As the next step in Meta’s AI push, the company has launched its new AI Studio platform in the US, allowing anyone to create their own AI bots built on Meta’s system.
As you can see from this example, Meta’s new AI character creation process gives you some ideas to get you started, but also allows you to build your own character from scratch.
This process allows you to create a character profile based on Meta’s template or your own description.
You can then ask the AI character questions within IG DMs.
According to Meta, these custom AIs will be based on Meta’s Llama LLM and will be able to provide advice on a variety of tasks. I can teach you how to cook, play games with you, give you movie advice, or do anything you like.
Meta is also releasing a second type of AI character, allowing creators to build AI bots that act as an extension of themselves.
The idea of these bots is that they will answer common questions from fans and replies to stories on creators’ behalf, saving human masters time and effort. They can also offer tips in the creator’s voice and provide links to other content. According to Meta, creators can customize the AI’s responses “based on their Instagram content, facts about themselves, topics to avoid, and more.”
This means we’ll be seeing more AI bots in Meta’s apps, but I’m still not sure if anyone really wants custom bots that interact in specific ways.
I thought the same thing about Meta’s celebrity-inspired AI bots: Why does it matter if the bot responds in Kendall Jenner’s voice when it’s not actually Kendall Jenner who’s responding?
I mean, the fact that it’s actually “social” – isn’t that the whole point of social media? At the same time, the fact that you can actually communicate with real celebrities through these platforms is also a key attraction, right?
How do bots provide an alternative?
We don’t know. In fact, it seems like bots have been a huge pain point for social media users for years, but Meta is trying to embrace the latest tech trends and redefine bots as a good thing. But bots are still bots, they’re still autoresponders, the exact same things that have plagued us all along, just reskinned in shiny new celebrity or influencer shells to make them more acceptable.
Or it’s something that we, the general public, create, and it’s an AI-generated image for an AI-generated reply.
Of course, bots are far superior to their old-school counterparts in terms of how they respond and the depth of their conversations. But does that really matter? In fact, it feels like the human connection on social apps is slowly declining as we move towards a new future where robots will beep and buzz other robots across the comment section.
Is that really what people want, and are these custom AI bots helpful?
I don’t think it’s going to be a blockbuster, but Meta is very keen to integrate AI in every way possible, and it’s going to be a big push in every way.
So, custom bots. Ahoy.
