AI-generated user accounts are flooding Instagram and Facebook, according to their parent company, Meta. The company is rolling out a wide array of AI products, including one that helps users create AI characters on Instagram and Facebook. Meta hopes to attract a younger audience, in a face-off with key competitors like TikTok and Snapchat. Connor Hayes, vice president of product for generative AI at Meta, tells London’s Financial Times, “We expect these AIs to actually exist on our platforms in the same way that [human] accounts do.” The new developments from Meta join an online tool called AI Studio, launched in July to allow users to make their own chatbots. You can clone yourself, or create an artificial persona online, using text-to-video software – and building an artificial presence has never been easier. Meta envisions these AI-based creations will fill its social media platforms in the next few years.
Meta Follows a Trend: Creating the AI Influencer
Aitana Lopez is an international model based out of Barcelona. Fluent in Spanish, she travels the world, according to her Instagram account – where she has nearly 350,000 followers. Aitana earns between $3,000-10,000 per month from her brand deals, according to Euronews. She’s active on Fanvue, a competitor to OnlyFans – where digital creators can monetize their content online. Aitana, as the first two letters in her name suggest, is not real – and neither is her backstory. She was developed by Rubén Cruz, the designer and founder of agency, The Clueless.
Kimochii is another AI-created influencer. She’s the brainchild of a gentleman who decided to remain anonymous on Business Insider, as he explained his conflicted ethics and parental impulses around his AI avatar creation. Fired by his company, he turned on his coding skills – and built an female influencer on Instagram. “I find interacting with followers weird,” says Kimochii’s creator. “So I try to avoid it.”
Jenny Dearing is capitalizing on the AI-influencer trend. The co-founder and CEO of 1337 (pronounced “leet”, in a throwback to eighties gaming and hacker culture), her company launched last year with $4 million in seed capital. Users can suggest what 1337’s artificial influencers do and say, rather than just allowing AI to completely run the show. “Today, we have a rare opportunity to combine human interaction with early-stage AI,” co-founder and CEO Jenny Dearing tells TechCrunch. “In a world oversaturated with influencers who are often either too commercial or too impersonal, 1337 introduces diverse, AI-driven entities that engage users in entirely new, dynamic ways.” The company’s business model allows for revenue share and brand partnerships, not unlike other creator platforms.
How Much is Too Much AI? Meta Bets You Don’t Know
Hayes says that hundreds of thousands of characters have already been created using Meta’s AI character tool, but most users have kept their creations private. Meanwhile, TikTok is rolling out a suite of products called Symphony, enabling brands and creators to use AI for advertising. Users can create videos using AI-generated avatars, similar to services already offered by Arcads.ai – where AI-generated actors can turn your script into a complete video ad campaign, for a fee. Artificial actors mimic simple videos that look like “UGC” (user generated content). The vids feature seemingly simple production values (but surprisingly elaborate edits, b-roll, smash-cuts and a steady stream of AI-generated eye candy, using a wide array of artificial avatars).
Meta’s rules state that AI-generated content should be labelled clearly on all of its platforms. Yet even with the labels, many are troubled by the potential risks: using deepfakes and artificial chatbots as a source of disinformation, relationship deceit, fraud…or worse. A lawsuit claims that a fourteen-year-old boy committed suicide due to generative AI, according to various reports. GenAI models are prone to misinformation. Could an influx of human-looking AI accounts expose users to harmful, inaccurate or violent posts? Emarkter.com speculates that if Meta’s platforms are overrun by AI bots, users might leave for other social media services.
Dead Internet Theory?
The appeal of the square flashlight (the one filled with bots and sitting in your pocket) is addictive. Why don’t we just look away? The appeal, the entertainment, the interaction online is amusing – not to mention the shopping, the FOMO, the need for constant stimulation. B.F. Skinner would be proud. But when, exactly, is too much…too much?
Maybe we are inching closer to the dead internet theory. Some believe we are already there. The dead internet theory essentially claims that activity and content on the internet, including social media accounts, are predominantly being created and automated by artificial intelligence agents. Taking the scenario one step further, what happens when the accounts that are interacting also appear to be managed by artificial intelligence agents?
Elon Musk has said on X that the small fee for users is designed to “curb the relentless onslaught of bots”. Disinformation campaigns online have been well-documented over the last 10 years. The dead internet theory is a reminder to be skeptical, and careful, online. But, as Yogi Berra famously said: “In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are not.”
Artificial intelligence is redefining how we think about social media engagement, influencers, connection, communication, branding …and more. Meta sees the opportunity around AI, and the floodgates have been opened. Nothing since the printing press has the potential to change the way we communicate and interact – AI stands alone in that regard. AI-generated avatars will have an even more profound impact on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. Meta’s initiatives are redefining the online conversation, once again, and we are all part of the experiment.
