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Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

theguardian.com

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Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#131

Post by rsynnott »

brookst wrote: post #125
mupuff1234 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't fathom how anyone thought this was a sensible thing. It's so bad I have to wonder if there's a different angle here, maybe they think that releasing something so terribly bad will make it easier when they release something less comically bad? Idk.

Fact is it is hard to make a great product. I don’t think we need complex conspiracy theories to explain bad ones. Odds are the product team cherry picked conversations for internal demos, their management wanted press and promotions, KPIs were around engagement and not quality, and nobody had perspective and authority to say “this sucks, we can’t release it”.

It’s not hard to identify, before launching, “this is unacceptably bad”. Like, I think this is actually quite a bit worse than Microsoft Tay, which others mentioned, as an example of “how could you possibly launch this”? Tay was reckless, and you’ve got to assume that they knew there was at least a change it could work out as it did, but in this case the product _as launched_ was clearly unacceptable; it didn’t require input from 4chan to make it so.

I mean, just very basic QA, having someone talk to the damn things for a bit, would’ve shown the problem, in this case.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#132

Post by brookst »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #90
qntmfred wrote: post #52

I get the hate, but I'd be open to trying out a social media experience that is a mix of human and bots, especially as the bots get better at acting like reasonable humans. Stack Overflow was great when it came out. But the whatever percent of humans who were mean and obnoxious and wouldn't let you just ask your questions eventually ruined it all. Then ChatGPT came out without any humans to get in the way of me askin…

I can’t think of any way where a social media app using bots to discourage wrongthink doesn’t come across as dystopian, and also a little sad.

All “wrongthink”? Like if someone expresses suicidal thoughts, the bot should say “whatever, do what you want”?

I disagree. Apps are products with an editorial component. Editorials should be opinionated. It is passive and immature to simply not care how one’s products are used. Oppenheimer and Alfred Nobel have wise words on this topic.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#133

Post by ToucanLoucan »

motohagiography wrote: post #95
rsynnott wrote: post #88

Do they not have anyone sensible left in the room? Like, you’d expect that at some point someone would have said ‘these are comically terrible, we cannot allow them to see the light of day’.

It's like people have already forgotten why people used the non-human beings in Westworld. One of the first things we're going to use them for is amusement and having them represent anything sentimental or sensitive is going to make them a target like this. It was irresponsible. There's something essentially wrong with Meta and Google where they can do tech but not products anymore. I'd argue it's because the honest…

> There's something essentially wrong with Meta and Google where they can do tech but not products anymore.

Because AI is the hype thing and adding AI to your thing makes the stock price go up, because investors and stock evaluators don't know what AI is, nor do they care. They just know it's the hot thing and what you put in your product to make it look better to Wall St.

Meta AI, Google AI summaries, Apple Intelligence are all hilariously half-baked features designed to connect users with ChatGPT so the line goes brrrrrrr. Them being helpful, useful products that solve problems for users is a distant, distant next place to that.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#134

Post by giantrobot »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #109
rsynnott wrote: post #88

Do they not have anyone sensible left in the room? Like, you’d expect that at some point someone would have said ‘these are comically terrible, we cannot allow them to see the light of day’.

I can't fathom how anyone thought this was a sensible thing. It's so bad I have to wonder if there's a different angle here, maybe they think that releasing something so terribly bad will make it easier when they release something less comically bad? Idk.

The next step will be to release bots that aren't labeled as bots. They'll be influencers (advertisers) without having to pay a person. They'll produce hyper targeted influencer slop, hocking products directly to individuals using Facebook's knowledge graphs of users to be incredibly manipulative. Companies will pay Facebook to make people siphon money directly to them.

It'll be like entirely automated catfishing.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#135

Post by martythemaniak »

dingnuts wrote: post #128
noirbot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion? Isn't the weirdness here that someone at Meta seems to have decided that they should make an AI bot that proudly announced its identity, despite literally not being proud, queer, black, or a mother? Who does this serve? Why? I could see a bot that's into fitness or some other hobby having a niche as a wrapper around an AI meant for advice on the hobby, but there's a certain crazy hubris to going "this LLM c…

[flagged]

Surely you're aware of all the proud red hats out there. Maybe Trump won because he's really good at this religion?

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#136

Post by brookst »

Trasmatta wrote: post #15
davidw wrote: post #7

The thread is here and... it's pretty wild. This doesn't seem like it was a well-thought out idea to release this without some more consideration beforehand. https://bsky.app/profile/karenattiah.bsky.social/post/3letty...

> They admitted it internally, to me It's becoming an increasingly apparent problem that people don't understand that LLMs frequently hallucinate, especially when asked to introspect about themselves. This was 100% a hallucination.

It was likely a hallucination, right? You didn’t check to confirm?

But this is a solved problem that Meta chose to implement poorly. It can be done right. I just asked o1 “create a diversity report for openai” and its very first paragraph is:

> Below is a *sample* diversity report for OpenAI. Please note that the numbers, programs, and initiatives are provided as *illustrative examples*. This report is not an official document, and the data contained here is *fictional* and for demonstration purposes only.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#137

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #109
rsynnott wrote: post #88

Do they not have anyone sensible left in the room? Like, you’d expect that at some point someone would have said ‘these are comically terrible, we cannot allow them to see the light of day’.

I can't fathom how anyone thought this was a sensible thing. It's so bad I have to wonder if there's a different angle here, maybe they think that releasing something so terribly bad will make it easier when they release something less comically bad? Idk.

I find myself generally wondering the same thing about half the things coming out of SV over the past several years.

I have worked with competent product organizations. I know they exist. A few even exist in SV. But for some reason the largest players have just absolutely lost the plot beyond what can get them to favorable quarterly earnings, and that game eventually and fairly consistently doesn’t end well in the long term.

Meta in particular is clearly rudderless, lacking in vision and strategic leadership, and throwing whatever it can find at the wall hoping to find something that sticks. Facebook turned into a cesspool, Instagram isn’t as popular with the newest demographics Meta has traditionally wanted to court (young people), and Threads turned out to be a nothing burger. Their grand quest to unify messaging was a disaster, and mores the putty because they’ve basically delineated their ecosystem by demographic generation in what has to be an unintentional series of missteps. Their “metaverse” projects weren’t even compelling to the teams working on them, their foray into crypto was over almost as soon as it began, and their business products are a nearly unusable mess for those of us who have had the misfortune of using them.

You’d think eventually someone at Meta would hit upon an idea that goes somewhere. It’s like a more pathetic version of Google’s stagnation.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#138

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

rsynnott wrote: post #131
brookst wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fact is it is hard to make a great product. I don’t think we need complex conspiracy theories to explain bad ones. Odds are the product team cherry picked conversations for internal demos, their management wanted press and promotions, KPIs were around engagement and not quality, and nobody had perspective and authority to say “this sucks, we can’t release it”.

It’s not hard to identify, before launching, “this is unacceptably bad”. Like, I think this is actually quite a bit worse than Microsoft Tay, which others mentioned, as an example of “how could you possibly launch this”? Tay was reckless, and you’ve got to assume that they knew there was at least a change it could work out as it did, but in this case the product _as launched_ was clearly unacceptable; it didn’t requi…

I’ve always believed Microsoft Tay was a really idealistic, genuine, if bombastically naïve situation.

Re: Meta is killing off its AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

#139

Post by brookst »

yifanl wrote: post #37
Trasmatta wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They admitted it internally, to me It's becoming an increasingly apparent problem that people don't understand that LLMs frequently hallucinate, especially when asked to introspect about themselves. This was 100% a hallucination.

People don't understand that LLMs are just statistical magic, by design of the LLM providers because LLMs wouldn't take off if people understood they are just statistical magic.

I mean all of the atoms in the universe are “just statistical magic” when viewed through a quantum lens. I’m not sure that phrase is as effective a dismissal as you seem to think.
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