y ago
  the way Reddit started -- now with full automation.
  - stackghost 2y ago
    Yeah the more you read about how reddit started and the really odious people they were having run large subreddits, the more you realize those scummy guys really duped us all.
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  I say this a lot. Growing up, being interested in tech, I was so excited by the future. Now that we're here, a bunch of greedy tech bros have sufficiently killed all the dreams I had about the world with tech, and now it's just an utter disappointment. All the people who ushered this terrible new world in by passively consuming, moving into walled gardens, turning off any semblance of critical thinking, justifying it with "but where, in this age of endless digital communication options, where I talk to my friends and family?" Or "I'm ok with targeted advertising because it removes the effort I need to exert to find things I want to buy." This nation is the embodiment of greed, sloth, and pride. Foolish, ignorant people, refusing to use the tools we have to access the entirety of human knowledge, gleefully falling for any bullshit their favorite "influencer" is hawking today, are as much or more to blame than the people who set up the rat mazes for them to run through all day. We welcomed and begged for this. It's hard to not be angry at the way things went, but as much as I hate the tech bros who ruined technology, I think more of the blame deserves to be placed on the people throwing themselves into the engagement machine, letting themselves be duped by easily disproven nonsense because it's easier and more comfortable to not critically think about what they're seeing and hearing. I'm risking turning this into a screed, if I haven't already. I'm pissed off and disappointed, but the longer this goes on the less surprised I am by any new distopian shit I hear. Sci-fi writers of old would be fainting seeing the shit they couldn't dream up happening every day now. It just sucks.
  - stackghost 2y ago
    I think Big Tech is exactly like the tobacco companies of yore. Hawking a product that they know is addictive and harmful while feigning ignorance and benevolence. To blame people is to blame the victim. There are dude bros commenting here on this site that have materially made the world a worse place.
mlekoszek 2y ago
I don't understand why Facebook would want to debase the value of their content by mixing in obvious AI slop. It's a sharp contrast to their past strategy of keeping the network as 'authentic' (their words) as possible. > AUTHENTICITY We want to make sure the content people see is authentic. We believe that authenticity creates a better environment for sharing, and that’s why we don’t want people using our services to misrepresent who they are or what they’re doing. https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/ https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/ I'd love to hear how this happened, and what kind of rationale they could possibly have for doing it. It's very, very bizarre from an outsider's point of view.
- zahlman 2y ago
  My best guess: Metaverse hasn't been doing well and they want to attach the concept of AI to the company any way they can because it's the New Thing.
  - mlekoszek 2y ago
    Makes sense. Maybe this was a "see-what-happens" experiment that caught more attention than they expected? I can't imagine it came from Instagram having a shortage of content. e: Like, the quality and relevance of the content is the main value proposition to users in an old school social network like Instagram. You can't really mess with that in service of some other goal without undermining the product's raison d'etre.
  - linkjuice4all 2y ago
    Generative AI seems like a great opportunity for the metaverse instead of further enshittifying their existing networks. Users could utter entire universes into existence and then explore them, this could even work for the elderly reliving some past experience (this article alludes to ensnaring older users with non-existent bot "personalities"). So why would they do this? Is it just another attempt at swaying public opinion (see: Cambridge Analytica)? Perhaps promoted messaging will come from these accounts so they can monetize their AI investment? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem like a feature users requested so it's difficult to think it benefits them.
maxlamb 2y ago
Meta keeps making more and more bafflingly horrible product decisions. Tens of billions into the Metaverse and now “let’s put gen AI into everything” even if it goes against the one thing that is arguably the most responsible for FB’s success - real identity. “Let’s put fake bots everywhere, because GenAI, need I say more?”
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
raddan 2y ago
The appearance of chatbots in social media is annoying (but also totally predictable). What I find disappointing is the persistent practice of journalists to interview said chatbots as if those interviews mean something. They do not. These programs are essentially Monte Carlo simulations. Why on earth would you think they could tell you anything about their genesis? Also, let’s be real: Meta’s goal is and always has been to drive engagement. So it should not be surprising that they chose to create a bunch of avatars that many Americans will feel are a little too transgressive. Meta wants to rile you up so you stick around and post more.
rchaud 2y ago
AI accounts are the final nail in the coffin for the user-generated content era of the web. RIP UGC, 1994 - 2024. We started with Usenet, message boards, Geocities and Blogspot. Then all the traffic migrated to aggregators like Facebook, Reddit and Instagram which prioritize engagement-heavy sensationalism. Real people used to post all that content, but it's been clear for a while that sharecropping on somebody else's platform benefits them, not you. It used to be possible to build up a following and sell some Tshirts or get a few Patreon subs. But now it's simply not worth the hassle when every piece of original content is getting sucked into an AI training model and Instagram is openly telling users to pay to 'promote' their posts in the algorithm. The bottom is falling out of the so-called bottomless pit of doomscroll machines, so instead of offering a better product, they're propping up its corpse with a hollow, computationally expensive facsimile of the real thing.
- crote 2y ago
  The solution is obvious: move back to invite-only message boards and webrings. Only real-world humans are allowed to enter the playground. Maybe we could even resurrect the PGP key signing Web of Trust?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
    If starting out, then the friction to join would cause many people not to bother. But... if it was already a large enough group to have network effects and then that friction would actually make it more appealing in that it would add a feeling of exclusivity and status to be a member.
Havoc 2y ago
One of the bots made a post about a fake charity clothes drive. With fake generated pictures of the clothes. Hallucinated being a good example to its child and how it’s helping the community with the clothes. Absolutely fuckin wild that this got rolled out like this. https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1hszxy0/meta_took_their_ai_influencers_down_in_just_2/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1hszxy0/meta_took_...
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42590981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42590981
matt3210 2y ago
Every time I feel the urge to post or comment I remember that they’re all AIs and then navigate away instead.

> "There is confusion," Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney told CNN in an email. "The recent Financial Times article was about our vision for AI characters existing on our platforms over time, not announcing any new product." Sweeney said the accounts were "part of an early experiment we did with AI characters." Don't worry, they still intend to fill their social networks with fake robot people, just not those fake robot people. This is definitely what users want and not a desperate scramble to justify Llamas R&D costs by cramming it into every text-shaped hole in their products.

omolobo 2y ago
[dead]

stackghost 2y ago

I guess we've finally found the "killer app" for generative AI: padding MAU/DAU stats. I hate the way things are going so much. Tech promised us a utopia and instead we've got this trash fire.

jsemrau 2y ago
the way Reddit started -- now with full automation.
- stackghost 2y ago
  Yeah the more you read about how reddit started and the really odious people they were having run large subreddits, the more you realize those scummy guys really duped us all.
quickslowdown 2y ago
I say this a lot. Growing up, being interested in tech, I was so excited by the future. Now that we're here, a bunch of greedy tech bros have sufficiently killed all the dreams I had about the world with tech, and now it's just an utter disappointment. All the people who ushered this terrible new world in by passively consuming, moving into walled gardens, turning off any semblance of critical thinking, justifying it with "but where, in this age of endless digital communication options, where I talk to my friends and family?" Or "I'm ok with targeted advertising because it removes the effort I need to exert to find things I want to buy." This nation is the embodiment of greed, sloth, and pride. Foolish, ignorant people, refusing to use the tools we have to access the entirety of human knowledge, gleefully falling for any bullshit their favorite "influencer" is hawking today, are as much or more to blame than the people who set up the rat mazes for them to run through all day. We welcomed and begged for this. It's hard to not be angry at the way things went, but as much as I hate the tech bros who ruined technology, I think more of the blame deserves to be placed on the people throwing themselves into the engagement machine, letting themselves be duped by easily disproven nonsense because it's easier and more comfortable to not critically think about what they're seeing and hearing. I'm risking turning this into a screed, if I haven't already. I'm pissed off and disappointed, but the longer this goes on the less surprised I am by any new distopian shit I hear. Sci-fi writers of old would be fainting seeing the shit they couldn't dream up happening every day now. It just sucks.
- stackghost 2y ago
  I think Big Tech is exactly like the tobacco companies of yore. Hawking a product that they know is addictive and harmful while feigning ignorance and benevolence. To blame people is to blame the victim. There are dude bros commenting here on this site that have materially made the world a worse place.

mlekoszek 2y ago

I don't understand why Facebook would want to debase the value of their content by mixing in obvious AI slop. It's a sharp contrast to their past strategy of keeping the network as 'authentic' (their words) as possible. > AUTHENTICITY We want to make sure the content people see is authentic. We believe that authenticity creates a better environment for sharing, and that’s why we don’t want people using our services to misrepresent who they are or what they’re doing. https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/ https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/ I'd love to hear how this happened, and what kind of rationale they could possibly have for doing it. It's very, very bizarre from an outsider's point of view.

zahlman 2y ago
My best guess: Metaverse hasn't been doing well and they want to attach the concept of AI to the company any way they can because it's the New Thing.
- mlekoszek 2y ago
  Makes sense. Maybe this was a "see-what-happens" experiment that caught more attention than they expected? I can't imagine it came from Instagram having a shortage of content. e: Like, the quality and relevance of the content is the main value proposition to users in an old school social network like Instagram. You can't really mess with that in service of some other goal without undermining the product's raison d'etre.
- linkjuice4all 2y ago
  Generative AI seems like a great opportunity for the metaverse instead of further enshittifying their existing networks. Users could utter entire universes into existence and then explore them, this could even work for the elderly reliving some past experience (this article alludes to ensnaring older users with non-existent bot "personalities"). So why would they do this? Is it just another attempt at swaying public opinion (see: Cambridge Analytica)? Perhaps promoted messaging will come from these accounts so they can monetize their AI investment? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem like a feature users requested so it's difficult to think it benefits them.

maxlamb 2y ago

Meta keeps making more and more bafflingly horrible product decisions. Tens of billions into the Metaverse and now “let’s put gen AI into everything” even if it goes against the one thing that is arguably the most responsible for FB’s success - real identity. “Let’s put fake bots everywhere, because GenAI, need I say more?”

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

raddan 2y ago

The appearance of chatbots in social media is annoying (but also totally predictable). What I find disappointing is the persistent practice of journalists to interview said chatbots as if those interviews mean something. They do not. These programs are essentially Monte Carlo simulations. Why on earth would you think they could tell you anything about their genesis? Also, let’s be real: Meta’s goal is and always has been to drive engagement. So it should not be surprising that they chose to create a bunch of avatars that many Americans will feel are a little too transgressive. Meta wants to rile you up so you stick around and post more.

rchaud 2y ago

AI accounts are the final nail in the coffin for the user-generated content era of the web. RIP UGC, 1994 - 2024. We started with Usenet, message boards, Geocities and Blogspot. Then all the traffic migrated to aggregators like Facebook, Reddit and Instagram which prioritize engagement-heavy sensationalism. Real people used to post all that content, but it's been clear for a while that sharecropping on somebody else's platform benefits them, not you. It used to be possible to build up a following and sell some Tshirts or get a few Patreon subs. But now it's simply not worth the hassle when every piece of original content is getting sucked into an AI training model and Instagram is openly telling users to pay to 'promote' their posts in the algorithm. The bottom is falling out of the so-called bottomless pit of doomscroll machines, so instead of offering a better product, they're propping up its corpse with a hollow, computationally expensive facsimile of the real thing.

crote 2y ago
The solution is obvious: move back to invite-only message boards and webrings. Only real-world humans are allowed to enter the playground. Maybe we could even resurrect the PGP key signing Web of Trust?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
  If starting out, then the friction to join would cause many people not to bother. But... if it was already a large enough group to have network effects and then that friction would actually make it more appealing in that it would add a feeling of exclusivity and status to be a member.

Havoc 2y ago

One of the bots made a post about a fake charity clothes drive. With fake generated pictures of the clothes. Hallucinated being a good example to its child and how it’s helping the community with the clothes. Absolutely fuckin wild that this got rolled out like this. https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1hszxy0/meta_took_their_ai_influencers_down_in_just_2/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1hszxy0/meta_took_...

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42590981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42590981

matt3210 2y ago

Every time I feel the urge to post or comment I remember that they’re all AIs and then navigate away instead.