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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

#171

Post by Spooky23 »

twoodfin wrote: post #165
bloomingkales wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google and others are too distracted in collecting enterprise coin at the moment. They have a perfectly good consumer product in NotebookLM, but at the moment it has the quality of something an intern made.

Why would consumers pay for NotebookLM? It’s basically an (impressive) party trick.

Why would you say that? I used it as a study guide. Super useful. Stuff like uploading 8 hours of audio and asking it: “Generate an outline of topics that the instructor said were important to remember.

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

#172

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #150
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel that these days "wrongthink" is a dogwhistle, by all means, just use X or pravda social.

I think this is the kind of rhetoric that has lead to the rise of the right in the western world.

It’s something discussed here in this video.

https://youtu.be/d5PR5S4xhXQ?si=eW68EoiHgADYhVUv

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

#173

Post by HKH2 »

WD-42 wrote: post #141
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’ve have negative interactions with people online so I’d rather give up and talk to nice robots instead.” We are doomed as a society.

Letting people talk their thought processes through without conflict seems more productive than them prefiltering what they want to say.

You can get so conditioned to expect negative feedback that you refuse to follow your curiosity.

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

#175

Post by prymitive »

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…

Isn’t it as simple as management wanting to be first one across the release line, with the wishful thinking of “we’ll fix everything later”?

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

#176

Post by ryandrake »

brookst wrote: post #143
rsynnott wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wish I agreed. But I have seen many products launched where only true believers who internalized the limitations were involved in testing. Yes, a good org with self-critical people and an independent red team and execs who cared about quality would not have made this blunder. Getting that org stuff right sounds easy but is nigh impossible if it doesn’t align to the company culture.

Critics and naysayers tend to leave teams where they don't believe in the product, and eventually teams are left with only true believers. Their entire purpose is to ship Project X, and if they were to admit Project X is a blunder, then they are admitting that their purpose is a blunder. Few teams at few companies are willing to do that.

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

#177

Post by paddw »

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’.

No one gets promoted for suggesting not doing something.

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

#178

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

whimsicalism wrote: post #154
lionkor wrote: post #99

I don't like that some people, esp at larger companies, think that groups with disadvantages in today's world are cutesy adorable things to play make-believe with.

that’s basically our entire culture. ever notice how black people are disproportionately represented in comic media and particularly “reaction gifs”? just modern day ministrelism

> ever notice how black people are disproportionately represented in comic media and particularly “reaction gifs”?

No, I have never noticed that. In fact, I have noticed the opposite.

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

#179

Post by sonofhans »

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. I'd argue it's because the honest human desire that drives a product dies or is refined out of initiatives by the time it gets through the optimization process of their org structure.

This is a really nice insight. I hadn’t put it together this way before. It’s similar to design-by-committee, or movie script-by-committee (like Disney-era Star Wars movies, or a Netflix focus-group-driven script). The layers of bureaucratic filter have rubbed off all human influence, and all that’s left is naked profit motive.

The worst thing IMO would be if LLMs became able to convincingly fake these emotions. They’d become emotional pillows for the inhuman manipulative ambitions of their parent orgs.

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

#180

Post by ryandrake »

TheNewsIsHere wrote: post #137
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.

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 lo…

Stonk prices are going up, so whatever they are doing, the only real feedback they care about is positive.

These AI products are not made for users. They're made for Wall Street. Wall Street expects big companies to 1. talk about AI in their earnings calls, and then 2. do something, anything, with AI. All of BigTech seems to be doing this now, and investors are rewarding them by buying their stock. So they're going to continue the cycle of building useless AI products and then canceling them when they have served their purpose (pleasing investors).

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