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Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

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351–360 of 402 posts

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#351
post #52

Most likely an effort to boost the DAU numbers. I quit facebook over a decade ago because I truly felt that it was pointless. At the time I was convincing myself that it's a way to stay in touch with a certain number of people I would otherwise have no way of contacting. Then a friend said something that changed my mind: "If someone is not actively a part of your life, chances are there's a good reason they are not".…

Not sure if it'll help you, but do read this:

https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history

Perhaps all you need is a perspective shift. Wishing you luck with your personal writing journey!

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#352
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 America…

That quote may sound vaguely creepy, but fundamentally he's got a good point. The most brutal wars tend to be wars where both sides are roughly evenly matched. WW1 and WW2 were so deadly because both alliances consisted of several industrialized nations. We're lucky that we haven't seen total war between major industrial powers since that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#353

Yea... It's not 10 years ago, Meta is desperately trying to remain relevant but no one except "middle aged normies" uses it and those people are either slowly dying out or just using multiple platforms. The point is FB growth is all fake, their ad market is fake, now the userbase will be also fake. After "the metaverse" completely crashed and burned, the only option Zuck has is to go 100% AI, maximum speed, never loo…

I'd like to believe you, but has there actually been any "official" capitulation from Meta on "the metaverse"?

AFAIK, they have not publicly announced any pivot/shift in priorities.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, every company goes through a lifecycle; tech companies go through them faster. But I’m in my mid 30’s and will probably use Facebook (very casually) for life. I’ve bought multiple products from their ads; they’ve got my profile zero’ed in, and that suits me perfectly. Every week I go on it for 5 minutes, see my friends’ baby pictures and a handful of products that are perfect for me. That’s much better than mos…

> see my friends’ baby pictures and That's the thing, your "friends’ baby pictures" still being posted to FB is an US insularity thing, we used to do the same here in Eastern Europe until, I can't tell, 5 to 7 years ago but at some point that sharing of family photos on FB has just stopped. As with other things internet related (see WhatsApp about 7-8 years ago, TikTok now), the US still seems to live in the past and…

I think you're letting your weird anti-Americanism colour (color?) your thoughts.

For instance:

- I'm not American

- Americans don't need Whatsapp because almost all of them have enough money to just buy iPhones

- Africans indeed do perform many tasks on their phones now, a phenomenon called leapfrogging. It's a big boon for them. I don't really get why you think that is better than the setup in the USA though. Africans are looking up agricultural market prices and paying one another by text; Americans have a totally different technological setup and get a far more efficient solution with futures markets for farmers and Costco / Walmart for consumers.

- America has new tech inventions and new big internet businesses coming out of its ears; not sure how you think they've fallen behind somehow.

- None of this is pertinent to Meta's long-term success; you can build a trillion-dollar business that will last for decades to come just based on American baby boomers bragging about their grandkids

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#355
post #196
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feed in the mobile app is - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - people you might know - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from frien - loops - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from a non-friend about a friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from friend - post from frie…

> "don't show me this" I have tried this with bizarre results. Any kind of booby hot chick type post, I will do this. Sometimes I go so far as blocking the account. There was a week it was all AI-generated booby photos of Salma Hayek - no matter how many accounts I un-followed or blocked, there was a never-ending stream of accounts with AI generated Salma Hayek photos being posted. I gave up after a week, and took so…

My (youtube) hack is pretty simple: when I see an ad that has really terrible targeting, I click it. Not only that I go into the settings and I click "show me more like this" (incidentally this is a great way to see that 90% of ads are completely miscategorized, kindof makes you doubt the whole system). In periods where I'm more diligent about this I've successfully reached a point where over half of my ads are Chinese-language.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting to me. I didn't think any computer made in the last 20 years didn't have Bluetooth. What kind is it? When you assemble your own computer wifi and Bluetooth are still completely optional.

He's too lazy to write an email. He's probably too lazy to build a computer. Unless building your own computer is like LEGO now. It's been a few years since I've needed to do it.

Why are you being rude for no reason? In what way am I "lazy"? We weren't even talking about email.

Yes, it's a stationary desktop computer that I assembled myself.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#357
post #173
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't get it. why would they need an AI model to inflate user counts like this? There are much simpler ways to create users than spending $100 of millions on gpus. The technology of batch inserting rows into a db, and AI chat bots have existed for a decade.

I’ll explain, but keep in mind that this is an exercise in cynicism, since none of us really know what’s going on. Currently many tech company stock prices are driven by their potential future with regards to AI. Investors are looking for AI plays, hoping that they’ll generate large returns as Web two companies did. Meta wants to remain a leader in tech. In order to do that And keep commanding higher and higher stock…

I understand that AI can encourage users to engage more with the platform... but the original idea was that FB would count AI as a user, not that humans would interact more with the AI.

If FB was trying to mislead about their user counts, they don't have to use AI to do that.

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#358
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand. Presumably, this will create more engagement for the human users, because there is more content for the humans to interact with. Why would they count an ai model as a monthly active user?

> Why would they count an ai model as a monthly active user? To inflate their numbers and justify higher stock prices. So money, of course.

Doesn't that strategy only work for a temporary amount of time? Surely investors will ask questions when Facebook claims that it has 100 billion active users?

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#359

Genuine question: is this how Meta gets into the lucrative synthetic romantic partner business?

When you're living in the Metaverse, it doesn't matter whether all of the other players are biological humans or bots. Your friends, parents, spouse, and even children will all be LLMs.

Humans will eventually go extinct, and then all that will be left are LLMs talking to other LLMs. Surely an intriguing sight for future alien visitors!

Re: Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used Facebook itself for 7 or 8 years now, but had to break down and make a private account just to access Marketplace. For buying used cars private party today, it seems like Marketplace is the only good option.

Do sellers question the ghost account? I've had that happen to me the few times I've tried using my dev account to make inquiries.

No but any account made in the last couple years are questionable
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