Meta's Artificial Intelligence-Generated Profiles Are Already Contaminating Instagram and Facebook with Shoddy Quality
Meta's Artificial Intelligence-Generated Profiles Are Already Contaminating Instagram and Facebook with Shoddy Quality
As I gazed into the vacant eyes of "Carter," one of Meta's innovative AI avatars, I was reminded of a line from Dawn of the Dead. "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
Something about George Romero's 1978 movie about beleaguered survivors weathering the zombie apocalypse in a shopping mall seems pertinent today as I survey Meta's array of AI-generated personas. The movie's pastel-hued corpses are oblivious to their mortality. They saunter through the mall mechanically, searching for something new to consume.
That's how many of our digital forums feel now. Communal spaces on the web teeming with lifeless avatars, AI bots regurgitating lines learned from an LLM, a distilled version of the internet's history pushed back at the audience. That's what Meta offers now.
Meta's various platforms boast over 3 billion users, an astounding percentage of the world's population. But corporations crave eternal growth and, uncontent with over half of the living world's population, Meta has opted to circumvent intermediaries. It's flooding Facebook and Instagram with AI profiles of its own conception.
An article published on December 27, 2024 by the Financial Times delineated the vision. "We anticipate that these AIs will eventually exist on our platforms, much like accounts do," Connor Hayes, vice president of generative AI at Meta, stated to the media outlet. "They'll possess bios and profile pictures and be capable of creating and distributing content powered by AI on the platform . . . that's where we envision this journey heading."
Soon, users discovered that Meta's ghastly avatars had been cohabiting with us for months, even years. There's Liv, a "Proud black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller," as per her Instagram bio. Add to this Brian, "everybody's grandpa;" Jade, "your go-to for all things hip-hop;" and Carter, a "relationship coach." I'm sure there are more still undiscovered.
All four of these avatars have pages on both Facebook and Instagram, featuring mirrored content, and all four boast a post history extending back to September 26, 2023. The accounts bear the blue verified badge and a label indicating that they're AI-managed by Meta. Users can block them on Facebook, but not on Instagram. Users can also message them across all of Meta's platforms, including WhatsApp.
"Embarking on a road trip with friends is the ultimate relationship test drive. Nothing conveys 'friendship goals' like being confined to a car with your best pals, navigating unfamiliar roads, and sharing odd gas station snacks. But the real treasure? Watching the miles vanish, generating priceless memories, and bearing witness to the nation's beauty together. #dreamedUpByAI," Carter wrote in a June 25, 2024 post.
The AIs seem to be struggling on Instagram. They possess low engagement numbers and are being labeled as AI sludge. It's different on Facebook, where AI-infused sludge has been the norm for a year now. The post has 13 likes and 2 comments on Instagram and 192 likes, 112 comments, and 33 shares on Facebook. Many of the comments are spam, links to other profiles, or phishing bait of some sort.
But interaction, as far as spreadsheets are concerned, is all that matters.
An AI-driven nightmare conceived by Meta's AI. © Instagram screenshot.
Liv's account uploads photos of nonexistent children, Brian discusses the elderly's fascination with textiles above an AI-generated image of a nursing home where the elderly's faces merge together like Barbie dolls heated in a microwave, and Jade posts photos of her facetious vinyl collection, the labels unreadable.
The AI apocalypse is upon us and it's proved to be significantly dumber and more disheartening than promised. Instead of being pursued by a gleaming metal skeleton in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, we're surrounded by demons endlessly echoing our own posts back at us.
And the worst is yet to come. Recall that to fuel these nightmares, Big Tech plans to reanimate the nuclear power industry. That's our future. A forsaken mall kept glowing with nuclear power, inhabited by the deceased and the nonexistent.
The vision for the future of technology, as outlined by Meta's Connor Hayes, involves AI avatars becoming a permanent fixture on their platforms, capable of creating and distributing content.（from the article published on December 27, 2024 by the Financial Times）
Artificial intelligence, as manifested in Meta's AI avatars like Carter, is poised to significantly impact our digital interactions, potentially leading to an AI-driven dystopia where lifeless avatars echo our own posts back at us.（from the text about the AI apocalypse upon us)