Oh, that’s a surprise.
When Meta first launched its new celebrity-like AI chatbot back in September, I said:
“IThis seems like a gimmick and while it will certainly pique your interest at first, interest quickly fades.“
In fact, it’s unclear if it even had the initial buzz it generated, but less than a year after launching, Meta decided to quietly discontinue its celebrity AI chatbots, taking several of them offline in recent days.
As reported by The Information, Meta has decided to move away from celebrity-inspired bots, for which it has paid millions of dollars to create chatbots that resemble famous people like Kendall Jenner, Charli D’Amelio, and Chris Paul.
Why? Because no one wants to talk to a bot version of a celebrity, which is neither “social” nor “human,” which are core elements of the Meta app.
Well, at least on the surface. Facebook and Instagram were built on human connection and connecting friends and family with the latest trends and topics. Bots don’t really fit there, as Meta should have learned after its much-hyped Messenger Bot in 2016.
Nobody cared then, and nobody cares now, because the value of social media platforms is in being “social” – in providing a connection to what’s going on in the real human world. Social media is not the place to ask a bot for gymnastics advice, and the addition of celebrity bots seems even more misguided in terms of reading the mood of social media users.
Another aspect of social apps’ appeal is the ability to actually converse with real celebrities by replying to their posts or tagging them in your updates. You probably won’t get a reply, but you might. And suddenly the distance between you and the celebrity seems less great, and the connection is strengthened.
Celebrity-esque bots are the complete opposite of this, and instead highlight just how far we actually are from being on the same level as the celebrity elite.
It’s unclear why Meta thinks bots, AI-powered or not, would be a great addition to its social app, but the company is still pushing ahead with its Meta AI chatbot and has just released a new platform that lets creators build bot versions of themselves.
It’s hard to understand that Meta can’t understand that these features go against the spirit of social media, but Zuckerberg and co. are determined to ride the AI wave and become leaders in the field of generative AI.
To be clear, I believe that Meta’s broader vision of the metaverse has a future of generative AI.
But that’s not the case with chatbots.
Just as many users aren’t attracted to celebrities, they’re unlikely to want to chat with an influencer-like bot within an app, and it’s hard to imagine Meta’s Meta AI chatbot will gain much traction.
But Meta is investing billions of dollars in its next-generation technology, and it really wants people to use it.
I think that will eventually happen with new forms of creativity in VR, but I don’t see AI-based chatbots within social media apps becoming widespread.
