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Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

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Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#231

Post by tarsinge »

afavour wrote: post #220
a2128 wrote: post #171

Facebook Meta has been making baffling bets lately. They spent tens of billions building a metaverse with the belief that people want to spend their days in a creepy legless 3d avatar of themselves that is pretty effective at simulating what it feels to have body dysphoria, playing with their other legless friends and spending a lot of money customizing their dysphoric avatars. Now they believe what users really want…

I know it's selling him short but I can't help but feel like Zuckerberg is one of the luckiest tech CEOs out there. From all the way back in the mid 2000s when FB totally whiffed on smartphones (Google bought Android and pivoted hard, Facebook could have done the same and just... didn't) I've never come away with any clear sense of what Zuck thinks Facebook is or should be. He took initial market advantage and made a…

Network effect is strong. That’s why they buy already successful networks. I’m sure he recognizes that he has no clue how to build another one and that it was mostly luck of being at the right place at the right time.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#232

Post by darepublic »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #93

This gave me a funny idea for a new social media app... One that's centered around "you" and filled with thousands/millions of LLM bots praising you, treating you like a celebrity, etc. Each of your posts will get tens of thousands of "likes", hundreds of comments, etc. Dm's straight to your feed, people wanting you, etc etc. If the newsfeed is already mostly "the algorithm", might as well take it to the extreme. I b…

There would be the need for some adversity too. Bots playing for the other team, tailored so that with effort you can outwit and out reason then and stop the spread of their social media shenanigans

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#233

Post by InkCanon »

rchaud wrote: post #150
InkCanon wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't fault them for taking risks and failing (I think at the time there was still an argument for VR, could be possible they were ahead of the curve). I think the tipping point is when they're actively pushing for things that degrade user experience.

Ahead of the curve? Their "virtual meeting" software presentation had graphics that made you look like a Nintendo Mii avatar from 2006, and couldn't draw arms or legs.

Their execution was indeed almost comically bad. I suspect it was because they had really wanted to focus on the B2B market, so they made the most sanitised virtual world possible. The overall VR direction was not entirely ridiculous, although it was clear on the ground people were much more in love with the idea of VR than the reality of it.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#234

Post by InkCanon »

baggachipz wrote: post #121
InkCanon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything causes the AI bubble to burst, it's that 99% of finding is going to companies that don't solve any real problems. It's shocking that the only major player in real world problem solving is DeepMind.

I'm going to say "when" and not "if" here, because of your assertion above. VC's spending multiple fortunes on shoehorning in shit that nobody wants or needs.

I'd say most will fail (although this is the case for most startups anyway) but the question is if there will be any massive success that pulls the average up, so to speak.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#235

Post by StefanBatory »

Cheer2171 wrote: post #201
coffeebeqn wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure everyone involved is a bot. The con is pulled on the ad buyers

Nope, my mother sends these to me all the time and even said that Facebook was getting more interesting every day. She's completely addicted to her phone that at Christmas this year, I felt like I was the parent. She couldn't stop scrolling through her phone while her grandkids were opening presents. I thought she was recording video, but no. A perfect user in Zuck's eyes.

My mom is also like that :(

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#236

Post by qwertox »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #104
EcommerceFlow wrote: post #93

This gave me a funny idea for a new social media app... One that's centered around "you" and filled with thousands/millions of LLM bots praising you, treating you like a celebrity, etc. Each of your posts will get tens of thousands of "likes", hundreds of comments, etc. Dm's straight to your feed, people wanting you, etc etc. If the newsfeed is already mostly "the algorithm", might as well take it to the extreme. I b…

This is sort of TikTok, right? Wasn't TikTok known for becoming viral by having tons and tons and tons of fake upvotes for everything to make everyone think TikTok was a better place to post content [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]? Facebook and Instagram had the same "problems", they just addressed it much earlier than TikTok. I would imagine they have already tested fake likes to maximize how believable the like ratio can be, b…

I feel so stupid about never having thought of this; how naive am I?

I mean, yes, I knew about people paying for likes in order to boost their visibility, but never imagined that the platforms themselves would add fake likes to accounts in order to make their users feel more happy about the platform.

This makes me question the reason for X making the move to hide the origin of likes, even if my posts never receive any likes, except for likes from bots.

Talking about bots, since uBlock Origin breaks my "block user" button, I've resorted to block bots by reporting them as accounts encouraging suicide, this then gives me a "block user" button which does work. The interesting thing is that all of these accounts still do exist, never get removed, even though it's obvious that they are non-user accounts ( like https://x.com/Siothit074kkNx ).

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#237

Post by krisoft »

joenot443 wrote: post #212
FireInsight wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it come with people picking you apart, hatemail, unsolicited nudes, etc.?

I think in an ideal world you could groom your audience to your liking! Personally, if I could suspend my disbelief, I'd love an army of virtual techies telling me how clever my ideas are. Others might prefer a legion of other super moms praising their selfless parenting when no one else does, or like you were getting at, maybe just a peanut gallery! Image gen on-device might be tough, we'll save that for the 1.1 rel…

I'm not sure if you are sarcastic, but your definition of "ideal world" feels very different from mine. What you describe sounds as close to the scifi concept of wireheading as I can imagine to get without brain surgery.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#238

Post by lioeters »

kibwen wrote: post #105
jaysonelliot wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds so absolutely absurd that it would probably work.

One of the fundamental rules of our modern world is that if your business model is indistinguishable from the plot to an episode of Black Mirror, then you're about to be a millionaire.

Palantir CEO at the 2024 Reagan National Defense Forum:

> Our adversaries do not have our moral compunction if it's even. They will take advantage of our niceness, kindness, our desire to be at home in Nebraska or New Hampshire or wherever we live in our peaceful environments. And they need to wake up scared and go to bed scared.

> My version of service is the soldiers are happier, the enemies are scared, and Americans go back to enjoying the fact that we're the only one with a real Tech scene in this country, and we're going to win everything.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#239

Post by exe34 »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #93

This gave me a funny idea for a new social media app... One that's centered around "you" and filled with thousands/millions of LLM bots praising you, treating you like a celebrity, etc. Each of your posts will get tens of thousands of "likes", hundreds of comments, etc. Dm's straight to your feed, people wanting you, etc etc. If the newsfeed is already mostly "the algorithm", might as well take it to the extreme. I b…

as a chronically lonely person, I always dreamed of the day AI would reach today's level so that I could create a few imaginary friends for myself. As it happens, I've just gotten used to it now, so I have lost interest in making that sort of thing.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#240

Post by weitendorf »

mrweasel wrote: post #114
seydor wrote: post #66

Socialization is about conspecifics. AI may augment the process for humans, but you can't expect people at large to engage with nonhumans. I mean, people do talk to their pets, but they don't consider that socializing.

> but they don't consider that socializing. Which is exactly why this will make Facebooks problem even worse. Honestly I don't think Facebook understand what their main issue is, it's lack of real human interaction. The stupid part is that they killed their main product themselves, in order to push ever more ads. LinkedIn is becoming a shit show as more and more people are posting stuff that previously belonged on Fa…

You can certainly get real engagement on other platforms still. I think the reason there is so much weird cringe on LinkedIn is that:

1. It actually does get a lot of engagement and watch time, maybe not even despite how bad it is, but because it’s so bad that people can’t look away. If it’s cringy enough it’s no longer boring. It used to be that people ignored the feed entirely because it was all just boring stuff.

2. Building a personal brand is a really big thing these days and is legitimately valuable. Being able to write something and hit post and get real engagement for $0 (vs what it’d cost to get that engagement by paying for it directly) is nuts. IMO this isn’t obvious if you’re working as an engineer but if your job requires any sales or marketing it’s genuinely helpful.

3. LinkedIn is actually a really good place to farm engagement because of its general user base (professionals from early career to prime earning years), professional bent (intent), and availability of real names/titles/location.

I find it kind of fascinating how these engagement mechanisms work in spite of it all because they all rely on some kind of “hack” on human attention.

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