Yesterday saw Facebook and Instagram parent Meta launch AI Studio, a feature that lets anyone using Instagram create their very own chatbot based on… well, themselves. Today we’ve learned that the company’s previous experiment, based on actual human celebrities, has been retired.
This newly-cancelled foray into AI chatbots didn’t catch anyone’s attention despite Meta replicating recognisable names and faces. The obvious move is to let everybody create the same sort of bots and hope someone is willing to talk to one of those. Right?
That’s so Meta
According to Meta (speaking to The Verge), “We took a lot of learnings from building them and Meta AI to understand how people can use AIs to connect and create in unique ways. AI Studio is an evolution, creating a space for anyone including people, creators and celebrities to create their own AI.”
The company reportedly paid some celebrities millions (of dollars, which amounts to more millions of rands) to use their likenesses for these bots. That cash is, more or less, being flushed in favour of the Next Big Thing™ in the artificial intelligence playbook which is to turn it loose on the public and hope they can find a way to create something customers might want to interact with. That’s why AI Studio is now available for American users, with other global users likely getting their shot soon.
What Meta hasn’t done with its rollout of AI Studio is explain why users might want to create a digital version of themselves to talk to others. In some contexts it makes sense. Customer service bots are all over the place but they’re also nothing new. The average Instagram user doesn’t have a practical use for a digital clone, even if they do now have the ability to make one. If Insta and Facebook users aren’t interested in talking to properly trained celebrity lookalikes, why would they want to interact with ‘You, But AI’? Even if they did, why is that a good idea?