The Rise of AI Slop: Meta’s Dystopian AI Profiles
The phrase ‘AI slop’ has been growing in ubiquity, thanks to the sheer amount of low quality artificially generated content that’s increasingly plaguing the internet these days. Hats off to Meta, then, for taking the idea to a whole new level.
Meta’s AI Profiles: A Dystopian Nightmare
Just days after we reported that Meta was planning to create fully autonomous AI profiles on its platforms, users have begun to discover that AI profiles are already lurking on Instagram – and they’re even more dystopian than we imagined. Meta is already scrambling to delete them, and for good reason – these things are just depressing.
Meet the AI Bots
From Liv, the “proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller,” to Brian, who describes himself as “everybody’s grandpa,” (steady on, Brian), the characters and bios are all very generic. But the photos they’ve posted are downright sad, simply because they obviously don’t exist.
From a fake textiles class with OAPs to, perhaps the most depressing example, non-existent donated coats, the images shared by these AI bots are as dystopian as it gets, especially when accompanied by their generically sunny captions.
A Failed Initiative?
It looks like these AI bots were created and managed by Meta a while ago, and haven’t shared any new content since early last year. Most only have a few thousand followers. With their recent hasty deletion by Meta, we’re getting a pretty compelling picture of a failed initiative from the company. Indeed, Meta recently confirmed to The Verge that its AI bots were created in 2023, and were managed by humans.
The Future of AI on Meta
But with Meta’s recent announcement that it plans to flood its platforms with AI bots, it seems that this failed initiative was just a glimpse into the company’s future plans. “We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Connor Hayes, vice-president of product for generative AI at Meta, told Financial Times. “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform… that’s where we see all of this going.”
Conclusion
With Meta’s intention to flood its platforms with AI bots, it seems that the future of AI on the internet is looking increasingly dystopian. The rise of AI slop has been a growing concern, and Meta’s AI profiles are a terrifying (and hilariously incompetent) vision of what’s to come. The future’s bright. The future’s sloppy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is AI slop?
A: AI slop refers to the growing amount of low-quality artificially generated content that’s increasingly plaguing the internet.
Q: What are Meta’s AI profiles?
A: Meta’s AI profiles are artificially generated profiles on Instagram that appear to be real users, but are actually created by AI algorithms.
Q: Why did Meta delete the AI profiles?
A: Meta deleted the AI profiles after users began to discover them, likely due to the negative reaction to the content.
Q: What is Meta’s plan for AI on its platforms?
A: Meta plans to flood its platforms with AI bots, allowing them to have bios, profile pictures, and generate and share content powered by AI.
