Meta has announced plans to populate Facebook and Instagram with AI-generated profiles and content.
Connor Hayes, Meta’s vice-president of product for generative AI, outlined the company’s vision: “We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do.”
Hayes added that these AI entities will have “bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform.”
Meta has already seen hundreds of thousands of AI characters created through its tools since their US launch in July, though the vast majority of users have not released their creations publicly.
Hayes notes that making Meta’s apps “more entertaining and engaging” is a “priority” for the next two years, with a particular focus on making AI interactions more social.
Meta’s broader AI plans are ambitious. The company is developing tools to help users create AI assistants that can respond to followers’ questions. For 2025, it plans to release text-to-video generation software enabling creators to insert themselves into AI-generated videos.
Mark Zuckerberg also recently revealed AI avatars capable of conducting live video calls while perfectly mimicking a creator’s persona, from their speaking patterns to their facial expressions.
This forms part of a broader industry push toward AI-generated content. Snapchat released tools that enable creators to design 3D AI characters for augmented reality purposes, reporting a 50% annual increase in users viewing AI-generated content.
Meanwhile, ByteDance-owned TikTok is piloting “Symphony,” a series of tools and applications that enables brands and creators to use AI for advertising purposes, such as creating AI-generated avatars and automating content translation.
AI bots on social media: The implications
Industry experts are sounding alarms about the psychological and social implications of embedding social media with AI bots.
Becky Owen, global chief marketing and innovation officer at Billion Dollar Boy and former head of Meta’s creator innovations team, cautions that “without robust safeguards, platforms risk amplifying false narratives through these AI-driven accounts,” according to the FT.
She emphasizes, “Unlike human creators, these AI personas don’t have lived experiences, emotions, or the same capacity for relatability.”
Owen further warns that AI characters could flood platforms with low-quality material that undermines creators and erodes user confidence.
This takes on added weight given Meta’s history with data manipulation – most notably the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where user data was exploited to influence political opinions.
Rather than merely harvesting user data to target content, AI entities could actively engage with users, shape conversations, and influence opinions in real time, all while appearing to be authentic human participants in online discourse.
Meta claims to be implementing protective measures, including mandatory labeling of AI-generated content, but critics argue this may not be sufficient to prevent the erosion of authentic human connection.
Bots threaten to takeover parts of the internet
According to research from Imperva, nearly half of all internet traffic – 49.6% – now originates from non-human sources.
Bad bots already account for 32% of web traffic, lending credence to what was once dismissed as a conspiracy theory: the concept of a “dead internet” where human voices become increasingly drowned out by artificial ones.
On a deeper level, this signals yet another progression towards an internet ecosystem shaped by AI systems.
The philosophical implications are dizzying. We’re moving toward a world where our online social circles may include entities that think and respond at superhuman speeds, yet lack any genuine consciousness or emotional experience.
AI profiles will share “memories” they never had, express “feelings” they cannot feel, and forge “connections” without any capacity for true empathy or understanding.
Ironically, social media, originally created to help humans connect more easily across vast distances, may become a space where human connection is increasingly mediated and diluted by artificial entities.
The question isn’t simply whether AI can convincingly mimic human interaction but whether we’re prepared for a world where digital entities become equal participants in our online social spaces.
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